Introduction to Astrology: Love!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

When some of the more deranged astrologers fall in love – and occasionally this may have been me – they make a note of the time, date and place of the first date and create a horoscope later on, when they have calmed down. I seriously don’t expect you to do this.

You can do this for first dates, reunions or the first time you crawl into bed together. You should definitely do it for the moment you become engaged or married. Each new chart shows the new version of the old love. The first meeting chart, though, is often the big one.

If you have the software, or your pro astrologer does, you can go back in time and figure out what that was all about. Or, in the first flush of love, you can create a horoscope which will describe the higher purpose of your marriage – beyond the actual shagging. Sometimes it’s not what you expect.

Choosing Date Dates

Lovelorn readers ask me if they can start all over again with someone – and sneakily pick the right date, for the date. Of course, you can! That’s what astrologers are for. Look for something useful triggering Libra and the Seventh House in both your charts. Libra rules equal relationships. No sexism!

If you can’t do that, use something nice in Leo and the Fifth House, which rules courtship.

Sometimes patterns ping around Leo (courtship, children) and Libra (partnership) and light up your chart like a pinball machine. Astrology can help you become a Pinball Wizard of Love. If you’re a Premium Member on my website you can pick up a quarterly journal with this Leo/Libra pattern information which will help you choose great dates, for your next date.

If the relationship is never really going to be about love and sex – if it’s even going to break up and morph into friendship in months – chances are, the attraction was real, but the magnets were pulling for a different reason.

Perhaps you met on a Virgo stellium in your Sixth House. Romance was not really the long-term purpose of your relationship, but you end up enrolling on the same yoga teaching course, together. Or hitting each other in karate class. We think we’ve found

The One but we just found someone we needed – who needed us – and for reasons which have nothing to do with Here Comes The Bride.

Choosing Libra or Leo Patterns

Libra rules the true spirit of lasting marriages or relationships because it rules the scales – different but equal – tied together, by their very nature, forever. It’s the John and Yoko sign. These partnerships can last a lifetime.

Leo is also good because it rules royal courtship and the royal bedchamber. It also rules pregnancy, stepchildren and the nieces and nephews you can acquire when you marry. The heirs to your thrones.

Within reason (assuming you don’t have tough aspects in either sign in your birth chart) the transits of the heavenly bodies through Libra and/or Leo until 2020 are going to help you, Fred, Connie and everybody else who wants to find love, keep it together or at least resolve the more spiritual aspects of soul love, should there be a separation. You can track these patterns on my website, every day.

Full Moons and New Moons

You can read more about New Moons and Full Moons elsewhere in this book: this is the scoop on how they trigger judgement calls about your former, current or potential lover. A New Moon or Full Moon in the Sun Sign next to yours, below, will put you at a crossroads with this person. If your whole chart is hit, then it’s big. Moons rule pregnancy and periods. The Sun which is opposite the Moon on a Full Moon and ‘on’ the Moon on a New Moon, rules impregnation and fatherhood.

I know you’re just in this for the popcorn and the film, but if you’re dating or having Those Talks on a New Moon or Full Moon in the signs below, this moment in your life is pregnant with possibility. And I mean that in every conceivable way.

Your sign in the first column will be affected when there is a New Moon or Full Moon in the sign written next to it. Eyeball love then!

Aries – Libra Taurus – Scorpio Gemini – Sagittarius Cancer – Capricorn Leo – Aquarius Virgo – Pisces

Marriage

Are you the marrying kind? It’s more likely if you have stelliums in Cancer (the mortgage), Leo (the children), Libra (the wedding) and Scorpio (the sex and the mortgage). It’s far more likely if you have the asteroid Juno big in your chart. She rules commitment. What you wed yourself to. Sometimes, who you wed yourself too. Juno was Jupiter’s wife.

When you have transits, or travelling heavenly bodies, going through Cancer, Leo, Libra and/or Scorpio the stage is also set for promises if your chart is hit by exact patterns, or aspects – and of course, your partner’s.

The person you marry will have Cancer, Leo, Libra and/or Scorpio factors which line up with yours. Check the numbers. Allow up to one degree’s difference. Don’t scream if you see oppositions and squares. It’s the pointy bits of marriage which build the structure.

Sometimes people marry to move from one class, into another. They see marriage as a status shift and view you as a good move. Check for their Capricorn factors, aspecting your chart. They are being practical about this. If it’s the only thing in the chart, yikes. This is more like a corporate merger than luuuurve.

Different people get different things from marriage. If you eyeball both charts and don’t see aspects involving Cancer, Leo, Libra and/or Scorpio then perhaps you’re just in for the business you share with each other (Taurus) or the films you make together (Gemini). The passion? Not so much.

If you want to see the dazzling aspects that connected Yoko to John, and you’re one of my Premium Membership pretties, you can pick up Asteroid Astrology to see how they clicked. My talented friend Sven found some amazing patterns in the Beatles’ charts when we were putting this e-guide together – like crystals.

People ask me when they should get married. As a basic rule, avoid Mercury Retrograde (make sure you include the shadows, before and after). There is less chance of guests declining at the last minute; invitations being incorrect; people falling into ditches on the way to church.

Full Moons are also best avoided, for reasons you can read about elsewhere in this book. Even if your chart isn’t pinged by the pressure of a Full Moon, you can bet one of the more crucial guests (like the Best Man) will be hit. Full Moons in the sign opposite your own, do raise major love questions, and often they result in the relationship being negotiated in a new way – but do you really want that when everyone is supposed to be diving into cake?

Oppositions in general are best avoided, so if you were thinking about being a June bride but there’s a whacking great opposition between the Sun in Gemini and Saturn in Sagittarius that day, find an easier date. As always, my website will show you what is where, and when. Track those oppositions, because people are at odds when they happen, or there is inner conflict.

Add eleventy million glasses of champagne at the reception and you just know what’s going to happen on your wedding day.

A marriage is such a big deal that you will generally find all four signs connected with commitment – Cancer, Leo, Libra and Scorpio – show patterns in the charts of both partners.

In a world of divorce, at least one partner, maybe both, will have a stellium in one of those signs? Why? Because it gives them the push this person needs to believe in love and to defy the statistics. People who have an overload of Cancer really want that family and home! People with an overload of Libra need a partner because they require a balancing act to feel whole. So – they happily take the risk.

Compatibility

The gazillion dollar question is – Will it last? This is what people mean when they ask, ‘Are we compatible?’

A better question to ask, might be, ‘What are we together for? What is this relationship actually about?’ Astrology gives you an objective opinion.

Look for conjunctions between both horoscopes. Two horoscope factors in the same zodiac sign, at the same degree, or very close.

If you two share at least two conjunctions, your combined horoscopes are making a special shape together called a Vesica Piscis.

You have Sacred Geometry between you if you have this. It’s shaped a little like a Mermaid’s Purse, but you can also find it in cathedrals. If you are curious about this fascinating shape, thrown by two charts, see my website for a long and leisurely look at Sacred Geometry.

Babies

Parents wonder when they should time the birth for, so a horoscope can be drawn up for a new baby. It’s the moment the umbilical cord is cut. Rather you, than me. Nurse! The screens!

Does one minute make a difference? Absolutely. If you blow it because you’re celebrating in the nearest pub, a pro astrologer can rectify the chart for you, later, by judging big life events (first school day, first tooth) against different chart variations.

The Ascendant or Rising Sign tells you a lot about the new baby, because it’s fixed by the clock time of birth – the actual arrival. Look for exact aspects to the Ascendant to see the full story. Dig deeply for the meaning.

The first and second names given to the new baby often tell a story about the Ascendant or Rising Sign and aspects to it.

If you decode why a child was given a particular name, the meaning behind it, the circumstances and the rest – you will see it. It’s deeply personal and won’t make sense to anybody outside the family, but the AC sign and house and the aspects it makes, will talk directly about the name the child is given.

The IC or Immum Coeli shows you the baby’s family tree branches. Where does the baby ‘come from’ in terms of one or both sides of the family? Even when the child is one hour old, you can see the astrology working for yourself, with your new arrival.

The IC sign and aspects to it, tell you about the child’s family background. You do need an accurate birth time for this, but the IC really works.

If the baby’s IC is Cancer, then she is dominated by her mother and perhaps her mother’s own ‘mother country.’ There are major issues, right from birth, about being far away from home, or making a new home, which come from her family’s own concern with housing, or accommodation, or perhaps issues like belonging.

She’ll come from a family which was patriotic, flew the flag, stuck to its traditions and put mothers on pedestals.

Long before the baby starts to develop a personality, you can have hours of wonder and amazement, just looking at the IC and AC, because they are evident from the very start. They will stay with that person, for life.

I found a pile of photographs that illustrate this whole AC/DC/IC/MC business really well, in regard to children, but also adults. If you go to my website, you can see how the angles of a baby’s horoscope say so much about him/her.

Twins

Some years ago, I had a horoscope business called Starbaby Charts with my friend Barbara. We had a stunning model for the front cover photograph. A baby called Toyah who cheerfully peed on the backdrop. The real problem for us, though, was IVF. Suddenly, we had orders for Starbaby Charts pouring in for the new mothers of … twins. Lots and lots of twins!

It made me think seriously about birth charts, when I saw some children whose umbilical cords were cut just minutes apart.

Here’s the score. Twins do have the same horoscopes. However, astrology is about more than your birth chart. That’s just the start.

Astrology is alchemy. It’s the chemistry experiments that happen when you (and your birth chart) begin to make different school friends and later have different lovers, partners, children, bosses and homes – or even countries. Each of those has a chart. They mix.

The results make twins different in some ways, the same in others. They reflect each other too. They hold up a mirror and that changes them.

You can pull out any part of your birth chart and use it, if you want to emphasise one area of your life, or one set of personality traits, more.

Twins see themselves reflected in each other’s eyes and decide ‘I’m not going to chase money. She can do that. I’m going to be a teacher.” One twin becomes a banker, the other a teacher. They both have Taurus and Leo stelliums, but they lean harder on one, as opposed to the other. They don’t want to be clones of each other. Well, would you?

The people in the lives of twins matter! You and your twin will have identical Aries and Cancer stelliums, for example, but your twin may fall in love with a guy in the army and move to a war zone with him. She’ll use her Aries stellium more than anything else – meanwhile her twin may fall in love with a builder and use her Cancer stellium more, as they both renovate a house.

We are not robots and our horoscopes are not computer programs. We can choose what we want to do, with what we have. Still, there’s enough going on between twin charts that you can spot the similarities from ten miles away. Some of them exploit it for business reasons and use their twin brand to double the money.

Singletons

Helen Fielding famously created the brilliant word ‘singleton’ to describe single women like Bridget Jones and single men too.

If you have horoscope factors in Cancer, Leo, Libra and/or Scorpio and they tell a complicated story, you may not want to marry, or you might marry, then divorce quickly.

If you are missing factors in these signs, then they don’t define you. Perhaps they don’t really matter. You can take or leave the mortgage (Cancer) the children (Leo), the wedding (Libra) or the sex and the mortgage (Scorpio).

The asteroid Diana is very important when looking at singletons. If you have Diana in Cancer, Leo, Libra or Scorpio then you are a free spirit who values her/ his independence so much that binding commitments about a house, apartment, children, engagement or a joint bank account may be hard for you.

Diana was the goddess who told her father Jupiter that she wanted to avoid a husband and motherhood, so he set her free to roam with her dogs and her maidens for company.

You sometimes see married women with Diana in Libra in the Seventh House who have a separate career from their husbands, spend a long time away from home (for work reasons) and function as if they were single.

Diana is worth getting to know. There is a famous statue of her in New York, the home of Sex and the City. You find her a lot in the big cities of the world, standing in parks or museums. These places are Singleton Central.

Find her paintings and sculptures online. Men with Diana in their Fourth, Fifth, Seventh or Eighth houses (in Cancer, Leo, Libra or Scorpio) do not want to be tied down and should look at other ways to be coupled up. Pilots and flight attendants with Diana placements can make it work if their bags are always packed and there’s a dog-sitter.

Personal Horoscopes and Love

You know those personal horoscopes which come out of a computer and basically tell you about yourself? Just you, you, you? Here’s a tip. Get another one for him, him, him or her, her, her as well. Astrology is chemistry.

Better still, talk to (or type at) a real, live astrologer who can eyeball the transits, the other person, you – and the times you are both living in. This delicate mix is what defines the realities of love, sex, money, children, family and the rest.

I do this for people who order charts from me in a series of 12 annual online forums, but you have to waitlist. Instant computer charts are a good way to get an affordable horoscope if the author was good – but if you’re going to read chemistry between two people you need to pay the pharmacist properly to read the ingredients. Find yourself a great astrologer.

Edited extract from 2020 Astrology: Your Five-Year Horoscope Guide by Jessica Adams.

All Images Courtesy of Unplash.com