At the Lodge - 2nd June 2003

Lodge Lecture | Members' Classes | Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

Les Bailey is a revered and long serving member of our Committee. He is one the 'old school' astrologers and still draws his horoscopes by hand. They are a work of art! It was a pleasure to see so many charts and good samples of his chosen theme The Dark Side of Neptune - or Lunacy. The charts were drawn from people from the seedier side of life, who had mainly survived and pulled themselves out of the mire. Some of them didn't.

Mavis pointed out that the ones who did manage to had a grand trine in their charts. Those who had relationship problems also showed a tendency towards the Nodes being on the Ascendant/descendant axis.

One of the features of Neptune is that one can hear voices. Does that make the person mad or clairvoyant? Neptune does not do too well in the material world. The more materials it acquires the bigger the prison it finds itself in.

Les also showed his own chart and those of his children and grandchildren. He has a grand trine too, so do some of his brood. They all feature Neptune very strongly in their charts. His family history can be traced back to the year 1100 and beyond. Someone asked if they were sailors. The answer was that there were a lot of pirates!

A thought provoking and fascinating talk. Thank you Les.

Carole West

Members' Classes

This was the third of a series given by Nick Kollerstrom. Tonight he talked about the Moon. As an Astronomer Nick talks about the Sidereal Zodiac. He looked at the recent Lunar Eclipse which occurred sidereally at 9 degrees of Gemini on Aldeberon, thus opposing Antares in Sagittarius. The Eclipse season happens twice a year and moves around every 18.6 years.

He went on to talk about the Moon at Apogee (being the farthest away) and identified as Lilith, the black moon. This position can be shown in the chart. However it is impossible to show the Perigee position as the moon swings back and forth when it comes close.

There are two other cycles to consider - The Saros cycle of 18 years 11 days used by the Jewish religion and the Metonic cycle of the Lunar Nodes, 19 years, so that at your 19th birthday the sun and the moon will be at the exact natal position. Sun spots also rotate in 27.3 days. Every 11 years the magnetic field of the sun flares up and goes down, flips over and raises up again, so it completes every 22 years.

The moon phase (synodic) lasts 29. 5 days and effects blood and fertility. The Moon has now moved away from the gravitational pull of the earth and is now nearer the gravitational pull of the sun.

Every year Nick writes a book entitled 'Planting by the Moon' details of which can be found on his website

Charts Discussion

A very varied week this week. Mavis started by showing us the chart of Sir Edmund Hillary - the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He had Sun conjunct Jupiter (which symbolised his adventurous spirit and doing grandiose things), Mars conjunct Pluto which would give him the stamina and drive plus his Moon in Aries also confirmed his love for adventure, bravado and courage. He also had a Mercury conjunction with Saturn which Mavis said he would be good, working with his hands (which he needed to be being a climber!!)

We did an update on Tony Blair to see if he would survive the current crisis concerning his leadership and the weapons of mass destruction. The Neptune - Jupiter opposition was hitting his moon and it would be over the next day, 3rd to 9th house - so yes they are the indications of deceit. Our President Claire had his progressed chart details - which are:-

Progressed Moon at 9 Sagittarius (recently opposed by the eclipse)

Progressed Jupiter 10 Gemini - opposed by the Moon

This all indicates troubled times ahead but we did not think he would be resigning as Prime Minister. I think it will be very close though and he definitely is not going to be popular.

Next we showed the chart of Sylvester Stallone who funnily enough has the same birthdate as President Bush. However Mr Rambo has Capricorn rising whereas President Bush has Leo on the ascendant. We compared the charts and what a difference the place makes. We felt that Rocky was 1 a very private person and 2, very hard working plus, 3 intelligent and 4 other people are important to him.

The next chart was an alternative date for the birth of Christ which was published in the recent Daily Mail (Saturday 31st May) It was stated in an article that Jesus was born at dawn 25th December 7 BC. I had produced the chart. The article had stated that the star of Bethlehem was a conjunction of the planets of Mercury and Venus, which when it occurs just before the Sun is very bright. However we thought that the conjunction that morning was too close to the sun to be visible (6 deg). Apart from that it was a very good chart symbolising the life of Christ.

I read an email I had received regarding the conjunction of planets which occur at the end of August. The email predicted there would be many earthquakes at that time, and also predicted severe weather patterns. We decided to avoid the Pacific rim at this time. Please note Kim Farnell will be giving a lecture of weather astrology on 7th July.

We finished with a chart of a friend of mine. Thus ended a very varied chart discussion.

Please note Saturn leaves Gemini and goes into Cancer on the 4th June .

Gill Dorren

Lodge Lecture | Members' Classes | Charts Discussion