This question from Keteki was so fundamental and so important that I’ve decided to answer it as a post.

She writes:

Hello Dawn

I always had this doubt about composites.
Why is it that only the midpoint between similar planets are given importance?
When two people interact why is the sun/sun and moon/moon midpoints more important than say A’s sun and B’s moon?

There is something called composite sun and composite moon and their aspects are important and reveal something about the relationship. Doesn’t the midpoint between different planets and their aspects say anything. If so aren’t we missing a huge deal in not having a chart for all these midpoints?”

A very good question:  why do we just make up this chart of  like midpoints–Sun/Sun, Venus/Venus/, Mars/Mars?  Why don’t we consider all midpoints, if midpoints are so important?  What makes this particular midpoint chart something different from just a list of midpoints?

First of all, astrologers do use midpoints between planets in synastry.  Certainly the Soli-Lunar, or Sun/Moon midpoint, is a famous hot spot for relationship, both within and between charts  (see my articles on the Soli-Lunar Midpoint).  We all have our favorites; Venus/Mars might be a sexual boiling point, or Venus/Descendant might show us what we really desire in another.  But ultimately, the practical use of a standard midpoint is limited on its own, and only acquires meaning when we put it into the context of aspects.  If my Mars is square your Pluto, the midpoint of those two can be triggered by transiting planets or points, and then you can sit back and watch the fur fly.  If my Venus is Cancer is square your Uranus in Aries, the midpoint would reveal how inclined we were to flight or fascination.  If my Venus is trine your Uranus, the midpoint stimulation might lead us to adventure, rather than the divorce court.  But in all cases, I would feel my planet interacting with your planet in a highlighted way, and more detail would be supplied by the planet triggering the midpoint.

However, it’s still about two separate people interacting between two natal charts.  The composite chart is something else again.  In composite charts, there is a merging.  Our Suns can merge, our Moons can merge, but my Moon cannot merge with your Mars.  If you take the juice from one orange and mix it with the juice of another orange, you still have orange juice.  If you mix an orange with a mango, you have something new, not quite orange and not quite mango.  I’d be hard pressed to define what a merged Moon/Mars would actually be.  I would have to redefine every single aspect known to astrology.

Conceptually, what we are doing with a composite chart is creating an entirely new entity that has all the building blocks of any entity.  A thing unto itself, with its own life force.  It shouldn’t work, but it does.  I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again.  Couples often divorce or go through very rocky times when outer planets hit the Sun or the Ascendant of a composite.  Couples with Mars on the composite Ascendant tend to fight.  That’s just how they are together. Why?  Beats me.  But it comes down to the fact that all of astrology boils down to number, and numbers just work.  It’s as inevitable as 2 following 1.  Why2 should 2 follow 1 is another, deeper question, and has to do with the metaphysical basis of number–more on that another day.

Taking the midpoint of Sun/Sun, Moon/Moon etc. creates a unit, a third creature that is the essence of the merging of two souls.  There is a belief in Tantric philosophy that says that every time we have sex with another human being, we create a little ‘ghost.’ The composite chart IS that ghost.  It’s a map, too.  A map of our beginnings and endings, our ups and downs, our karma and our future together.  It contains what we were and what we are here to do.  Random midpoints define inter-action.  The composite chart, because of the structure it takes, is about much more.  It puts midpoint activity within a framework of being, so it can be read in a meaningful way.

Also, the natal and composite interpretations for the planets are virtually the same.  The Sun is the center, the life force of the composite chart.  It’s position shows us where our basic energy as a couple lies, and what enhances it and what impedes it.  The composite Moon shows the core of our emotional interaction, rooted in karma.  Our composite nodes tell us where we’ve been together and where we’re going.  It’s clear, it’s clean and it’s (fairly) easily interpreted, once it’s understood that the basic meanings only shift slightly from natal.

Anyone who has worked with composite charts in transit and progression knows their accuracy and their power.  When two people come together, the relationship has a purpose beyond the desires and reactions of the individuals participating in it.  This is what the composite charts reveal.  I’ve often seen cases where the individuals have terrible chart inter-dynamics, but get along famously.  Those are the ones who have lovely composite charts.  Sure, they irritate one another–but it doesn’t matter.  Together, they feel good, as if they can conquer the world.

Next time, the ever-important third quadrant:  houses seven through 9.

As we’ve said, the first quadrant of the composite chart is largely about our identity as a couple, our definition of our ‘couple-ness’, how we act,  what we own (both spiritually and materially) and how we communicate as a unit, including the way we react to our immediate environment, including our neighbors and cousins and siblings and anyone else who drops by.  All three first quadrant houses are largely instinctive.  The way we identify as a couple, our sense of what’s ours, and our way of connecting with others is mostly spontaneous.  Once we get into the second quadrant, we start talking about the things that we put into place, the things that we may plan for ourselves.  It isn’t that these houses stop being instinctive, but that they add another layer of awareness as the houses progress.  We can be aware of our contribution as a couple  in houses four, five and six the way we never were in the first three.

For those who really want to settle down, the fourth house in the composite is where its at.  I have seen terrible synastries overcome tremendous odds by having a packed fourth house.  For those people, building a life, a home, a base of operation was their modus operendi, and, with the intensity inherent in this cardinal house, nothing got in the way of that.  When a house is packed in a composite chart, the people involved pour their energy into that area of life.  It’s easier when the house represents something solid, like the fourth house with its emphasis on home and family and roots, because there is something for the composite energy to hang itself on.  It’s more difficult if something like the 12th house is emphasized; all that energy pouring into a house whose task is to dissolve and resolve, to tap a higher power.  Tricky, that one.  But the fourth, yes, home, family, roots, all those comforting things, the meatloaf and mashed potatoes of the zodiacal houses…

Well, no, not really.  At first, yes.  All of the water houses lure us in with promises of comfort and understanding.  When our composite has a packed fourth house we may buy a home and have kids right away, because we want to be a part of something, put our roots down in the world.  But the composite fourth house represents something bigger than roots and belonging.  It has to do with our conscious awareness of ourselves as a couple.

It’s different from the first house, because the first house is instinctive; the first house is about our initial way of being with one another, what happens when two become one.  We have no control over the energy we give off in the first house.  Any planets there define our togetherness to others, and are something others see right away, but we have little influence over them.  In the fourth house, we come to understand ourselves as a unit.  We are aware of ourselves as a couple and make conscious actions and contributions as a couple.  It’s an important house, because if we are not aware of working together, we may begin to work separately.  If we have outer planets on the composite IC, we may have difficulty establishing our roots–we may love one another intensely, we may try to build a life together, but may have to fight tsunamis and earthquakes, and storms before we can establish our emotional roots.  That’s another keyword for the composite house–emotions.  What we feel together might be tender or it might be stormy, but the composite fourth will show us the status of our deepest, most intimate points.  The eighth house will describe our sexual intimacy, and the 12th our sense of spiritual oneness, but the fourth is where the intimacy is, and the sign on its cusp will tell us a lot about whether or not we let other people in.  Scorpio or Pluto there can feel vulnerable, and hide our relationship from the outside world.  Gemini will incline us to open our doors.  If our sense of rootedness is secure, then the fourth house can show us our greatest strengths as a couple.  Couples with a packed fourth house know that they  feel stronger together than they ever did apart.  This is because the fourth house represents the seat of personal power–the thing that we know can never be taken away from us.  In a composite chart, it’s our bottom line as a couple, where we stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to face the world.

People tend to get all happy and smiley-faced around the fifth house.  Why shouldn’t they, in the domain of sunny Leo?  Think of all the fifth house represents–creativity, personal expression, children, chance-taking, play.  When we are fully grounded in the fourth house, the fifth house takes care of itself, which is one of the esoteric truths of astrology and has to do with the yin/yang function of the Moon and the Sun and their respective houses–the Moon comes before the Sun for a reason. (More of this another day.) Who wouldn’t want the fifth house emphasized?

Couples who have the fifth house emphasized in the composite often put a great deal of energy and effort into their children.  An outer planet there can indicate troubles conceiving, or the children become a disruption to the unity of the relationship.  Depending on the planets, there may be creative work to be done together.  I’ve seen the composite Sun appear in the composite fifth many, many times when two people come together to pour their energy into some creative project.  The two people naturally express themselves as a unit.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney not only had their composite Moon in the fifth, but the ruler of the composite fifth, Venus, was conjunct the composite Ascendant. 

However, emphasis on the composite fifth may mean that the relationship is more about play than it is about settling down.  We enjoy one another, but it may not be permanent.  Longevity would be illustrated elsewhere in the chart.  If there are squares between the fifth house and the eighth house, there may be issues around sexual fidelity and intimacy.  Conflicts between the fifth and second houses may indicate that our values are in conflict with our natural ways of expressing ourselves in the world (or we just overdo everything, especially when it comes to tapping our bank account).  We may encourage one another to take too many chances, or not take the relationship seriously enough, only to see it disintegrate through neglect or through assuming too much.

The sixth house, on the whole, is a highly misunderstood house, both in natal interpretation and in composite.  In basic astrology, it covers health, service, the mundane tasks of our daily routines, and pets (or anyone else dependent on us for livelihood, hence, servants).  That’s a lot of ground to cover, most of it a dogs dinner of rulership.  I’m going to be covering the sixth house in detail, soon, in another article, but there is a common link between all these things that comes out especially clearly in composite charts.

The sixth house is the crossroads of the chart; it’s a mutable house, a Virgo house.  As such, it’s about crisis–the crisis of becoming.  It’s where we consolidate the unit so that it’s strong enough to meet the outside world.  The sixth house is where we’re tested and refined.   It’s where we discover what we’re about. Couples with the sixth house emphasized can lead a life of tests and trials to the relationship that either serve to make it stronger or allow it to fall apart.  If there are afflictions and challenges to the sixth house, it often feels as if they come from ‘out of the blue’, and can feel very Job-like in their intensity.  The question becomes, how strong, how whole, are we as a unit?  Strength comes from working out our priorities as a couple and learning to live on an even keel.  If we fill our lives with mundane details and superficial trivia, and never have a direction or a purpose to our existence, how strong are we?  The sixth house rules health because health requires balance–body, mind and spirit working together.  When the unit is strong, it becomes a vessel for the higher energies of the 12th house, which will use it to bring good into the world, and have our partnership become a living illustration of the way the divine is housed in the ordinary details of life.  Sixth house crises are about becoming the vessel.  If we fail our tests, the higher energies break us, and we may fail our tests and fall apart.

Couples who have the sixth house prominent are often interested in health and well-being; they may also be devoted to expressing the higher energies.  If this is the case, the strength of their convictions will be tested.  In all cases, a composite chart with a prominent sixth house will ask a couple to find devotion in the day to day.  Their work in the world will have to encompass both their thoughts about their environment (3rd) and their visions and beliefs (9th).  In the sixth house, we need to open ourselves to a higher power in order to make sense of life.  The more we let the higher powers influence our decisions, the more successful we will be as carriers of those powers.  The sixth house is about transition–the transition from the meaningless to the meaningful, a place where the the smallest thing can be the most significant.   We find our compassion, because we understand that the smallest and the greatest things in life are one and the same.

It seems to me that the biggest trip-up in interpreting composite charts stems from not understanding the meaning of the composite houses, including the angles.  While they are, in fact, very similar to natal houses and angles, in interpretation they are somewhat different and have variations that need to be recognized.  For example, one of the biggest mistakes is to turn to the seventh house to see how healthy (and/or romantic) the partnership might be.  For some reason, we naturally incline to that house for all of our information about the give and take in a partnership–and it’s understandable, given the Libran bent of the seventh.  But think about it logically–if the Ascendant represents the “I” of the relationship, what does the seventh represent?  And if the seventh house in the natal can contain the Shadow of the psyche, our unconscious projections, where do you think the seventh house of a composite is taking us?

So, before going any further with composites, I think it’s a good idea for us to review composite houses and the areas of experience they represent in a composite chart.  It makes sense to know the general shape of a thing before adding in the details.

I’ll begin, of course,  with the Ascendant and the first quadrant of the chart.  We understand what the Ascendant represents in a natal chart.  It’s the degree on the horizon at the time of birth, the place where earth and sky meet.  All of the angles are symbolic of the vortex created when spirit whorls with matter.  The Ascendant is the conscious “I”, the vehicle we use to negotiate the world, our point of first reference.  It is marked by the time and place of birth–but how does this work in a composite chart?  How can two entities meet in the middle?

The composite Ascendant, including the composite first house, is the strongest point in the composite chart.  Anything that hits it affects us deeply, because it is the very identity of who we are as a couple and, in fact whether we are a couple.   Do we feel as if we belong together?  Are we a good fit?  Does this feel like a natural partnership?  Strong, unsullied aspects to the Ascendant, or strong positive planets in the first house, like the Sun, Moon, or Jupiter, are going to give us a sense of belonging together.  (Squares to these planets are telling us that we may have to work for it.)  I’ve seen couples with strong first house composites overcome many things that would tear other couples apart, because their sense of what the partnership is to them is so strong.  No question that they would stay together.  This is also true, in a larger sense, for the composite chart in general.  I’ve seen many cases where the inter-aspects between charts are terrible, the two should drive one another insane. But the composite chart is so strong and positive that the relationship thrives.  Sure, they annoy one another.  To them, it’s just part of who they are together.  The sense of ‘we,’ of ‘us’ is never tainted.

The Ascendant and first house of a composite can also be a dangerous place, because when threats come to the partnership in terms of outer planet transits or difficult progressions, the entire relationship can undergo a major crisis.  This is true of any of the composite angles, but particularly the Ascendant, on which the whole thing hangs.  Outer planet transits often are a wake up call saying, “We aren’t who we thought we were.”  These are most often the times when relationships need to change to survive.

The first house can also show us indicators of one-person ‘relationships,’ cases of fascination or obsession or just simple old unrequited love.  Usually, the person who is hooked by the relationship has a planet (or more) conjuncting the Ascendant of the composite chart very tightly.  If it’s the Sun, or Venus, that person values the relationship intensely, and it holds great meaning for their self-development, whether it lasts or not.  You will usually see conjunctions between the natal chart and the composite Moon, Venus or Saturn as well.  We can get into real difficulty when a person’s Venus/Neptune natal square falls on the angles of the composite, or Mars/Pluto.  The relationship will become a focal point for the person working out this natal dilemma, and will fuel the fires of deception, disillusionment, longing and ego-oriented desire.  The other ‘partner’ , the one who isn’t interested, will likely not have anything touching the composite in this intense way.

The second house in the composite, the Taurus house, has to do with our sense of resources and ownership.  A good second house will enhance our feelings of security and belonging when we are together.  If well-aspected, the material side of our lives will flow easily.  We most likely will agree on the way our money should be spent and how much we should pay for car insurance.  On a deeper level, the second house will reveal whether or not we perceive our relationship as a resource–whether we value and cherish it.  If we have an emphasis there, we may be able to do things together, to make things happen together, that we could never do alone.  Well-placed planets in the second house boost our resourcefulness together–but if there is too much of an emphasis on the second, we may incline to be materialistic and not see the forest for the trees if we begin to have spiritual and/or psychological differences that challenge the partnership.  Hard aspects to the second, or difficult planets there, may mean that we have to work for our stability and security.  Jupiter there might be lucky, but a challenged Jupiter might reveal that, together, we fuel the flames of overdoing things in all areas, and losses may be involved.  Our second house contains what we believe is ‘ours’–on all levels.   If Venus is there, for example, we may have a talent for togetherness and value our time together.  Good aspects will cause things to flow towards us–difficult ones will make us aware that we can’t take anything for granted where the partnership is concerned.

The third house in the composite chart is much more important than it’s given credit for.  It’s a bit difficult to get a handle on the third house because it represents so many things, but if you think in the largest, widest terms possible, they’re all related.  The third house is about connecting.  It’s like a baby naturally reaching out to connect with what is nearby, what it can grasp.  Take that further, and it’s about the mind reaching out to make connections, to understand its environment.  And it represents the environment itself, the mundane circumstances of our lives.  Which is why, in classic astrology, it represents our neighbors, our close relations, our brothers and sisters (who are just there, like the furniture, we have no choice about it).  The third house is everything around us, all those things we just accept.  In a much larger sense, and given the mental connotations of the third, it’s about how we get around, both physically and mentally–it’s about the way we think and act when we are at ‘home’ with our selves.  All those things we don’t have to think about because they’re just ‘there.’

The third house can describe a couple’s mindset about their environment–and how they move within it, as a couple.  It can also describe the things that concern them on a day to day basis–not in a philosophical sense, but the sense of where they put their awareness, where they spend their mental time.  It can also describe how they move about together–are they a stay-put type, hardly going out (Saturn) or do they rush around like the proverbial chicken with its head chopped off (Uranus).   Are they articulate and conversational (Mercury/Sun) or vague and unforthcoming (Mercury/Neptune).  If an outer planet is in the third, they may, as a couple, feel that their status quo is continually threatened.  Saturn there may cause them to be very serious about their calendar, always planning and organizing things well ahead of time.  The describes how we interact with life on a day to day basis–are we always challenging things (Mars) or happy taking it easy (Venus)?   A person who doesn’t like surprises and disruption will be very uncomfortable in a relationship where the composite third house is emphasized in a disruptive way (a Mars/Uranus conjunction, for example).  There may also be disruptions with siblings, neighbors and an unfortunate tendency for electrical appliances to break down or explode (not kidding here–I know a couple of couples with this type of aspect who have a hard time controlling their electrical flow.)

The third house is important in a composite because it describes the kind of things we need to think about in the partnership, and what occupies a great deal of our attention and time together.  This may be very different from our long term goals and plans and our very philosophy of life as a couple, which are shown in our composite ninth house.  But the third house, on the whole, is not a house that involves a lot of conscious awareness–we deal with what we need to deal with, and that’s that.  The fourth house is where we really start acting as a unit (or not) and are forced to define the partnership in terms of others.

Next time, houses Four, Five and Six.

Painting above, Yin Yang is by Paula Manning-Lewis and is used with her kind permission.  For more of her work, please click on the illustration.

I’ve written a new piece on outer planets to angles for Sasstrology.com.  If you’d like to read it,click HERE.

If you have comments, please leave them at the Sasstrology site.  I’ll be answering them soon.

Hi Folks–

It’s nice to be back.  Today we’re beginning a series on interpreting composite charts.

Of all of the misconceptions regarding synastry (and there are many) one of the most striking to me is the misinterpretation of composite charts.  I know students who were perfectly capable of reading a natal chart, who, when faced with a composite, missed the boat entirely.  There are many reasons for this, but the main one stems from confusion about what the composite chart actually IS.  We have to think conceptually about composites.  We say, offhand and casually, ‘oh, it’s the chart of the relationship itself,’  but what does that mean, exactly?  That particular description has always struck me as being more than a little vague.

First of all, you have to ask yourself, can a relationship have a chart?  Is there an actual beginning where it becomes a relationship?  And how do I time that?  Some astrologers ignore the composites and stick to the chart of the first meeting, if a time and place is known.   I like comparing progressed charts for the meeting time.  All these techniques are valid, and will tell you a great deal about the flavour of a relationship, where a relationship may be going and how long it may last.  But composite charts are something else entirely.

When two people come together and exchange energy in any way, shape or form, a third thing is created.  This is a deeply metaphysical principle that is reflected in tantric philosophy.  That third thing which is created can be, if used correctly, a map towards transcendence, towards releasing the inherent conflict and resistance between two living entities.  Used well, a composite chart is a powerful tool, a guide to partnering through spirit.  But first we have to figure out what it’s telling us.

The two main popular forms of composite charts are, as most of us know, the midpoint composite and the Davison composite.  (Please note that it’s called the Davison and not the Davidson chart.)  The midpoint chart is the one we are most familiar with.  It takes the midpoint of each planet or point in the chart and finds the midpoint between the two–Sun to Sun, Mars to Mars, Saturn to Saturn, etc..  As anyone who has worked with them knows, midpoints are powerful.  The midpoint between any two entities is where the rubber meets the road–there is a flash, an energy point that is attractive, magnetic, that creates experience according to the expression (or expressions) involved.  Midpoints are about essence. It is also where the two entities can resolve their differences, where they can merge.  And lastly, the midpoint shows action;  it reveals where the blended energies will take form.  What we end up with is a chart that is it’s own entity.  It reveals, not the interaction between two people (i.e. my Pluto conjunct your Moon makes you cry) but the action of the relationship itself (our composite Pluto conjunct our composite Moon reveals an emotionally tense, perhaps fraught, relationship where power plays and emotional manipulation from both parties may be the norm).  The good news about midpoint composites is that, with work and the cooperation of both parties, all difficulties are resolvable.  Our composite Moon/Pluto conjunction may lead us to explore the deeper side of our interaction, which may lead to cleansing us of he manipulative behaviour that emerges when we’re together.  Our relationship may never be a walk in the park emotionally, but our desire to dig may lead both of us to our soul-path via Pluto’s action on our essential awareness.  The first Moon/Pluto pairing, with the conjunction between the charts, will have a much harder time of it because one person’s Moon will be fighting another person’s Pluto, and vice versa.  (Conjunctions are not the happy, stable things many assume them to be.)

The Davison chart is a midpoint chart in time and space.  We say that a lot, too, without explaining it.  Davison discovered that if you calculate the exact point in time and the exact point in space between any two birth charts, the resulting chart was a powerful tool.  It’s a midpoint chart that is not theoretical, but anchored in real space and real time.  If you were born in 1950 and I was born in 1960, our Davison chart would occur in 1955.  The chart is calculated from the adjusted birth time and place. (The birthplace may end up in the middle of the ocean; it doesn’t matter.)   Is this also a chart of the relationship?  Yes, it is.  Is it different from the midpoint chart?  Some say no, just work with them and pick your preference.  I say yes, they are different, for a good reason.

The midpoint chart is a powerful map of an energetic pattern–our hotspots as a couple.  It’s our charisma, our union, who we are when we are together.  It is inner-oriented, focused around the pure expression of the energy that occurs when our two like planets meet.  The Davison, like all time/space charts, is anchored not in pure expression, but in physical reality.  It describes who we are together within our particular life circumstances.  Therefore the Davison chart is expressed through the physical reality of our lives.  It sees our relationship being acted upon by circumstances, places, other entities/beings involved in the partnership.  It has a life of its own, and can be progressed the way any normal chart is progressed, because it has a real time and a real place to anchor it.  (Progressed midpoint charts consist of taking the two individual progressed charts and making a midpoint chart from them.)  Now here comes the big question, which is more valid?  I say both, and I use them both, in different circumstances, depending on the questions being asked of the partnership.

Since the Davison reflects the physical here and now (it’s still a theoretical chart, but it’s grounded in mundane reality) I prefer to use it for physical here and now questions.  Mother-in-law issues, or kids driving you both crazy?  Davison.  Is a move going to affect our relationship?  Davison.   A third party invading our relationship?  Davison to get the picture, and the midpoint chart to figure out why.  We feel as if we’re coming apart at the seams, everything is dissolving.  Midpoint.  We’ve headed into a good patch in our relationship, how long will it last?  Midpoint  (and Davison if there are specific causes for the good vibes–new job, etc.).

Both charts are highly sensitive to transits (both the actual composites and progressed composites).  And both charts are extremely revealing when you put the natal charts around the composite in a biwheel to see how each person reacts to the relationship dynamic (more on this later).   Putting a triwheel in place with transits and one of the natal charts will give you an instant, clear picture of one person’s experience of the relationship, and show you how the transit affects  both the individual and the partnership.

But again, we must first interpret the composite chart itself.  This can get complicated, because sometimes the two composites look very much alike, sometimes they’re flipped, and sometimes one looks nothing like the other.  This is not as confusing as it seems, and we will get to that next time.  The most confusing thing in composites is in the subtle difference between natal houses and composite houses, and we will explore more of this next time.

Progressions Two:  Progressions in Synastry

I am scheduling classes beginning Saturday, May 5th.  Fees for the course, or the first half of the course if you are paying in installments, will be due then.

Open to all who have taken my Progressions One course.  No exceptions, sorry.  We will be looking at progressions from the point of view of the development of consciousness and will be using some unique techniques and definitions that were taught in Progressions One.

 Many clients come to the astrologer with one question, “When will I meet someone?”  Recent astrological research has confirmed what astrologers have known for years–the most reliable indicator of partnership is the secondary progressed chart. Knowing  how to interpret the secondary progressed chart in synastry will not only tell you when a relationship is likely, but it will reveal the hot points and danger zones in a relationship and give a good indication whether a couple will weather the relationship storm or decide to go their separate ways.

Studying the progressed chart will also reveal some clues to the reason for a relationship’s existence.  If we take a look at what is happening in an individual’s progressed chart, and compare it to another’s natal and progressed charts, we get a good notion of what role that individual is destined to take in our spiritual development.  If a couple is having difficulties, the progressed chart can reveal whether these are short term or are more indicative of a long term issue—it may be the end of a cycle for one or both parties, and the progressed chart will tell us why.  The progressed chart can also indicate whether or not there are rough days ahead, (even though things may seem fine right now); it can help us be prepared for the changes and compromises demanded of us in the future.

Much emphasis is placed on Saturn in synastry to show us whether or not a relationship has the right ‘glue.’ However, the natal chart is basically a map of our potential, frozen in time.  The progressed chart  unlocks the secrets of the natal chart to reveal  what –and who–we need for our soul’s development at any given time. Progressions Two will help us understand the role of the people we choose to take with us as we move forward, and their significance in our spiritual journey.

The course of Progressions Two will consist of the following, and may be adjusted according to each student.   The classes will be illustrated by case studies:

• Lesson One:      When Will I Find Someone?  Partnership indicators in the long and short term.  The significance of meeting charts.
• Lesson Two:      How Long Will It Last? The Sun/Venus Cycle and Relationship Longevity; The Role of Jupiter/Juno in Progressed Synastry. (This class may run over into Lesson  Three.)
• Lesson Three:   The Conjunctio– Major Crossroads: The Progressed Sun/Moon cycle and its significance within and between Charts. (This class may run over into Lesson Four.)
• Lesson Four:     Crisis and Conflict–  Relationship Red Flags in Progression and How to Work With Them;  Progressed Aspects to the Nodes and Angles. Outer planet partile aspects.
• Lesson Five:      Reading the Progressed Composite and the Progressed Davison Charts;  The Progressed Vertex and the progressed Part of Fortune; the role of Asteroids in Relationship Progressions
• Optional Lesson Seven:  TBA, for an additional $35 fee.

If you are interested in the course, please email me:  alcuin9@gmail.com. The six part course is $240 and is payable via Paypal.  Payment can be split into two installments of $120.    All classes are taught one-to-one over the phone and spaces are limited.  I will send you supporting material and charts.  As always, the classes will be recorded and a link to an mp3 of each session will be sent to you afterward. 

Any questions, please contact me at the email above.

For all of my students who have taken Progressions One and are ready for the challenge of the Progressions Two course, classes will begin in early May.

Details on cost, length of course, etc. will be up on Friday.

Hope to be teaching you all again soon!

THERE ARE STILL A FEW SLOTS AVAILABLE FOR THE BASICS REDUX COURSE.  THIS FIVE PART COURSE REEXAMINES ASTROLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALS, AND CHALLENGES ASTROLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS.  WE’RE RETHINKING ASTROLOGY FROM THE INSIDE OUT AND GETTING RID OF SOME OLD CONCEPTS AND SACRED COWS.  IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, CONTACT ME at alcuin9@gmail.com.  THE DEADLINE FOR BEGINNING THE COURSE IS MARCH 27th.

A NEW INTERMEDIATE COURSE IN CHART SYNTHESIS, DEEP CUTS, WILL BEGIN IN APRIL.  DEEP CUTS WILL FOCUS ON THE ROLE OF DISPOSITORS AND HOUSE RULERSHIPS IN CUTTING THROUGH  TO THE CORE OF THE CHART TO REVEAL THE  IMPORTANT THEMES.  LISTS OF ASPECTS WILL GO OUT THE WINDOW AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE THE CHART FROM A MORE HOLISTIC, AND HUMANISTIC, POINT OF VIEW.  More details soon…

A NEW, THREE PART WORKSHOP COURSE, JOURNEYS THROUGH GENIUS, WILL ALSO BEGIN IN APRIL.  JOURNEYS THROUGH GENIUS WILL EXPLORE A UNIQUE TALENT OR ABILITY AS IT SHOWS ITSELF THROUGH THREE DIFFERENT CHARTS.  WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT CASANOVA, DANNY KAYE and  LEONARDO DA VINCI HAD IN COMMON?  STAY TUNED…

It’s that time of year again.  You’re making it through another winter, head down, nose to the grindstone (most of us, I think, work harder in the winter, no doubt Capricorn’s influence over the season), when all of a sudden, it happens.  A warm breeze hits you just when you’ve grown chummy with the icy blasts, and suddenly, there it is.  Green everywhere.  Grass.  Budding leaves.  Daffodils.  The living earth is returning.

Not so coincidentally, it’s also the season of shamrocks, leprechauns, and  green beer (I actually have never seen such a thing; they tell me it exists–green beer, not leprechauns.  I know leprechauns exist.)  You might think the reawakening of the earth and St. Patrick’s Day aren’t related, but they are, astrologically, and in a very deep way.  All things considered and St. Patrick aside, his celebration is very much an astrological holiday.  So whether you are one of those people who loves St. Patrick’s Day, or whether you think it’s a day off for drunken hooligans, there is no mistaking its archetypal roots.  It’s green all around.  Everything is new.  Everything is beginning.  We’re awakening from our long sleep.

We pay a lot of attention to the solstices.  It makes sense, they’re all about the Sun–and the longest and shortest daylight of the year.  That meant a lot for our electricity-deprived ancestors.  You had to make hay while the Sun shone–literally.  The June Sun was a celebration of warmth and light.  During the December solstice, you did what you could of the mending and fixing and thawing your fingers in front of the fire and prayed for either the viril, creative Sun to return, the young king, or for Mother Earth (Cancer) to become fecund again (depending on your culture).  The effect this has on us psychologically is unmistakeable.  I remember the impact it had on me when I moved northward a few latitudes, to London.  There, during December, the sky starts turning purple around 3:30 pm.  The early twilight is both eerie and appropriate.  No wonder ghost stories are a Christmas tradition there.

Everyone knows that the Winter Solstice and Christmas are amalgamated through mythology, tradition and ritual.  We’ve borrowed a lot from our pagan ancestors, their Yule log, their mistletoe.  But I don’t think we think enough about the astrological and astronomical foundations of our holidays.  The Solstices are about Cancer/Capricorn, the Earth at its ripeness and the Earth at its most barren.  This in fact, coincides with the natural position in the chart of the MC and the IC, birth and death, physical initiation and culmination, our depths and our heights.  How dramatic.  How like the Sun.

In comparison, the Equinoxes get short shrift.  Oh, sure, we mark the beginning of Spring and Fall.  But there are a lot of people out there, even astrologers, who don’t know why it’s called an equinox.  It’s all about light again.  At the equinoxes, the light is balanced–an equal amount of light and dark.  Surely something as powerful as that deserves a celebration of its own?

The equinoxes describe the beginning and the end of the season of growth.  We sow in spring and reap in fall.  The Sun is literally at zero Aries in March and zero Libra in September.

The emergence of the Spring from the remains of Winter is very much about the shift from the last sacrifice of Pisces to the screaming newborn, Aries.  Aries will not be denied.  Try to keep that grass from growing or those buds from forming.  It just won’t happen.  (To get on a personal rant here, we would see the effects of the light much more clearly if the ******governments of the world would stop messing around with the time.  When is someone going to universalize time change?  Why do we need it at all?  And don’t get me started on the way bloody Dubya Jr. (Bush to you) shoved our Daylight Savings two weeks ahead of Europe, and strung it out on the other end as well, making life hell for those of us who work internationally.  As if we didn’t have enough reasons to despise the former regime–for astrologers, it’s a nightmare.)  The aggression of Spring is partnered by the mildness of a Libran September.  The days are still warm and the harvest is plenty, and still coming in.  We can reap the benefits of our work.

Again, our pagan ancestors understood this, and divided their calendar into the Equinoxes, Solstices and the midpoints in between, giving eight feast days in all, and from this, with an overlay of mythology and Christianity, we have derived our major holidays.  You might consider Valentine’s day a Hallmark holiday (holidays invented to sell greeting cards) but in truth it is what we have left of Imbolc, a celebration of the return of the light.  Easter and Mother’s Day are both associated with fertility (c’mon–rabbits, eggs, and flowers) and connected to the May holiday of Beltane.  We’ve lost the celebration of the three stages of harvest–ripened grain/seed that was connected with August (Lammas) and the the gathering in of the Autumnal equinox (Mahon) but it culminates in that giant shadow festival we celebrate as Halloween (Samhain). (There is an element to both of the earlier festivals that relates to enjoying the fruits of your labours, so the celebration may very well be connected to our Labour Day and/or our annual holidays in the lazy days of summer.)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt a keen connection to these holidays.  Scratch the surface of their ‘Hallmark’ meanings, and you get important ritual days that mark the passage of time, light, and life.  They represent the way time is reflected in the heavens, and the way our lives are defined by the spin of the planets through the dark universe.  As astrologers, we take it a step further, and understand that planetary movement can provide a kind of guidance that is crucial.  Beyond the light, planetary movement allows us to see how our own evolution is connected with the evolution of the world around us.  The seasons, and our ritual holidays, provide a framework that allows perspective.  The light will come, the light will go, and the light will return again.

Happy Vernal Equinox, everyone.  Now go plant something and watch it grow.

A new entry for my monthly column on Sasstrology.com, Synastry Studies,  is up now.  We’re exploring outer planets to angles and the purpose of relationship altogether.

Click here to read more:  Paying the Price of Wisdom

Coming Up:  A New Post on Astrology and the Archetype of Seasons, tomorrow!