Traditional astrology

Bianchi

2011-07-31T23:54:00.004Z

For this birthday, I chose a new bike. It is a member of 125-year-old family of Edoardo Bianchi (although not his famous celeste colour, as I prefer black horses).

I went to pick it up at the time of the new solar chart, which looks quite promising:

Let's see what the solar year will bring.

Japan earthquake

2011-03-21T13:18:00.001Z

In January 2011 I wrote in a public forum of Russian online newspaper gazeta.ru that by June 2011 Japan could experience a very significant earthquake. This online thread can be found here.

I mentioned a possible earthquake of magnitude 7.5 or higher, with wide publicity due to the scale of destruction, and I expected the earthquake to be triggered by the solar eclipse in June.

As we now know, it happened at magnitude 8.9 on 11th of March 2011, three months earlier than I expected.

Human papillomavirus

2011-03-09T13:29:00.003Z

1.5 years ago I wrote an astrological post about oral sex as the reason for throat cancer. Last week, a friend sent me a link to a press-release on the same topic. Maura Gillison of the Ohio State University has collected statistics and reviewed bibliography that traces similar medical studies back to 1998.

Several groups independently came to the same conclusion. Some spent years in the lab studying biological samples, others collected and analysed behavioural statistics. Knowledge may be acquired by so many various means.

Brief report

2010-09-27T22:29:00.008Z

Just to report briefly on a couple of predictions this summer.

After the full solar eclipse on July 12, which was visible over Southern Pacific, I posted a public comment in the Russian online press 'gazeta.ru'. I expected that during the summer a noticeable earthquake (up to 8 magnitude) may occur in the region, and I expected it in Latin America. On July 15, there was an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 in Chile. Then on 26th July there was an earthquake of 7.6 in Philippines (this one was very deep and did not cause any damage). Finally, on September 3, a very shallow earthquake of magnitude 7 hit New Zealand (it was stronger than the one on Haiti after the winter eclipse, but due to the good construction technologies nobody died).

In January 2010, I had a LiveJournal discussion with an atheistic sceptic whom I told, as an example of astrology in action, that by the autumn of 2010, Italian prime-minister Berlusconi would have problems again, due to the Saturn transit over his natal Sun. Indeed, in August 2010, he got a new press scandal with ladies, and then some political mess.

And something less astrological but still predictive. In December 2009, I had a discussion with another sceptic, a climate one (with some background in paleoclimatology), and I predicted that with increasing global warming the ocean shores would experience more precipitations while central areas would suffer harsh heat waves and droughts. He claimed that global warming would cause humidity in central Russia, etc. The recent events with heat and fires in Russia are well known, as well as the disastrous flood in Pakistan.

A friend of mine asked me once whether it is possible to couple modern geophysics and such a marginal knowledge as astrology. I firmly believe this should happen in future (although not soon, I am afraid). It is important to understand that eclipses cause various hazards on Earth, and it is equally important to study the plate dynamics and climate system to estimate where these hazards are most likely to occur. Both branches of knowledge are invaluable.

Update of November 5. More news about Berlusconi. And just to compare with the results of the recent midterm elections in the US, the post on Obama's inauguration of 2008.

Newton, the Man

2010-06-16T14:35:00.007Z

More than three years ago, I wrote a post about insight, where I showed in the charts of Newton and Einstein the role of strong and well-aspected Moon for scientific intuition.

Having read more about Newton recently, especially the lecture by John Keynes, it is very interesting to see how the strong full Moon in Cancer with aspects to Venus and Jupiter in Newton's chart manifested in his research process:

"I believe that Newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret. Then being a supreme mathematical technician he could dress it up, how you will, for purposes of exposition, but it was his intuition which was pre-eminently extraordinary - 'so happy in his conjectures', said De Morgan, 'as to seem to know more than he could possibly have any means of proving'. The proofs, for what they are worth, were, as I have said, dressed up afterwards - they were not the instrument of discovery.

There is the story of how he informed Halley of one of his most fundamental discoveries of planetary motion. 'Yes,' replied Halley, 'but how do you know that? Have you proved it?' Newton was taken aback - 'Why, I've known it for years', he replied. 'If you'll give me a few days, I'll certainly find you a proof of it' - as in due course he did.

Again, there is some evidence that Newton in preparing the Principia was held up almost to the last moment by lack of proof that you could treat a solid sphere as though all its mass was concentrated at the centre, and only hit on the proof a year before publication. But this was a truth which he had known for certain and had always assumed for many years.

Certainly there can be no doubt that the peculiar geometrical form in which the exposition of the Principia is dressed up bears no resemblance at all to the mental processes by which Newton actually arrived at his conclusions.

His experiments were always, I suspect, a means, not of discovery, but always of verifying what he knew already."

"Verifying what he knew already" - that is the strong natal Moon. "Hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks" - that is the natal square of Mercury and Saturn.

Magic

2010-06-15T00:18:00.007Z

In the comments to “Pond” post, my opponents were ready to believe that Newton was religious but, in their opinion, there was no evidence that he could be interested in astrology, and his apparent interest in alchemy was nothing but a minor oddity of the genius of the modern science.

Here I present a series of quotes from a remarkable book by Dr Charles Webster “From Paracelsus to Newton. Magic and the making of modern science” (Cambridge University Press, 1982). The author is a historian at the University of Oxford, and the book is the Eddington Memorial Lectures given in 1980.

The main idea of the book is that there is a firm link between occultist Paracelsus (1493-1541) and physicist Newton (1643-1727), because both of them were natural philosophers in their perception of life and science, and although this influence on Newton is generally denied by some modern studies, “it is unfortunate for any proponent of this line that figures of outstanding importance, including Newton himself, turn out to display a lively interest in the occult”.

“The literature of alchemy, hermetism and Paracelsian natural philosophy was […] required reading among the serious scholars of Newton’s generation”, because there existed “the self-evident kinship between hermetic, alchemical and scriptural sources”.

“Somewhat inconveniently for standard interpretations of the Scientific Revolution, the decades following the foundation of the Royal Society witness an outburst of judicial astrology, the continuing flourishing of Paracelsian medicine, undiminishing appeal of alchemy and hermetism, and the full fruition of Cambridge Platonism”.

“The changes in fortune of judicial astrology should not attract attention away from the continuing appeal of such ideas as divine plentitude, metaphysical hierarchies, or the existence of fundamental harmonies and correspondences between celestial and terrestrial world exercised through the intervention of a variety of spiritual agencies and intelligences. This animistic view of nature provided the intellectual underpinning for magic […] Magic retained its appeal as a useful spiritual exercise, and it was also recognised as of value for medicine and relevant to scientific explanation. It is therefore important not to assume that the decline of popular operative magic entailed the wholesale abandonment of the magical worldview”.

F.Manuel, “The religion of Isaac Newton” (Oxford, 1974): “The more Newton’s theological and alchemical, chronological and mythological work is examined as a whole corpus, set by the side of his science, the more apparent it becomes that in his moments of grandeur he saw himself as the last of the interpreters of God’s Will in action, living on the eve of the fulfilment of times”.

As John Keynes beautifully formulated in his work “Newton, the Man”, “He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, a posthumous child bom with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonderchild to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage.”

Update of June 16. Newton's alchemical works are now available online.

And look at this text...

Cinemundane-III

2010-06-02T04:36:00.002Z

Last month I had a LiveJournal discussion with a sceptic whom I told (continuing the cinemundane topic) that Jupiter entering Aries would produce lots of action films. I told him that films like “Rambo” or “Die Hard” should appear.

Jupiter enters Aries on 6 June 2010. It will move towards 3rd degree of Aries in the middle of July 2010, then turn to observed retrograde motion and come back to Pisces on 9 September 2010. It later will come to Aries for a proper direct transit only in January 2011 and move through Aries until June 2011.

Which means we could expect fight movies of all kinds during these periods.

This was my theoretical reasoning until yesterday when I came to cinema and watched trailers of films to be released this summer. Most noticeable is, of course, “The Expendables”, whose cast includes

Sylvester Stallone
Bruce Willis
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Dolph Lundgren
Eric Roberts
Mickey Rourke
Jet Li

Ah yes, there will be also releases of “A-Team”, “Karate Kid”, “Knight & Day”. And “The Loser” has just appeared (featuring Zoe Saldana who virtually played in Avatar).

Enjoy the action summer!

Margot Fonteyn

2010-04-19T19:36:00.006Z

Cinema is an educating media, not just entertaining, and BBC is especially invaluable in providing biopics of exceptional quality. I just watched a film about Margo Fonteyn, and her miserable family life attracted my “scientific curiosity”.

Even the brief wiki info speaks for itself. “During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Fonteyn had a long relationship with composer Constant Lambert which did not lead to marriage. In 1955, Fonteyn married Dr. Roberto Arias, a Panamanian diplomat to London and playboy. Their marriage was initially a rocky one due to his infidelities. In 1964, a rival Panamanian politician shot Arias, leaving him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life”. The relationship with Nuriev, who was “notoriously impulsive and did not have much patience with rules, limitations and hierarchical order”, ended up in separation. To pay medical bills for her paralised husband, Fontayn should go on tours at quite elderly age, and “during Fonteyn's absence from Panama on tour as a ballerina, a socialite named Anabella Vallarino would move into the house as his shadow wife and move out again before Fonteyn's return.”

Reading all this, I recalled Cardano’s aphorism about affliction of family life. In Lilly’s edition, it is N 2.75: “A prime cause of men leading single live is the combustion of the Moon in their nativities with Saturn, or eminently afflicted by him, so in women if a planet be combust or the Sun in Taurus greatly afflicted.”

My immediate hypothesis was that Fontayn's Sun should be afflicted as Cardano described. And here is her natal chart, with Sun in Taurus in conjunction with detrimented Mars on Algol and in square with detrimented Saturn.

Cardano's "plagiarism"

2010-01-25T02:56:00.001Z

There is a known story how Tartaglia (shown above) accused Cardano of “plagiarising” his results on cubic equations that Cardano published in Ars Magna in 1545.

It is easy to find out that the solution was first obtained by Scipione del Ferro, and his pupil Antonio Mario Fiore met Tartaglia in a mathematical disputation in 1535 (those were popular and provided good income for scholars). Tartaglia derived his solution during that disputation and considered it as a great treasure and did not want to disclose when later Cardano asked him. Finally, in March 1539, Tartaglia told Cardano the derivation in an encrypted poem and required that Cardano would never tell this secret anybody.

However, later Cardano and his pupil Ferrari found Ferro’s work in Bologna, kept by Ferro’s pupil and son-in-law Annibale Nave. Furthermore, Ferrari solved quartic equations under Cardano’s supervision. After that, Cardano decided that there was no point in keeping the cubic equations secret, and he published the whole research in Ars Magna, giving proper credit to both del Ferro and Tartaglia.

Tartaglia protested publicly, with great anger and insults. Ferrari decided to protect his teacher and challenged Tartaglia for a public disputation. On 10 August 1548, the disputation was set to discuss 31 problems that contestants posed to each other in previously sent letters, and they met in front of governor of Milan, who had been named judge. Ferrari was declared a winner.

Here is the chart for the disputation set for noon in Milan. The birthdate of Tartaglia is unknown – however, we know that Cardano’s ruler of ascendent is Venus, which is strong in this chart, and his ruler of 7th Mars is here in detriment. Also, transit Saturn forms a square with Cardano’s natal Sun, in retro motion – this means that in the last months his life was not easy due to the unfair accusations.

In fact, modern academics admit that Cardano’s publication of the cubic equation solution, with given credits to both authors (del Ferro and Tartaglia) and his pupil’s results on the quartic equations (also with proper credit), are one of the earliest examples of honest citation and fair research, which became well and widely known for the common benefit – and nowadays this solution is named “cardano formula”. Tartaglia wanted to keep it for himself, probably for a profit in disputations. Who was an honest scientist?

End of matters

2009-12-23T07:04:00.004Z

When I attended a lecture of John Frawley about traditional astrology, I learnt a good idea from his example of William Lilly. Frawley said (in my words) that tradition is not about strict following some rigid old rules, but about understanding and keeping the spirit of the art, adapting it to the modern reality. In the case of Lilly, in his time he was testing various “modern” techniques (like unconventional aspects), and they surely led him to the correct result – why was that happening? Because his thinking was rigorous (Saturnine), whatever techniques he used. On the other hand, the strictest “tradionalism” cannot help when there is no understanding.

I recalled this because I was thinking over the End of Matters which is signified by the 4th house. I was taught about receptions and dignities, and these can be applied to the analysis of the End of Matters in its various meanings.

It is about the ending of things that have been done, as well as the end of life - and rulers of the houses can give a hint about the native’s perception of the end of matters. If the ruler of ascendent (the native) is in the sign of the ruler of 4th house (or has dignity on the cusp of 4th house), this signifies that the native is satisfied about the matters of 4th house (as Frawley says, “loves” them).

Given that houses are more or less equal in middle latitudes (i.e. not overstretched with one house dominating others, and 4th-10th axis is more or less perpendicular to 1st-7th axis), if the native has ascendent in some particular sign (see below), he will be “ruling” the End of Matters. It does not mean the End of Matters should be necessarily “good” – but he will be satisfied as the active participant (even if the involved planet is a malefic).

If the ascendent is in Aries, 4th is in Cancer, and Mars, the ruler of Aries, has a triplicity dignity in Cancer. Not bad. For the ascendent in Taurus, 4th house is most probably in Leo, and there are no major dignities for Venus there. One can continue along the zodiac with the same considerations.

This means that the luckiest in the above sense are those who have ascendent in Gemini (Gemini and Virgo are ruled by Mercury), Libra (Saturn rules 4th and exalts in ascendent), Sagittarius (Pisces in 4th are ruled by the same Jupiter), and Capricorn (Mars rules 4th and exalts in ascendent).

But yes, sometimes the houses are not that equal… Or the ruler of ascendent is in the sign of detriment/fall of the ruler of 4th house… Things happen…

Well, the end of the year is a mini-end-of-matters, too, and it is good to see how the traditional approach to such a modern medium as cinema helped me to make a correct prediction back in 2007, when I used Jupiter as the significator of the annual trend in the film art. I wrote in December 2007 that Jupiter entering Aquarius in 2009 would give rise to sci-fi movies. And look at the cinema of 2009… Avatar, Watchmen, 2012, Star Trek, The fourth kind, Gamer, The rise of cobra, Knowing, Moon, 9, Planet 51… Not to mention such properly Aquarian weirdos as Land of the lost, The men who stare at goats, Time traveller's wife, Underworld, and Up…

What an impressive confirmation of the traditional approach in our modern world.

Having had the ascendent in Libra and 4th house in Capricorn (both of Saturn dignity), with reception Venus-Saturn, I am usually satisfied with my Saturnine End of Matters…

What's in pockets of a Virgo

2009-11-13T17:30:00.008Z

A colleague of mine, who has been ever very sceptical about astrology, has ascendent in Virgo. Well, if you look at any sun-sign description of Virgo, it will tell you about “great practicality”, “attention to detail”, etc (including criticism, yes). And this is valid not only for those who have Sun in Virgo, but also if other essential points of the horoscope, like ascendent or the Moon, are placed in the sign.

Not surprisingly, it was quite natural for the colleague to always wear a belt-bag with lots of useful bits and pieces. Once I asked him with laugh whether he had manicure scissors there – indeed, he had! Later he added a more spacious waistcoat with a dozen of pockets.

I thought, oh, I know yet another person in a waistcoat with a dozen of pockets, famous journalist Wasserman!

I sent this picture to the colleague, saying that Wasserman should have “something in Virgo”. The colleague was sceptical again, but he helped a lot when he found the birthdata of Wasserman. The guy was born on 09.12.1952 at 3.30am in Odessa. And what is in Virgo in his chart? The Moon!

Mars-Ketu again

2009-10-01T01:21:00.005Z

Having been very busy at work, I can listen to the world news only occasionally, and I note extreme events these days (Sumatra earthquake, Samoa tsunami, storms in China and Vietnam) - no surprise as Mars is approaching Ketu again. I wrote several posts about this unpleasant constellation, which happens every 1.5-2 years, but this time its severe effects are amplified by the summer Sun eclipse which promised uneasy time to Asia and Oceania. Look at the map of the eclipse again - it covers exactly this area, including Far East of Russia, which recently suffered a great damage of the large hydroelectrostation.

I do not like to predict doom & gloom, but in the next two weeks, while Mars is moving over Ketu, there will be more of such stuff to observe, unfortunately.

The Pond

2009-09-29T19:36:00.010Z

Last week I attended an evening lecture at the Astrological Lodge of London (founded by Alan Leo in 1915). The lecturer was talking about 4th house and ancestors in a natal chart, and was mainly focused on family matters (type of family, internal relationship, etc).

But there is yet another meaning of 4th house, and I was more interested in learning about that – the real estate and immovable property of an individual.

When the lecturer asked people in the audience to give her examples of their natal 4th houses, and at the end, one lady mentioned her cusp of 4th house in Cancer with Jupiter placed there, the lecturer started explaining what kind of attached relationship with family she had, etc.

I was thinking… Jupiter in Cancer on the cusp of 4th house… There should be really huge property there, with some large (Jupiter) sentimental (Cancer) reservoir (watery sign)… And I asked the lady directly in the lecture hall, with apologies to the lecturer for interrupting for a moment, “Do you have some pond in your home estate?”

“My God”, said the lady, “yes, we do have a large pond in our garden…”

And the public turned around to look at me sitting in the last row…

This was an example of very simple and straightforward astrology, but such cases often look as if you take a rabbit from your hat, a kind of weird and suspicious magic (and this is why the Church disliked astrology so much during the history, which inevitably influenced the public opinion) – although astrology is as rigorous as any other branch of human knowledge. The problem is that those who criticise it usually have no idea about its basics and how it works. They just deny and ridicule it. As Newton said to sceptical Edmond Halley, “I have studied it”, – whereas most of the sceptics did not.

Medical astrology

2009-08-13T03:22:00.015Z

I am not a doctor, I just have a long record of sicknesses, which were not too disruptive to make me disabled, but painful enough to make me think how my organism works. And when I recently got flu, I was not surprised to later get heavy pain in my backbone and right leg – I immediately understood that the virus entered the nervous system and caused inflammation.

When I told this to my friend, well, the scepticism was understandable. However, the very next morning, I bumped into an article in the most authoritative PNAS journal saying that influenza virus, indeed, can cause neuroinflammation (I was fortunate enough to get that in the leg).

This happened a week ago, but today I got yet another medical case study, because I read a BBC article stating that increasing drinking causes oral cancer.

How comes, I thought… People used to drink much heavier in the past, and the major problem caused by drinking is cirrhosis, which sometimes kills faster than any cancer. Very strange…

The article stated that "Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and the trend we are now seeing is likely to be linked to Britain's continually rising drinking levels."

But I can tell you that this is not the only trend that started in the 1950s. Yet another one was the sexual revolution, and this, unfortunately, may be related to mouth problems, too.

It is well known that some forms of cancer are caused by viruses, in particular, papillomaviruses, which are known to cause cervical cancer. Therefore, my hypothesis was that the increase of the oral cancer in the last decades could be related to particular sexual practices that became more acceptable and widely used.

I asked myself a horary question, whether my hypothesis was correct. The chart was quite positive about this, with Venus on ascendent, exalted Moon lady of ascendent and Jupiter in 9th.

I wanted to add a comment on the cancer causes in the BBC page of the article about drinking, but the discussion was already closed. I then wanted to find the researcher whose words were quoted in the article, Hazel Nunn, and maybe to email her for a discussion, because I strongly felt the claim of the article was not quite correct (and no, I am not a drunkard to feel urge to protect the rights of alcohol).

I found the press-release of the Cancer Research UK, where most of the ideas were the same as BBC published, but there was also a very brief note, which is actually most elucidating:

"It's possible that HPV and diet are also playing a role, and the evidence -
particularly for the role of HPV - is growing."

And if you still do not know, HPV is the abbreviation for papillomaviruses, which do cause cervical cancer and in the last decades seem to migrate to other parts, too.

I am not a doctor, and I cannot publish a PNAS paper on this. No proper medical affiliation, no convincing statistics, no robustness of the result…

This is typical for cholerics: to get the answer faster than to be able to prove it.

Update of August 18th, 2009. I just found a new article in the Lancet journal on alcohol consumption and deaths in Russia (this is where it is really extreme). Although throat cancer is mentioned in the list of death causes, it is very minor compared with accidents and violence, alcohol poisoning, ischaemic heart disease, liver cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cirrhosis, pancreatic disease, and "ill-specified conditions".

Looking at the plots in the paper, one can notice that everywhere in Europe alcohol consumption is decreasing. I am afraid, it has nothing to do with the major cause of the oral cancer (which grows in Europe but still quite low in traditional Russia).

Update of August 26th, 2009. I found that in May 2007, in the New England Journal of Medicine, there was an article by D'Souza et al with main conclusion that "oral HPV infection is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among subjects with or without the established risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use". The press-release of this result is here.

Update of September 9th, 2009. Yet another PNAS article states that the prostate cancer is caused by XMRV virus. I have a suspicion that most cancers are caused by viruses (except abnormal cases like heavy radiation dozes, etc). This is what drives cells mad when they loose their normal functionality. There should be some intrusion, and viral mechanism is a direct way for that.

If one mentions genetic predisposition, how can one know that viruses are not transmitted within a family? People sleep together, eat together, they are an entity; everything is shared and exchanged. Baby gets all mother's viruses, wife gets all husband's viruses. It is inevitable. Later smoking or drinking just triggers and accelerates the processes.

Update of August 17, 2010. A very good presentation about retroviridae causing sarcoma, tumors and leukemia.

Update of March 3, 2011. A new press-release about the link between HPV and throat cancer. I am pleased to see my medical intuition been confirmed by the academic science. The only difference is that I came to the conclusion after reading a couple of papers on medical statistics - and these guys spent years in the lab.

Birthday

2009-07-27T18:20:00.008Z

Approaching the “round” birthday this week, I ordered a present for myself, the cult Brompton bicycle – and although it will arrive only after three months due to the long waiting list for these creatures, I already feel joyful expecting the new family member.

Maybe I should be worried about the coming mid-life crisis (and load of work requiring more efforts than before), but at the moment Jupiter transits over my natal Moon - and even Venus trines her right now, - so I cannot help feeling rather happy.

The new solar chart receives this unusual combination of benefics into the angles

and Venus into its natal position, in the solar ascendent, with Sun in Leo on IC. Also the ruler of the 10th house is in the domicile of the ruler of ascendent. This all looks good.

Well, except that detrimented Moon falling into the 6th house in the worrisome and restless Scorpio. And looking at the houses it rules, 2nd and 3rd, there is nothing surprising: the year promises concerns about money matters. Quite expectedly, given several new payment orders I added recently; together with the coming payments for Brommy. Moon also exalts on the cusp of 12th house, and this is bad for those who belong there – which is good.

Looking back at the past half of the life (as the mid-life approximate), I probably should be satisfied. Not by “achievements” (which are not my merit) but by the given learning opportunities that are manifestations of the right choices. I am all the same as 5 years ago when I wrote depressive poems of a lost looser. The only difference is that the long sad waiting led me to the right route, as it seems so obvious now. Even if later that may change for worse again. Life is wavy…

To fly or not to fly

2009-07-25T16:22:00.024Z

When two weeks ago a friend of mine suggested to visit me this weekend coming over on Friday 24.07.09, I firmly said no – travelling just after the eclipse (22.07.09), and under such a bad transit of Moon closing hard aspects of malefics could be really dangerous. The friend was sceptical, and I suggested to wait until the weekend, and if nothing noticeable happened in the world, I would shut up with my astrological advice regarding travel. As the Moon was repeating the configuration I noticed recently and picked for further research, I also added a prediction about possible accidents on water, in particular related to Somalia pirates.

On the day of the cancelled flight (24.07.09) the world news were as follows:

Emergency landing, evacuation and delay of many flights in the Gatwick airport

Iran aircraft fire killed 17

Emergency landing in Scheremetyevo (link in Russian)

Emergency landing in Siberia (link in Russian)

Two died in a light aircraft crash near Saratov (link in Russian)

Bus crash in Russia near Rostov killed 20 people

Seven injured in a car accident in Moscow (link in Russian)

Three died in a car accident in Kirghizia (link in Russian)

Six died in Croatia train crash

Three killed in a car accident in Southern Russia (link in Russian)

Helicopter crash in the USA (link in Russian)

14 injured in a bus crash on Moscow ring road

12 injured in an overturned van in Ukraine

And this is something related to natural accidents:

300 evacuated in Minsk because of the flash flood (link in Russian)

Seven killed in a storm in Poland

Wild fires in Southern Europe

Further accidents on 25.07.09

Lifeguards in the UK saved 40 people from the sea

Emergency landing in Boston (link in Russian)

Emergency landing in Krasnodar (link in Russian)

Clash with Somalia pirates in their attempt to capture a ship (link in Russian)

Fire kills 6 in Stokholm

5 died in a boat accident in Siberia (link in Russian)

Flash rain and landslide killed 14 in Japan (link in Russian)

Five deaths in a car accident in Siberia (link in Russian)

A falling piece of mountain destroys a bridge and kills three in China (link in Russian)

Landslide killed 7 in Columbia (link in Russian)

Flash flood killed 12 in China (link in Russian)

The eclipse on 22.07.09 was visible mainly over Asia, yet it was powerful enough to influence other regions as well

Since the eclipse was one of the longest, its influence will be considerable – yet Lilly in his Annus Tenebrosus mentions that cannot last more than 4 years

It was in the angle

with the chart which is probably saying about further uneasy events (a major earthquake, landslides and flash floods in Asia are plausible)
The good thing is that hopefully my friend would not be that sceptical about astrology any more.

Update of August 10th. On August 5th, there was an earthquake in Siberia - fortunately, in uninhabited area - of magnitude 7.7 (link in Russian). Similarly powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.6 happened in the Indian ocean on August 10th (link in Russian). In Japan, on August 10th, after an earthquake of 6.6 the nuclear station was stopped (link in Russian). On August 9th, typhoon in China caused flood, landslide and evacuation of thousands (BBC link, AP link). Tropical storm caused landslides in Japan (BBC link).

Update of August 14th. Latest BBC links about Japan and Taiwan.

Update of August 20th. Not only Somalia pirates were doing their nasty work in August. The ship with Russian crew Arctic Sea was hijacked. Also, as regards the accident on water, Tonga ferry went missing. Yet another very dramatic news of August was the blast on Sayano-Shuchenskaya power station.

Lyudmila Zykina

2009-07-04T23:22:00.003Z

While the world is mourning over the death of Michael Jackson, whose natal full Moon on the axis Virgo-Pisces was afflicted by the transit Saturn, not many people outside Russia know that the great Russian singer Zykina died on the 1st of July.

She was 80 years old, and the peak of her career happened in the 60s and 70s, but those songs cannot fade with time. These are the YouTube links to famous “Volga” and “Orenburg shawl”.

She was born on June 10, so the deadly affliction by the Saturn transit is quite clear in her chart.

Saturn will be forming an exact opposition with Uranus this autumn, and since the Sun is a natural significator of health and longevity, it will be uneasy time for those who were born on 10-25 dates of September, March, December and June. I wish them all to get through this time safely.

Imelda May

2009-02-20T20:36:00.008Z

Yesterday I attended a concert of fascinating Imelda May. This woman rocks!

When I came home and looked on the net, nothing like birth date was there, only she was mentioned as “Dublin-born”. But then I found the birth date of her husband, guitarist Darrel Higham – and that was interesting! Partners’ chart are interrelated and describe each other (don’t ask me why – I have the answer, but not everybody is ready to accept it). Thus, in a man’s chart, the wife is signified, in particular, by Moon, and the Moon in the Higham’s chart is interesting:

Moon is placed in fiery quadrupled sign Sagittarius and aspected by Mars in own triplicity in conjunction with Rahu. Moreover, Moon is probably in antiscia with Sun and Venus in square with Uranus (depending on his birth time). This describes quite a woman…

Imelda May does not work with big studios, and to support her talent people should go to her concerts and buy her CDs:

No Turning Back – Imelda’s first solo release
Talk to Me – with Blue Harlem
Love Tattoo - Imelda's new solo release

There are some YouTube clips available (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but live she is even better than in records. This is a bona fide music star!

Solar & lunar eclipses

2009-02-10T01:59:00.006Z

Lunar eclipse of 9th February followed the partial solar eclipse of 26th January, which was visible above Australia, part of Africa and Oceania, and China

Similarly to what happened in the New England Dark Day, both Beijing and Melbourne received the solar eclipse into angle

Reading the news about fires in Australia and China, one can see how sad yet predictable are the effects of the eclipses.

Update of February 12. After recently discussing eclipses with a friend of mine, I would like to clarify the following. The influence of eclipses on mundane affairs does not mean only fires (and not only physical phenomena). It means extremes, like the recent unusual heavy snow falls in England and even a hurricane in Paris - in the areas where the eclipses were not visible (gravity is still a powerful perturbation, not only for tides, but also for far more dynamic atmospheric masses). Yet, in the context of the Southern Hemisphere, in summer January, fires in Australia are clear manifestation of the eclipse influence, both physically and symbolically.

Patriarch Kirill

2009-02-02T20:17:00.003Z

Russian Patriarch Kirill was enthroned in Moscow on Sunday, 1st of February 2009, at 10am.

This is a good chart for the Russian Church and people: the exalted ruler of ascendent Mars is in 11th house of achievements, the Moon (the people) is in the ascendent (congregation loving Patriarch); two benefics (note exalted Venus) in 12th house promise protection. Ruler of 9th house (religion) is in 12th, but since the 12th is quite big in this chart, Jupiter is actually close to MC, which means that in directions MC will come to Jupiter (with Mercury and Mars on the way).

Retro Mercury rules 2nd and 3rd – I expect the Patriarch will soon deal with some financial and organization matters inside the church, but since his significator Mars is so strong accidentally and dignified, when Mercury turns direct and joins Mars, these will be resolved (not with ease, though). Note that Moon is coming to square Mars, which might signify tensions, too.

The loaded 12th house means dealing with hidden opponents, as well as performing sacred rituals and leading isolated monastic life.

It is a good chart for the Church and congregation.

Obama’s 2nd oath

2009-01-23T01:33:00.006Z

When I was writing about the inauguration, it was difficult to imagine such a strange consequence of the Moon void of course (void of course means “nothing happens”, or business without fructification) – yet, in the context of the presidency, it produced the 2nd oath for Obama, 31 hours after the inauguration.

This happened to two US presidents before, Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge, so it is not an exceptional event. However, in the astrological terms, it changes the inauguration chart of January 20th for the new one:

One can immediately notice that the ascendent here is Leo, its ruler being in the sign of Saturn, Aquarius (Leo is the sun-sign for Obama, for he was born in August). This makes the new chart more coherent with his nativity, unlike the previous one, which had Taurus rising (with all his charm, Obama is rather a Saturnine than Venusian person).

This time, the 10th house of supreme power is empty; its ruler Venus, although exalted in Pisces, is badly placed in 8th house of fears and comes to conjunct Uranus and oppose retro Saturn. The ruler of ascendent Leo is in detriment in 6th house – weak and working hard, yet coming to join Jupiter (which will be combust then). Jupiter rules 5th house of fun, so this is not good for the country in the sense of having fun, I am sorry to say.

Moon, the significator of people, has left Scorpio where she was detrimented, but now is coming to square Saturn and Uranus – still not good. The retro Saturn is placed just on the cusp of 2nd house of finances – this is already known to each and every one: people are experiencing financial problems.

This chart is much less shiny than that of 20th January – yet more realistic. Problems, less fun, hard work...

I cannot see much of that in the chart, but I wish good luck to the American people in the next few years.

Update of 17 March 2010. After more than a year since writing this post, I just want to add this YouTube link to confirm my predictions and opinion about Obama.

Algol

2009-01-22T18:39:00.008Z

Yesterday I was participating in a discussion on death fear during air flights, and I mentioned one of the major significations of the violent death in a natal chart: the influence of the evil star Algol. According to Vivian Robson, who is a contemporary authority on fixed stars, Algol “causes misfortune, violence, decapitation, hanging, electrocution and mob violence, and gives a dogged and violent nature that causes death to the native or others. It is the most evil star in the heavens.”

So, I mentioned that if a natal planet (particularly Sun or Moon) is conjunct with Algol, there is higher risk to suffer violent death and various amputations.

When I had opened today’s news, I saw an article that immediately attracted my attention: Brazil model Mariana Bridi da Costa lost all limbs.

Here came an astrological hypothesis: her natal chart should have “something on Algol”. I asked my Portuguese friend to check Brazil sites and got the birth date, 18.06.1988. Not only does the girl have Jupiter on Algol (which well can be her ruler of the ascendent if she has Pisces ascending), but also her natal Sun and Mercury in Gemini are afflicted by the current slow and painful opposition of Saturn and Uranus.

Poor girl.

Update of January 23. Today, a Moscow lawyer was buried, he was shot in the head by a killer. Imagine how I was surprised to see the grave plate with his date of birth, 20th of May - with Sun on Algol!

In the medieval times, this constellation could mean decapitation by an executioner - now it is just a shot...

Update. Mariana Bridi da Costa died on January 24th.

Cinemundane-II

2009-01-06T01:07:00.008Z

Yesterday, Jupiter moved from the sign of his detriment Capricorn into Aquarius. Jupiter’s transit in Capricorn took more than a year, and as I wrote earlier, I expected his influence on cinema to be rather disappointing: this was time to make money rather than create masterpieces.

One can hardly recall a masterpiece among all those hancocks of 2008, and even Mamma Mia, with great ABBA songs and ugly voices of the actors, was an artificial production whose main aim was to earn (certainly very favourable for ABBA sales).

All the major blockbusters came out to be too dark, secondary and unimpressive. In the BBC annual film review, I noticed phrase “failed to make much of impression”, which is quite indicative.

I might have called a masterpiece the film released last week, “The Reader”, but even this one is an illustration of the Jupiter in Capricorn: Cardano says on this constellation in aphorism 2.45 of Lilly’s edition about “power under pretence of justice” with “unfortunate issue” – come and see the film to understand how true this is.

Now, as Jupiter is in Aquarius (and weak, being peregrine yet), look at the oncoming movies to find which of them are weird enough to indicate the planetary change…

Update of February 23. I was glad to see Kate Winslet finally - and so well deserved - collecting this year's Bafta, Golden Globes and, today, the Oscar. Well done to her Venus on Regulus, at last!

Landau

2008-11-18T20:55:00.006Z

This post is about the great physicist – and about verifiable astrological hypotheses.

I do not know Landau’s time of birth, but all I need here is the date, because the main issue is the transit of Saturn over his natal Sun.

Landau was born on 22.01.1908, and the chart is as follows:

One of the major dramatic events of his life was the road accident that happened on 7th January 1962 and deprived him from work till the end of his life.

It is easy to check what was happening in the sky that time: transit Saturn was conjunct with Landau’s natal Sun. I can assure you that this transit is one of the heaviest in one’s life (I experienced it quite recently, in 2006).

Then, I thought, there should be a similar very hard period in Landau’s life about 30 years before the accident (given Saturn’s period of 29.5 years on average). What happened then, around 1932? Certainly, there should be something similarly “catastrophic”?

I checked historic documents related to Landau’s life. To make it short, after living for years in Leningrad, in 1932 Landau moved to provincial Kharkov and started working in the local physical institute (which later became one of the world centres in theoretical physics, due to his efforts).

Why did he move over there? Because of the heavy and dramatic conflict with his supervisor Ioffe, whom he sarcastically criticised until the Saturn transit finalised that, in summer of 1932.

How did astrological hypotheses lead me to finding the historical facts that I had not known?

Warsaw

2008-11-17T19:47:00.004Z

Yesterday I met a special person. I was very lucky to meet him. His name is Zbigniew Tucholsky, he is a widower of Anna German. I also met their son, Zbigniew junior.

As I wrote earlier, Anna German has been one of the main artistic figures in my life, since I was three years old. When I started studying astrology, she also became yet another astrological puzzle for me, because her chart and her public image had some controversies in my understanding. Therefore, I prepared several dozens of questions to ask pan Tucholsky – only he could tell me what was real among my guesses.

I cannot disclose our private conversation which continued for six hours; I can only say that it was incredible happiness for me to share my life-long love for her with the man who loves her all his life. And I feel quite proud of my astrological understanding of her chart, because he confirmed almost all of my guesses, often just saying “yes” to my questions.

It was an intense weekend: I also did my best to see the country and to test my new Nikon D60. The camera seems to be a good member of the noble family, and Poland is a really beautiful country.

I recently had a chat with a colleague of mine, a Pole, who thinks (quite typically) that Russia is a monster who caused disaster to his country. These people misunderstand the whole epoch: it was first and foremost Russia that suffered the communism, and if they wish to blame somebody, they rather have to direct their energy to Marx.

I like Poland (well, I managed to visit only Katowice, Krakow and Warsaw in two days). I am actually glad to see it recovering from socialistic times as much as I am glad to see Russia doing the same. And I love the language, it is so close to Russian, and almost as dear.

I hope people soon forget the hatred of the past.