Adventures in Astrology

by Rev. Pam Crane

This year, 2008, sees the AA celebrating its 50th birthday, and a whole bunch of us looking back over 40 years of  membership. Collectively, we have achieved a tremendous amount over the decades, had a great deal of fun with our beloved astrology, and made many, many friends around the world. With Pluto now poised to leave the extravagance and freedom of Sagittarius for the restraints of Capricorn, it’s a good moment for anyone to pause and take stock. With the advent of computing, it has become possible as never before to explore unfamiliar territory in astrology and break new ground - but has it been worthwhile? Will our adventures have lasting value?

When testing novel techniques, beginner’s luck runs true to form. The first couple of charts will always ‘work’ just as we hoped - routinely followed by a string of woeful failures and the demise of a brilliant idea. Finding consistency in astrology is far rarer than we would like to believe. You can spend weeks, months on a promising project, and just end up with a headache.

So, among the scores of inviting and innovative techniques now at our disposal, what does consistently work?  What  - in no particular order - are my Top Ten?

Reflex charts

This is a term I choose instead of the rather cumbersome ‘contrantiscia’ (the opposite points to the antiscia.) Reflex points mirror their radix planets across the Aries/Libra axis, and when a reflex is added to its radix the sum is 360º. These are well-tried and often neglected patterns that will supply the missing parts of the picture; for example, where is the extraordinariness of Bill Gates? Where is all his fame and power and drive and massive wealth? Where is ‘Windows’? In the reflex/radix alignments. The Moon-Mars jumps to the meridian, the Sun collects Jupiter-Pluto. QED.

Sidereal charts

Tropical charts are based on the local space of the solar system, they describe very accurately the behavioural psychology of humans and animals, and the overall environment and viability of structures and organisations. Used for Horary questions, they can provide the skilled practitioner with a reasonably unambiguous answer. Sidereal charts, however, deriving their signs from the constellations of limitless space, picture life at a trans-personal, historic level; human behaviour in a public role is pictured here, and the sidereal pattern is always dominant in charts of historic significance. A good topical example is the Zimbabwe tyrant Robert Mugabe, ostensibly a Piscean, but effectively a sidereal Aquarian - bent first on rebellion, and then, his Leo Moon in love with pomp, on securing his position by any unorthodox means he can employ. The tropical Mars-Jupiter, already fiery in Sagittarius, is sidereally in Scorpio generating the massive brutality which has made him an international pariah. Incidentally, the eclipses of 28th August 2007, February 21st 2008 and August 1st 2008 all hit Mugabe’s self-destructive Sun/S.Node head-on, the first two directly, the third opposing his sidereal Sun; the climax and denouement of Zimbabwe’s political drama cannot be far away.

Draconic charts

After 30+ years of work with the circle of signs that begins at the Dragon’s Head, the connection of these positions with the soul and its fundamental belief-system is pretty well established. People born (every 18+ years) with the Dragon’s Head at 0 Aries are more likely to practise (tropical) what they preach (draconic)! The draconic sun-sign is of central importance to one’s mission and conduct in life, and it’s location in the tropical houses shines a spotlight on the corner of the world stage where most of the key action will take place. Hence draconic work cannot be properly done without using a bi-wheel.

Returning to Bill Gates, his imaginative draconic Sun/Neptune is predictably in Aquarius, as his whole life has centred on the development of the Information Technology that he loves. Radically this is a creative 5th-house Sun; but of course all this work has taken place in the context of building a massive, almost monopolistic global business, so the draconic Sun has amde its home in the 8th house. For good measure the drive and genius for PR is repeated here with the draconic Moon-Mars straddling the horizon - but he also has the typical high-profile pattern of draconic Ascendant conjunct Sun. George W. Bush also gets an angular draconic Sun, as you would expect ... it is on his radix MC in Aries, constantly spoiling for a fight that he has to win. Enough said.

At this point I need to emphasise that putting two, three or four dimensions of a chart together in a multi-wheel throws up visually the conjunctions and oppositions that link them; these characterise the life as syndromes, repeating patterns, recurring ideas, themes, that are a huge help in counselling, ripe to be explored (the client often comes when there are strong transits to important inter-dimensional clusters like this.) And don’t forget to map a composite chart in a tri-wheel between the two radices; again you will see lines of planetary energy you would otherwise have missed, which shed much more light on the relationship.

Current Draconic (CD)

This system of symbolic directions is calculated by making a draconic chart using not the chart’s radix North Moon’s Node but the currently transiting position of the Node. It has a lot to say about destiny. As the Nodes move fairly rapidly back through the sky - one circuit every 18+ years - these directions also approach and recede quite quickly.  To chart them you need to check the transiting Node’s position, subtract this from 360º, and enter the result as a User Arc in Solar Fire’s progression menu. This will move the radix chart round to the correctly directed position, and this can be set against the radix in a bi-wheel.

Bill Gates’ Moon lined up with rich Jupiter/Pluto when he first launched Windows on 20th November 1985, as that same Jupiter/Pluto reached his Ascendant, all the while his Sun/Neptune  still lighting up his IC.  I could give you hundreds of fine examples.

‘X’ (Exchange) -charts

Extending the same idea into synastry, it is possible to set up on person’s chart as a draconic based on the N. Node of a partner (or sworn enemy!) What you get is a fascinating picture of how one person expects and hopes the other to think, feel and behave. And of course ‘I want’ doesn’t necessarily get! Poor Princess Diana would turn Charles into a companion who was communicative, sensitive, and share all his jokes with her - a Charles with a Gemini Sun, Sagittarian Moon and Pisces rising! Charles on the other hand demands of Diana a mute, conventional, long-suffering wife who is good in bed and will let him do all the talking; she is supposed to have Moon and South Node in Capricorn, Scorpio rising, and her 7th-house Sun (him) in Gemini. Singing one song to the tune of another rarely works!

The Dwad

Of all harmonic charts, this special Vedic form of astrology’s natural fractal, mapping neatly onto the decanates, is one of the most valuable. It gives such a vivid insight into the living consciousness of the individual, showing how they experience themselves as a Mind behind the eyes. In all harmonic work you are literally raising the pattern’s - and the person’s - vibration; in so doing you are moving away from the obvious and the material to a subtler, invisible reality that is all the more significant. 

This multiple Cancerian woman whom I knew well enough to make sense of her dwad identity, has the Sun, Moon, nodes and Mc/IC polarised in the dwad between the  11th and 5th houses. She loved to run with the crowd, continually fell in and out of love, was dreadfully fickle, wanted her own nest, constantly flew from it, obsessed about horses, remarried her ex-husband, and never achieved anything to the best of my knowledge except to destabilise or break up a number of marriages. The angular lights gave her a huge sense of her own importance, emerging as considerable charisma; the Pluto/IC was a sense of her own power that the nuns who taught her judged to be evil; Mercury with Chiron in dwad Scorpio 9th meant a devouring interest in all things occult and at the same time a total refusal to be guided or governed; Cancer Mercury conjunct dwad Neptune convinced her that she was deeply psychic (she did exhibit Far Memory.) Mars on dwad Moon and Asc on dwad Mars endowed her with sufficient testosterone to swing her relationships wildly between men and women, and dwad Uranus conjunct her 7th cusp guaranteed the unpredictability that left so many people stranded and broken in her wake. She knew deep within (Sun/IC/N.Node) that home and husband would be her salvation, the only alternative being the total burn-out and self-destruct of that Sagittarius Moon/MC/S.Node.   

Dwad Relocation/locality charts

By now I would imagine every reader of this Journal relocates their nativity before flying off somewhere new or planning to move house! Chart orientation can alter dramatically - forewarned is fore-armed! But if you need to decide between a home in London or somewhere further out, say, Wantage, your relocated charts are not going to differ sufficiently to be helpful. However, if you convert each one into the dwad - thereby magnifying their differences 12-fold, you should have enough information to make an easier choice. And of course this throws a far brighter and more fascinating light on the way you relate to all the places where you choose to spend time - or avoid! 

Here is the dwad radix of a sweet, intelligent but solitary man who did a fair bit of travelling; with Saturn on Ascendant he was desperately unsure of himself, never felt he could sustain the intimate relationship he craved ( so Moon/Jupiter/S.Node often loved and lost), and compensated by eating too much sugar, which made him ill. His fantasy was to live in Hawaii where his Venus graced the IC in radix and dwad; but with a dwad MC/Saturn conjunction there, he could never make it happen. He did go to Paris to live and teach, however - and here in the dwad relocation chart is the perfect pattern - a full 9th house, and Mercury-Chiron lined up on the Meridian!

Associate Angles

This was my term for Parans when I found out that over the course of a birthday there would be times when the moving angles of the chart would be occupied by two or more planets simultaneously. These patterns (activated through daily or interpersonal Q-charts) will add their joint energies recognisably to the life, but all the more so if planets are angular at the same time as the Sun or Moon, in which case their particular activities often bring the person into the public eye. Diana Princess of Wales will go down in history for rocking the royal boat, the fairy-tale that led to divorce, her crusade against landmines, and the violence of her end. These three charts tell the whole story on their angles.

Daily Progressed Angles

In both direct and converse directions, the progressing MC moves through 361º over the course of a day/year, taking the related local Ascendant with it. As it moves it picks up contacts to progressed, natal and transiting planets and other points, which characterise the day in question. Working with these for the best part of 30 years I find them indispensible, as they pick out with great accuracy Jupiter days when you are functioning at your best and Saturn days when your resistance is low and you really need to get your priorities in order. A few pointers: Venus days are usually very pleasing; Mars gets the adrenalin going and can end up exhausting you if you’re not up to the sudden burst of activity. Chiron’s presence on an angle can be painful - or at least educational. Moon? Your girl-friend turns up; or you get more publicity than usual. Uranus on a daily angle always springs a surprise - and you can’t second-guess it! Pluto days are excellent for a purge; but may mean something big is about to hit you. Neptune can get you in a muddle - but I have found it is often a day when I have to get the camera out, or the media turn up. Watching them every day pays dividends in opportunities well taken, and hassles prudently avoided.

The Q-chart

What a find this was! A gift to any astrologer working with un-timed data, it simply means putting one chart up for the natal or inceptional time of another to which it is closely related. So if you have no idea when your beloved Gran was born, set up her chart for her natal location but your own birth time. This turning of her chart will show what you bring out in her, and therefore 50% of the nature, quality and viability of your relationship. This works brilliantly for all synastry in any context, a technique in the super-league along with Relocation ... Q (Quotidian) charts are relocation in time.

Robert Mugabe’s chart above is itself a Q-chart, set for the time,11h15 GMT, when Zimbabwe’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence was broadcast on 11th November 1965.  This culminating Uranus, with belligerent Mars-Jupiter near the Desc, would have been ‘the spur to prick the sides’ of his intent, after which he would stop at nothing till he had his own way.

This illustration here is of the day and place when the very first PDA (the Apple Newton) was launched, but set up for my own birth time. This is why I love astrology - just look at all the Capricorn planets in the chart of an organiser! At my time, the eighth and ninth houses are overflowing, with Chiron at the IC and its MC on my Mercury; its descendant the Palm has become my constant travelling companion, it is my astrology kit, advisor, notebook and ideas file, my Bible, my dictionary and thesaurus, my library, shopping list and diary, my calculator, planetarium, and gazetteer, address book, scribbling pad and first aid manual, my piano, music coach and Scrabble partner. It has introduced many astonished acquaintances to astrology!

The scope of astrology today is simply astonishing; and with so many superb programs to choose from we are equipped to be a generation of cosmic explorers. As empowering Pluto (still a planet to be reckoned with!) moves through Capricorn, astrology’s innovations may settle into established practice - but sidereal Pluto still on its Sagittarian journey should keep alive in us all ‘the sense of wonder and the joy of discovery’ that makes the study of the living heavens an endless adventure.

References:
1, 3,4. Bill Gates - Clifford 2000
2. Robert Mugabe - Encyclopaedia Britannica
5 & 8. Princess Diana and Prince Charles - Clifford 2000
6 & 7. 'Maverick' and 'Leo' - Pam Crane's personal files. 'A' data from them.
10. Zimbabwe UDI - Campion, World Horoscopes. Apple Newton launch -Wikipedia.

First published by: The Astrological Journal, Jan/Feb 2009

Author:
Introduced to astrology in 1968, Pam Crane has made it her life. She now has 40 years experience as a counsellor, teacher, researcher, writer, speaker and broadcaster. Perhaps best known for her work on Draconic Astrology and the nativity of Jesus, she has broken a lot of adventurous new ground in 'InterDimensional Astrology'. is combines multiple zodiacs, radix charts with dwads, composite charts with 're exes', and includes temporal relocation. Her ideas can be found in The Draconic Chart (Flare, 2000), many articles in the Journal and elsewhere, and now online at: http://pam-cranes-small-world-of-astrology.blogspot.com

Image sources:
Charts provided by the author/AA Journal
Zodiac: CC0 Public Domain, via pixabay.com

© Pam Crane - published by The Astrological Journal / 2009/2017

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