At the Lodge - 23rd June 2003

Lodge Lecture | Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

Bernard Eccles, twice President of the Lodge and now involved in the Sofia project at Bath Spa University, was the guest speaker tonight. His talk posed the question Where do we go from here? He started off with a tale of two gardens and likened astrology to those two samples of either wild and natural and free flowing or manicured and rigid. In other words, how does Astrology grow in our society?

It is in fact an underground stream, always there, flowing along underneath while all the different eras of history, faith and knowledge were playing out in the the world. It started with Manilus (all fate and no free will) and worked its way through Medieval, Renaissance, enlightenment, the 19th Century with its heavy industry, the 1960s and the current 1990s. Through all those times astrology either boomed, almost died or was ignored.

In 1915, when the Lodge was formed by Alan Leo, very few people new what a sun sign was. Today millions of people all over the world know their sun sign. It has gone through low astrology - folklore, scientific astrology - based on statistics, psychological astrology and traditional - horary. Sociological factors have now replaced it all. So where is it going now?

Astrology is a practice - an art, moveable, a thing that you do. Today people want their lives to be enchanted. They care about ecology. They want the planet still to be there. So the secret is a knowledge of cycles. The chart is the beginning to the insight it would bring. Listen to the celestial instructions. Use astrology to guide your life. There is a sense of rhythm, continuity.

Make an active plan.

Be your own local wise person.

Tell people what is happening in the cycles.

Plant the seeds of astrology.

Be an example yourself.

Live life as an astrologer.

Bernard gave a talk of great insight and deserved the full house he attracted, Many thanks Bernard.

Carole West

Charts Discussion

Our first chart was shown by our Treasurer, Alison Kelly. She put up the chart of Hans Christian Anderson . She felt that the Venus in Pisces aptly showed the story of The Little Mermaid. She gave a biography of the great story teller and drew parallels with JM Barry who wrote Peter Pan, in the fact that both never married and both wrote for the children of friends.

We then had a little Wimbledon fever showing the chart of Leyton Hewitt to see what transits made him lose his first game and go out of the tournament. Well let's all thank Mars conjunction Uranus causing shock surprises. However his chart looked good with a few trines and we concluded that with Uranus having been transiting his Mercury/Venus conjunction in Aquarius, his attitude had been cocky and that this shock would make him rethink.

Next we looked at the charts of Serena and Venus Williams, the golden girls of tennis. We checked their biographies and the transits to their charts for the next few weeks. Our money is on Venus (money should always go on Venus as Jupiter will be transiting her Moon/North Node in the lucky 11th house and Venus is transiting her Sun in the lucky 9th.) Serena has Jupiter moving away for the sextile of Jupiter and away from her Mars, so we couldn't see her regaining her crown. We shall see, watch this space, or Wimbledon that is.

Lastly we did the chart of the Mayor of New York Mike Bloomburg. Again looking at his biography. He is a very wealthy business man with his IT business aptly shown by the Venus/Mercury conjunction close to the ongoing New Moon in Aquarius, which all oppose the mighty Pluto and Chiron in the first house, making him an intense, and ruthless person to deal with. Having Mars conjunct Saturn close to Uranus in the 10th/11th houses would assist this and lucky Jupiter in lucky 11th House in the communicative sign of Gemini. Aries Midheaven gives him the drive to succeed in his career but with Cancer on the ascendant - he must have a sensitive side in there somewhere!!!!

Gill Dorren

Lodge Lecture | Charts Discussion