A strange day. I just wanted to note that we have

a) Jupiter and Venus partile conjunct in Pisces, and

b) Saturn and Mars retrograde perfecting their malefic sextile from Libra and Leo.

It just struck me as odd that we seem to be having a great and fairly rare aspect at the same time as a nasty and fairly rare aspect. Moon will be in Aries that day, so the sextile will be highlighted by oppostion.

Thoughts?

Sextiles aren't that rare really... 60 degrees in 360..6 a year?
It's an isosceles triangle, a yod.
The finger points to the benefic conjunction with a basis of discontent, lack of action and misplaced , but exulted, restriction. Sounds like the a party political manifesto to me.

You could be right. I meant rare in the sense that Jupiter + Venus are conjunct in Pisces (rulership and exaltation), and the fact that Mars and Saturn are both retrograde and aspecting places of their debility. That last doesn't happen too often, thankfully.

It could be political.

This sextile is special. From now till end of March the orb is less than 2?. 15 February Mars-Saturn sextile is exact and again the 23rd of March. A longduring aspect thus (see here for more info). 14 february it is new moon in early morning and Moon joins the applying Venus Jupiter conjunction late in the evening (European times).

From a weather point of view I think this conjunction will give some fine weather for a few days, perhaps not so dry but not cold. I think this sextile will give a lot of rain (in N-W Europe) and plays the dominant role, especially in March. During the Mars-Saturn longduring semi-square the snowfall was heaviest around Mars' station. Somewhere else I wrote that "I think of extremes around the date of Mars moving direct (the 10th) but I don't know what kind of extreme. March has a sting in its tail they say but I don't think a cold and snowy one this year. A few days before the 10th Venus will be trine with Mars on the 7th and opposite Saturn the 9th. I think of a warm front (warmer than usual) followed by heavy rainfall. (Maybe a bit lessened after the Sun-Moon_mercury conjunction of the 15th.)". However I think that Saturn opposite Sun will be wet again.

Last week with the altering of the rains and snows, Venus Mars were in opposition and later Sun Mars.

Sorry for this 'advertising' of myself. For the sake of research I try to make and share concrete predictions instead of saying in hindsight that I knew this all would happen (or would not). If March turns out to be dry and warm, I'll mention that I was wrong.

More things than weather predictions? I don't know. Perhaps the weekend of 14 february with the Moon, Venus, Jupiter conjunction is a good occasion to send love letters to secret lovers .

I mentioned both the good and the bad on my site, Eddy, though I was mostly concentrating on good Venus days after the ick we've just been through with all the oppositions. And included that grand gestures in the romance department (Venus - Jupiter in PISCES, fercryinoutloud!) would probably be well-met

Do you have a blog, site, or anything I could link to for the weather stuff?

It's indeed good to concentrate on the positive Olivia. I tend to have a bit pessimistic nature myself. Some good days surely would contrast with the bad days of the oppositions. However in my personal situation the bad weather over here might be one of the causes I still have my temporary job now (which was to end the 1st of January). Every cloud has a silver lining .

Do you have a blog, site, or anything I could link to for the weather stuff?

Perhaps I misunderstand you. Do you mean if I have a blog/site of my own? No I don't have this. My remark of the supposition on the wet March I wrote in this thread: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5043 , post at bottom. Or did you mean to ask which site I got the astrological inspiration from of the weather astrology?

For the weather stuff I get inspiration from Kepler. Here's a translation of one of his works: http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/astrology/ ... rology.pdf
This I found on Patrice Guinard's DIAL page: http://cura.free.fr/DIAL.html on his Cura website. There's really a lot of worth over there, old manuscripts etc. The people over here surely should have a look there.

Although I heard in a thread that the "Fundamentals of Astrology" is not a very good translation, for the time being I'll have to deal with this version. Maybe one day I'll get the German version somewhere.

Since Kepler threw out the signs and houses, he might not appeal to most astrologers. I feel attracted to his visions though. In that text he appears a bit modern in elemental qualities. He has explanations on light and the surfaces of the planets (which now mostly are untenable according to modern knowledge). He did a bit like Ptolemy did in his days: giving a natural explanation of the effects of the planets. I sometimes have the impression that to some astrologers this physical explanation is rather the unattractive side of Ptolemy.

Kepler writes that aspects can work different ways. In the initial thread on the Mars-Saturn aspects I quoted some examples. By chance he mentions a longduring Mars-Saturn aspect in his year. Originally indicating cold according to his view, he believes that this (in 1602) one could turn out to be a very mild one, melting the snow.

Thus perhaps not of a great help to us, but I try to experiment a bit with this. Maybe I'm just fiddling about a bit and the few succesful predictions I had were just luck. However I just started this and I enjoy it now I'm taking a break from individuals-centered astrology. There might be something in it, we'll see.

I hope there will be. It's probably something wrong with my brain, but I can hold the idea that your type of weather astrology, Dr Farr's type of medical astrology, and my type of horary astrology can all work

Besides, it drives people crazy.

But yes, I was asking if YOU had a site of your own I could link to, so that people could see your weather predictions.

I don't usually do personal astrology on the blog, save for examples of technique, but we've all been through the ringer so much with all the oppostions that I decided to do a Cool Venus Days entry (this has nothing whatsoever to do with Venus in Pisces being my almuten figuris, and Jupiter in Libra being on the MC as well as my ascendant ruler - really, it doesn't! ).

I just knew I could use a bit of lighthearted, and I thought other folks might enjoy it, too.

Have you heard of that thing called wordpress? It is free - I know money's an issue for many of us these days - me included. But I got given my site, and I did want to make some use of it! I do enjoy writing for it, too. At least most of the time. I've pretty much hated being a horary astrologer the past couple of weeks: Here, have some bad news to top off your bad news.

Unfun.

I really do hope we get a break in the tension in a good way for a while - all of us.

If I would have my own blog, I would be afraid of spending all my time on it. I tend to get hooked to the internet .

Do you mean that longduring aspects affect horary (positively and negatively), like there is some fluctuation in the outcomes comparable to the doctor that gets more flu patients in winter? That would be interesting, it would relate horary to the mundane.

Maybe not per se, Eddy, but almost every chart I've gotten has had Mars angular - usually on the Ascendant - of late.

Into that strange and mysterious world, I wonder if peregrine, retrograde Mars isn't just agitating the hell out of people who are asking horaries. Everybody wants to do something - right now - it even came up in one I did for myself concerning a course I'd hope to finish but my tutor flaked.

Pressing the issue (whatever it is) doesn't seem like it's going to help much of anyone these days.

but almost every chart I've gotten has had Mars angular - usually on the Ascendant - of late.

Could that merely be a matter of your personal schedule ? a tendency to draw up horary charts at the same time of day? Sometimes the worldly factors need to be kept in mind.

I can't see the Mars-Saturn sextile as necessarily malefic. Not only is there not much edge to a sextile, but Saturn is exalted in Libra. I can't see him being all that primed toward being disagreeable, especially in a diurnal chart. If anything it seems potentially somewhat helpful, with retrograde Saturn more likely being unclearly directed rather than malefic. Saturn is maybe a little unsure of himself, but I think he still has the ability to reason with and calm down that ready-to-go Mars in fiery Leo.

Kirk wrote:

Olivia wrote:but almost every chart I've gotten has had Mars angular - usually on the Ascendant - of late.

Could that merely be a matter of your personal schedule ? a tendency to draw up horary charts at the same time of day? Sometimes the worldly factors need to be kept in mind.

I was thinking something similar. Perhaps there might be a rational explanation for this. In the last couple of weeks before the opposition of Mars on 29 January, Mars would rise a short while after sunset. At average latitudes on Earth on the northern hemisphere Mars in Leo is in a slow rising sign and sunset was about 16 ? 17 'o clock and perhaps many querents 'waited' with their question after office hours or when their children had returned from school. There may have been a few who waited till late in the night giving a Mars in house X.

Sorry for this mathematically rationalizing of mine, I guess I got an astrolabe in my head and also a load of 'yes-but-what-if's'. On the other side the Mars positions could have 'made' the querents wait to pose the question at the end of the day.

I've read that according to Indian astrology, a question should best be asked in the morning; questions posed at night or at dusk are said to be harmful. But this isn't the rule in Western classical astrology?

If it isn't and if there are some people who have their question just after sunset then following few weeks there is quite a chance that the Venus-Jupiter conjunction will be in VII or VI. By the way, note that Pisces is a slow setting sign on Earth's northern hemisphere. I wonder if there might be more relationships questions then (if I'm correct in assuming that house VII in horary is mainly about relationships, or does it simply indicate the 'other'?).

Kirk wrote:I can't see the Mars-Saturn sextile as necessarily malefic.

I tend to agree with this (although in a type of what they call in law a 'concurring opinion'). The two difficult planets's effects will be 'smoothed' by the sextile.

By the way, for those who take minor aspects into consideration, Jupiter was in quincunx/150? aspect yesterday. And the 13th Mercury will be in opposition with Mars and trine to Saturn. I don't know what to think about Mercury in weather predictions. Last autumn there was a Mercury Saturn conjunction lasting about a month. Since I had no time I didn't open a thread on this but I had expected a windy yet dry period. However those weeks had all kinds of weather over here. Perhaps the expression "change is the only constant" fits to Mercury pre-eminently .