September 2002- August 2003

The dominant tone in my chart during this time has been Chiron – exact in April and December and especially dominant as the p-Sun is exactly conjunct natal Chiron with the p-Moon exactly opposite i.e. p-Full Moon. So my experiences have been to do with work and health (Chiron in 6th); my career, ambition and ‘authority’ (Chiron in Capricorn); and self esteem (Chiron trine Jupiter in Taurus and Moon in 2nd).

It is also possible to read the themes that are dominant for me now in the natal T-square which places Saturn/Neptune on the IC squaring Mars opposite Uranus. Using a 7-degree orb for the transiting outer planets, t-Pluto continues to conjunct natal Mercury in the 5th and square the Moon. I began to study astrology seriously when Pluto was 7 degrees applying to Mercury.

Jupiter/Neptune transiting my Asc/Desc axis has been triggering the connection of my wider, deeper beliefs, the meaning I attach to my life, within the sphere of career: natal Jupiter in the 10th.

It’s been revealing to look back at the events in my life which were seeding themselves at the time of the p-New Moon which was exactly conjunct natal Venus in Sag in the 5th with t-Chiron exactly opposite Venus – as well as t-Saturn-O-Uranus also conjunct Venus and t-Neptune conjunct Chiron. Because that chart is finding its resolution at present in the P-Full Moon.

This waxing phase of the p-Moon which began in my 5th house has produced 5th house struggles to express myself, my real self rather than the culturally conditioned self which resides in my 4th house. This can also be read in Pluto transiting my 5th.

I have had to find a way to allow myself the freedom to be myself within the context of a difficult 4th house, which in my case, sets out the demands of, and responsibilities to, family and culture, from whom I need confirmation and approval.

In the summer of 2002, having been awarded my astrology diploma in the spring, I decided to seek help from a marketing outfit to market myself as a ‘counselling astrologer’ and set up an office in the High Street. This turned into an enormous undertaking: emotionally, financially, logistically and physically. It is part of my pattern to challenge the world from time to time (– and then retreat from it). With Jupiter on my Ascendant I decided to spare no expense as I discussed with a team of experts the difficulties and possibilities around presenting a non-Mystic Meg version of astrology to the general public.

From June – November we wrote the text for stylish folders and designed a batch of stationery complete with logo and corporate image. We made a website and I secured a city centre office in the heart of Chichester next to the cathedral - with a statue of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester offering benediction, his hand pointed directly at my office window (was he blessing me or protecting the community?); and then I furnished it with up-lighters and low-lighters, a large brightly coloured eastern rug which I hung on the wall and some soothing ‘old masters’, to look less formal and exude relaxing vibes. I shared a receptionist, called Daphne, (with daunting Virgo admin skills) with the firm of solicitors who also worked in the building, and I was able to have use of their waiting room as well. The polished brass plate with my name, credentials, logo and strapline (‘Making sense of your life, and your universe’) shone brilliantly on the wall outside underneath the names of all the solicitors. So…….. I finally made it: I was now an acceptable person within society whilst doing my own thing. I was holding the tension between Saturn and Uranus. Or was I? I still had to find clients.

With t-Jupiter opposite Neptune on my Descendant it was difficult for me to stay grounded while the show was getting on the road. Natally I have Jupiter in Taurus in the 10th opposite the Sun and trine the Moon. I like to be lifted out of my T-square, I like to escape into realms of possibility and imagination; I don’t like balance, routine and safety. So I was pretty elevated, if not pumped up, through September and October (Jupiter square Jupiter) in anticipation of the imminent advertising which would launch me and astrology full-pelt into the town of my birth.

Physically, however I was not in great shape. I was still suffering from bad PMT which had begun around the time of that P-New Moon in ’88; and since the start of my Chiron Return early in this year (2002) I’d had regular and intermittent pain with IBS. All appropriately scorpionic. Plus a lot of stiff joints (Saturn). It felt perhaps like the burning-ground pain of transformation, the death throes of the caterpillar turning into the butterfly; or the eagle rising out of the scorpion; or the phoenix; or the dove. Change hurt. I was putting myself under enormous stress because I was investing so much in this venture (by May ’03 I’d spent £16,000), but the years of pain and anguish were finally to be redeemed.

I turned 50 in November and on the day of my solar return I gave a reading to a journalist from the Chichester Observer so that she could write a piece about the astrologer who was bringing ‘real astrology’ to the market place.

I was very nervous about this, as she wasn’t someone who was presenting me with a question or a problem that I could focus on in the usual (for me) way. The best I could do was review her life and pick out times that I saw as major turning points for her and impress the heck out of her by describing where and when in her life this would have happened. Lucky for me she was a bright woman who quickly picked up the basics of astrology and she wrote probably the best article that I could have hoped for. She came into the office sceptical and went out ‘a believer’. The article was scheduled to hit the streets on January 2nd 2003.

In December I came up against my first big dilemma: whether or not to continue with the expense of having the marketing guy market me. I had spent about £7,000 by this time and hadn’t actually begun advertising yet, except for 3 ads in the Observer which hadn’t yielded anything and cost over £1,000. His projection had been that the whole thing, getting me started, would cost £2,000, so I was a bit pissed that I’d gone way over my budget and hadn’t actually received a client yet. The tension mounted.

In retrospect I can see that I was in the thrall of Jupiter-Neptune. This marketing man was so good at taking a person’s dreams and working them into a potential reality – it’s what they do – and I was precisely disposed to believe him! For as long as it lasted it was a marriage made in heaven. I even checked out his chart – he told me his birthday and I impressed the heck out of myself by ‘guessing’ his birthtime – I just knew that his Gemini Sun had to be in the 8th to resonate so well with my Sun in Scorpio. His Sun is square Saturn and he had worse Jupiter-inflation problems than I do - and I still didn’t want to see the truth. Which was that he was taking me for a ride. . But I, in turn, had received some timely therapy from him – for which he failed to bill me since he didn’t know it was amongst the services he’d rendered. Not only that, I was conducting some valuable research.

So before Christmas things came to a head between us over a pile of his invoices and we separated. Which meant that I was now in charge of my own advertising. I made little handbills and handed them out round the town and wrote to all my previous clients. I spent £900 advertising through December and then took out a half a page at a special sale-price – this is a large broadsheet newspaper – to coincide with the publishing of the article on Jan 2nd. At this point I didn’t know that what the journalist would write would be complimentary, it could have been a ‘hit piece’ which astrology often receives. But I felt OK about her, having done her chart, so I splashed out another huge amount on this giant ad., feeling that if I was going to do this I might as well do everything I could. It was pretty aggressive too, grabbing the city by its throat, shaking it, and saying ‘notice me’!

My Chiron Return was exact in December. I asked my ‘friend’, Diana Stone, who practises Horary astrology what she thought of the chart for the time that I placed the ad. – I needed reassurance to get me through the ordeal of Christmas. But instead of just answering the question that I asked her, she gave me a reading for the time she received the question which produced a dreadful reading. So during the holiday period I was a wreck. I felt cursed and anticipated failure yet again.

On January 2nd the paper with the piece and the ad appeared and I for one enjoyed seeing it. I read it several times. It seemed appropriate to be ‘coming out’ in deep winter in my place of birth since Saturn sits on my IC. The people who responded to the editorial and the ad brought me problems equal in strength to the force of the printed word: including 3 people who said they were thinking about suicide, a surgeon and the personal secretary to a member of the cabinet. It was as if Saturn himself was testing me for entrance to his kingdom. (I still couldn’t tell if St Richard was blessing or protecting.)

I lived off this exposure for about 2 months with one or 2 clients a week – not always for a full reading since I offered a free half hour introduction as well which proved valuable for both me and the client. I also offered a follow up a few weeks after the reading which was more demanding for me than I had anticipated as I had almost forgotten the chart/person by then and had to go over a lot again to remind myself. Keeping good client notes I found to be essential.

I think it must have been Saturn opposite Venus that also brought me 2 husbands of 2 friends, both deeply disturbed about their marriages; also a friend out of my past some 15 years. And Saturn must have had something to do with delivering my nephew to the office since no member of my family has ever been interested in me before (nor I in them I suppose..).

From Jan to April my P-Moon proceeded over the points of my T-square at the same time as Saturn trined Saturn/Neptune. It was a tense and stressful time with a great deal of emotional instability. I began to realise that I had to continue to place ads in order to bring in the clients. The ones that I’d placed in annual publications weren’t due to begin yet. So I planned a series of what I thought were very provocative ads with the Chichester Observer again but there were many difficulties in getting these to come out right and I ended up spending a fortune and reaping very little.

Because of the stress, the fear of failure in all of its many forms I developed teeth problems to do with roots and nerves (Saturn), and sciatica (t-Pluto still near Mercury-Moon). All of my health problems since the loss of my taste/smell and the sinus surgery in 2001 have been connected with the stress associated with my need to find approval from society through my profession. My identity and sense of self has been firmly invested in this.

I think that at some point my personal ambition took over from what used to be something more sincere. Why is it that although we get to understand the themes in our charts/lives, we still fall prey to them? I received a reading in 1996 that told me precisely what I might be going through at this time and the dangers to be avoided along the way; and how to avoid them….. Did I remember to do any of it? Nope. I even went along to the Jupiter-Neptune seminar given by Alexander in October and asked him if what I was doing was real or a version of my save-the-world complex so I should hold back. No, he said, you’re too cautious by nature (Moon in Virgo, Sun in Scorpio), go for it, he said, don’t look back, just keep going - and be generous, Leo rising should give and love. So off I went, gung ho, giving and spending all I could and ‘not looking back’. Thanks for that, Alex…..

On February the 7th I caved in and took off ‘into the wilderness’ to find out what to do next. I’d been at the funeral of an old friend. There was something very insincere about the people and it pushed me over the edge. I rented a house for a week and stared out of the window at the winter in a trance. I took some walks and did some retail therapy. I needed to decide whether I should quit or keep going. The office cost £300 a month. I had no income other than savings and some investments. The advertising was a bottomless pit.

To come to a decision, to decide to write off all that I’d put into the venture so far, was the stuff of nervous breakdowns. At the outset I had planned to try it out till April but I was feeling very uncertain about the expense involved in maintaining the office and the advertising till then. The whole thing seemed very depressing and the worst part was that I had nothing to fall back on, no plan B.

April came. There were a few clients but not enough to feel I’d made it yet. I changed advertising tactics. I switched from placing big colourful ads in just the one series of papers to throwing the net over a wider area with smaller ads in papers in 3 counties. This had to be my last shot. I was running out of money and ideas.

My ex-mother-in-law died, so did another old friend as well as a distant relative with MS who was killed in a traffic accident in his invalid carriage. All this precipitated another escape, this time to Suffolk. This time Jean came too. One night I was woken by a loud crash and found that she’d fallen out of her bed onto the wooden floor. Things, I think, were taking their toll on her as well. (She’ll be 80 this year.) We went home after 3 days to be home for my son’s 30th birthday – he was currently in a high state of tension, finally taking Saturn in his 10th house seriously. He now realises that I was right all along and he does need better qualifications in order to get a better job. He used to be the outlaw and I used to be the teacher, now we’ve switched roles.

On 4th April with Jupiter trine Mercury I wrote a piece for another paper and sent copies to other publications. When it came out though, it was edited way down and there was no response from anyone.

The following week was busy but for the rest of the month (May), with nothing in the diary, I decided, finally, to let go of the office. But a compromise emerged with the person from whom I rent it: he said that instead of the office I could share his conference room in the same building, use it on a pro rata basis. This was acceptable because I could keep the address, the brass plate and Daphne. Now I began to feel the pressure easing….. Then 4 clients phoned for appointments.

It was difficult to balance detaching myself from my ambitions while retaining enough enthusiasm to do charts for people. But the process of letting go, I believe, relates back all the way to that which began at the P-New Moon in 1988 - which started with Jean, and the freedom (or the chains) which she brought into my life that gave me the space to do all of the above. Back then I was given, and I accepted, the money, the time and the space to try and do all of those 5th house things which had to do with finding the self, and I battled every step of the way with Saturn in the 4th, Mars in Capricorn in the 6th and Jupiter in the 10th. I’m hoping that now I’m finally cottoning on to how I’m supposed to handle these difficult dynamics. Give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves, but if you have Pluto in the 1st square the Sun in Scorpio in the 4th, it’s clearly a process of continual rebirths.

June 03

Which is better, to be stimulated into creativity or to enjoy peace and balance. Perhaps you need one in order to have the other.

I was thinking about doing a Ph.D. along the lines of ‘why the teaching profession needs astrology and why astrology needs teachers’, because they both do, badly. It would be an opportunity for me to redeem the past 11 years of my life as seen through the eyes of society (Saturn in Libra, Mars in Capricorn, Jupiter in Taurus in 10th ).

Fuelled by thoughts of dedicating the next 2 years to research I went on a short weekend break to the Welsh mountains whereupon all my ideas and plans immediately leaked away into the surrounding beauty, and without a word of warning I found myself suddenly at peace. It was such an unusual condition for me that I didn’t know what to make of it. The weather was perfect. There was a Full Moon at 23 Sagittarius conjunct Venus in my chart (and near T-Pluto). The previous New Moon had been a solar eclipse at about 9 Gemini squaring my Mercury. At the time of that eclipse I’d spent 3 torturous but compelling days in London for reasons to do with the CPA – party, seminar, oral. The London experience, being a part of the busy, frantic hub of life was the precise opposite to the Welsh mountain experience of beauty, emptiness, nature and peace. At the eclipsed New Moon, ideas about prolonging or evolving my study of astrology had been seeding themselves. But at the Full Moon away they went.

I began to think: astrologers don’t care about the art of teaching, they just care about astrology. And teachers quite likely have enough to do without putting aside time to deal with something else, something that is not an immediately obvious and instant teaching aide. OK, so I could make a pretty good case – concise and quick – for astrology going on the curriculum as a language or as a branch of psychology or perhaps even as a corollary of R.E. – the journey inwards to God or Self; ‘…the Sun in the birthchart is a reflection of God and the journey to selfhood……..’ Or even for the placement of a counselling astrologer on the staff to help with insight into many staff/student problems.

But then, in a flash, I saw more clearly than before the difference between the established methods of education and the freedom to learn that exists in a looseknit organisation like the CPA. For the first time I began to appreciate some of the benefits of Uranian oriented learning & teaching. Within the established order there are many rules, there are tutors to criticise, there is formality, there is a highly organised and structured way to arrive at a piece of original research. It is a way to have good work validated.

Within the way devised by Uranus which is freedom oriented, both teacher and student are completely free to learn, teach and create in the way they feel is best. There are few rules and little formality. There’s a good chance that anything written down is never read and in the material that is aired in the group, there is such variety of interpretation that truth, however relative, is never evident and it is unclear how to resolve the widely opposed views and methods of those who pose as tutors. A poor astrologer will go unseen and good work is un-validated. In exchange there is a freedom that both allows for creativity and directs a psychological process that is, apparently, the raison d’être of the CPA.

But Ouranos despised his creation, and in return some of them despised him. The CPA is a somewhat reluctant mother of its children but wherever there’s a strong Uranus there is usually much freedom as well. Freedom for what? Freedom to discover the self as separate from its creator.

So I am beginning to have second thoughts about generously donating astrology to the establishment. When the time is right perhaps the establishment will approach the astrologer. It was interesting to read a piece by Rob Hand in Mountain Astrologer recently, because he is undertaking work on the history of astrology for a formal qualification. Astrologers do seem to want to be legitimised by the authorities.

But why struggle and strive when everything might already be the way it is meant to be? It must be the reflection of a person’s inner need to be validated by something or someone outside the self….

August

Have I realised the potential I envisioned at the start of my initiative to start my astrology practice in town? Am I satisfied?

At this point, yes, but not because I realised the potential I had originally imagined. (‘…a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?‘) More because now I can relax, knowing that I did as much as I could. Which is not to say that I couldn’t have done more, only that I couldn’t find the will to do more at the time. I am now content with the quantity of clients that come my way. It feels right. I can allow events to unfold at the appropriate rate (Saturn). What I have been doing is not so much about my role as an astrologer as about ‘realising myself’, creating myself within my life. If I look back at that progressed New Moon conjunct natal Venus and t-Uranus and Saturn in 1988 (see attached chart #2), I can see that my grasping at astrology as a career is only one event on the journey which began with my decision to live with Jean as an ‘outsider’ and experience the consequences. Astrology came along on the way to help me understand this process.

I now practise acceptance of who I am - which is sometimes hard because I am ‘un-social’ for someone with a lot of earth and Capricorn and Saturn. I have beaten myself up over this much in the past. In my case the benefits of living an authentic existence come without social advantages. It is isolating. But it is my chosen way. I’m doing it on purpose.

Just when I thought I couldn’t get anymore isolated I am now beginning a new period of seclusion/meditation while Saturn transits my 12th house. Saturn is currently opposing natal Chiron in Capricorn……. It is interesting for me to look back to the last time Saturn was at this position: my son was just over a year old and I had decided for the first time to go back to school in order to study – because for the first time I wanted to study. Domesticity and child-rearing were not for me, so by comparison, school looked better. Although I took the responsibility of parenthood very seriously. Anyway, 29 years ago when Saturn was in my 12th – soon to conjunct Uranus – I began a period of withdrawal from society for reasons of education and domestic/family difficulties.

At the present time there are similarities: my son has just been ejected ignominiously from his home and I am housing all of his belongings while he is searching for a life of pleasure and fun, despite large debts, in Brighton. My ex-husband chooses to have nothing to do with this, as before. At home, I continue to live with Jean who is elderly. She is a wonderful person but there are the inevitable tests.

Finally, my hopes for the future regarding the realities of practising astrology with clients. Education is a discipline in itself. It is widely recognised in education that the post-graduate year offered in education to qualify new teachers isn’t enough. After I’d completed a 4 year course in education which included my chosen subject, English, for about 50% of the syllabus, I then served a probationary year in school, with supervision, before being considered a fully fledged teacher.

I often feel, now that I am working full time with clients that I would benefit from supervision of some sort as a fledgling astrologer. It would help me to improve as an astrologer and protect the client. I think it perhaps needs a body like the APA to set some professional standards within astrology so that people starting practices can be connected with a personal mentor or supervisor.

I also wonder if astrology is enough without a background in another discipline like psychology or English literature or history. In addition to a short course in counselling for those working with clients.

I’d also like eventually to see those good souls who currently enjoy teaching astrology do a post-graduate year in teaching. I think I might have mentioned this before……….

I welcome the feeling of completion that accompanies my coming to the end of the CPA certificate course having kicked and screamed every inch of the way. It has never been anything I expected or hoped for yet I managed to make it the most demanding course of study that I have ever undertaken.

Not resembling formal education in any respect, it took a while for me to realise that it didn’t have to do that in order for me to learn something, or change into something. It was the first time that I was the subject of my own development. If someone had told me this at the start I probably, with much authority, would not have believed them, perceiving the growth of my career rather than myself.

It seems to me now that the less that a structure or a teacher imposes on the individual, the more personal growth can take place. I would never have figured this out without actually experiencing it, which is perhaps why I persisted so reluctantly through to the end.

This is only my point of view. Most of the other students on the course seem to engage with it in a different way. The prevailing transit to my birthchart during my time on the course ( I began in the spring of 1999) was Pluto conjunct Mercury and square my Moon. So the CPA accompanied me through a very difficult passage.

I was to discover that I was only going to get out of it what I put into it whereas at the start I had thought that it was a commodity, that I would receive some new form of understanding by entering into the usual student-teacher deal. But I discovered that there were no teachers and there was no curriculum. It was, in fact, all to do with an inner process which is what life is all about anyway, including all that we term education, but in this case the focus was exclusively upon the inner process – and this made the necessity for teachers and a curriculum redundant.

As my attention was focused outward on the apparent lack of cohesion around an absent institution I spent most of my time battling with projected CPA demons. So why didn’t I just quit?

I did once. Stayed away for 4 terms I think. It was the Two Towers enactment of the Saturn-Pluto opposition which took me back. It was having a direct influence on the world and my own Mercury-Moon square and there was only one person I knew who could shed some bright light on all this and that was Liz, whose seminar on the subject I had to hear. So I was forced, kicking and screaming, back into the nest-with-no-mother, to the CPA whose Centre I now know, while geographically located in London, was psychologically located within me (go to the top of the class, Gill), finally to learn that I was the creator of all my unrest.

It seems pretty obvious now that the world weaves, I weave, fabulous deceptions.