It is not unusual to have strong feelings about a public figure, think of musicians or actors who capture your heart, or politicians who stoke your ire. You don’t know them, but they are in your life. Such was the gentle voice and clear vision of the British podcast creator and presenter, David Knowles, who died unexpectedly in Gibraltar on the 8th of September, a week ago as of this writing.

It was David who responded immediately to the russian* invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, creating what quickly became Ukraine: The Latest, the most sustained, qualitative continuous reporting podcast in response to the shocking recurrence of armed aggression in Europe. Five days a week David Knowles and his equally dedicated colleagues presented the military, political and human cost of war and more than that: after war crimes, he asked, what are the spiritual consequences of hate; witness the spontaneous generosity of those who drive old farm 4 x 4’s from the U.K. to Ukraine to be repurposed as ambulances; find in the artists and ordinary people genuine appreciation of Ukrainian culture, its burden of history and aspiration for the future. David presented the best and worst of being human.

Tributes from all over the world filled the pod’s inbox and The Telegraph’s site within hours. It may have been the sole consolation in a moment of loss. I find myself in a surprisingly large community of people whom I do not know, all of whom surprised by what they feel. As an astrologer, in my way of processing sadness, I cannot help but wonder two things: who was this compelling young man and why would this be his time to die? He was only 32.

David Joseph Knowles was born 22 September 1991 in Ealing, U.K. A rising sign cannot be determined without a known birth time, nor the places the planets occupy. The portrait must be drawn through planets in signs and aspects.

There are four signs of education, the mutable ones: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. David’s chart is constructed around two of them. Given his facility with languages and expansive curiosity one might expect them to be Gemini and Sagittarius. Not so. Sun, Mercury and Jupiter are in Virgo, which value the application of knowledge and practical technique. They represent conscious dedication to work details, getting it right. Jupiter amplifies the service aspect of Virgo. What can we do? It could remain a purely intellectual exercise or a technocratic response were it not for the influence of Moon in Pisces, opposed and in dialogue with Jupiter. Who suffers in this situation? Virgo and Pisces are serious and purposeful, but modest. They lead, if they have to lead, by example. He did.

You wouldn’t know by the public David Knowles that he had a theatrical, comedic and even downright silly side. Venus in Leo wants life to have joy, playfulness and love. Intensely musical, he played in a youth orchestra and envisioned a role in social media support for classical music after the war. He was also planning to marry.

Those born in 1991 joined a large cohort with Pluto in Scorpio. Lord of the Underworld in the sign of its Rulership intensifies an awareness of power and its effects. As a boy David was fascinated by the generals and battles of the Napoleonic Wars. He played Warhammer with college friends. He delighted in Tolkien’s epic war novel The Lord of the Rings, a work of pure imagination grounded in painful experience. 1991 also saw the birth of modern Ukraine, freed and reborn in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, too, has Pluto in Scorpio.

When you look in a chart to see where maturity might lead, you look to Saturn. It represents that which guides and challenges us, the hurtles we must overcome, conditionality in general. It is where we are tested and directed. Saturn had barely entered the sign Aquarius when David was born. A drive for broad knowledge of the world and for work with meaningful purpose, usually on behalf of humanity, is the path for Saturn in Aquarius. David spent three years with the World Economic Forum, the years of his Saturn Return, before taking up social media journalism. Public interest communication and innovative use of technology are squarely in the Aquarian realm. David found signature focus for his considerable talents in February 2022.

Clearly there is much more to his natal chart, including, just to note, his generation’s mandate to pose penetrating inconvenient questions and pull back the veil of illusion from established authority – Neptune and Uranus in Capricorn. But what were the consequential transits of a week ago?

The Sun denotes our conscious purpose, while outer planets represent deep inner unconscious, biological or remote collective forces that come to bear on individual experience. It is no small thing to have three outer planets transiting in direct aspect to one’s Sun, even in aspects considered positive. Uranus, the awakener, in Taurus and Pluto, god of transformation through loss, in last degrees of Capricorn completed a grand earth trine to David’s Sun. At the same time Neptune, the veil of maya in Pisces, opposed his Sun. One could say he was in truthful relationship to collective events. The war in Ukraine was unfolding within and without him.

Given the ingrained sense of responsibility for knowing and informing engendered by natal Saturn, those qualities were further strengthened in recent months by the transit of Saturn opposing natal Mercury in Virgo. David had the energy, vision and seriousness of purpose to bring investigative journalism to an encompassing and humane level – even when public attention seemed to be flagging, overtaken by other compelling events. News cycles and our attention to them are ever shorter, we acclimate to tragedy and move on. David stayed with the story and held us in its unfolding complexity.

Those who study history, as have David and his colleagues, know that the roots of power lie in secrets and in fear. And in lies. Power does not take questioning lightly. Authoritarian states are constructed by violence and intimidation, justified by historical revision, and maintained by control of thought and antipathy to the truth. For free independent journalists this is a dangerous world. David lead a team of just such journalists.

In this conflict, russia* is the aggressor, and its aggression has world wide consequences. It has required us, Europeans and Americans alike, to no longer remain naive about the methods and motives of authoritarian states. Manipulation, death threats, incarceration, defenestration, poison on a park bench – one could call them Arts of the Dark Lord. Could do, but this is not Netflix, it’s real. So is the chill I feel when I see that David’s work, his Saturn, has been accomplished with the shadow of Pluto just outside the door. Death by ‘cardiac event’ – perhaps. As moving and personal as this unexpected death is, given the adversary and Pluto, it also warrants forensic investigation.

*a note on apparent mistakes: in September 2023 the National Commission on the standards of the Ukrainian language allowed use of all lowercase letters in the words Russia, Russian, Russian Federation, Moscow and related words in texts of unofficial character, such as news reporting and commentary.

15 September 2024

Each of us is born into history; the birth chart its imprint. Circumstances shape our bodies, ideas, attachments, hopes and fears; so we begin, gradually gaining knowledge and losing innocence. A sense of history grows as we do. About twenty years on, we enter the greater narrative, swept up or muddling through our own trajectory.

The Outer planets, those beyond Saturn, progress through the signs slowly, relative to a human lifespan. Every generation is defined by the place and pace of the outer planets, nuanced by aspects they make to each other. The outermost, Pluto, entered Leo in the summer of 1938 and remained there until the fall of 1958. Three of the Four Presidents were born with Pluto in Leo.

Neptune entered Libra in the spring of 1942 and did not leave until the fall of 1956. Leo and Libra, 60 degrees apart, in sextile, are in the harmonious relationship of fire and air, each enhancing the others’ purpose. Again, three Presidents have Pluto and Neptune sextile, traveling through Leo and Libra.

The present and former American Presidents and current President of the Russian Federation are leaders of the same generation. Joe Biden (1942), Donald Trump (1946) and Vladimir Putin (1959) were born to the economic and emotional duress and aftermath of the Second World War. The elder and youngest were born to modest circumstances, the other to a family ambitious for every accouterment of wealth and social standing. Pluto’s deepest drives, survival and power, play out in signifiers of wealth, a sense of unique identity and the destiny to command what one desires, yet yearning always for the justifying consolation of Neptune’s visions of a perfect world, where there is no injustice, no slight and no humiliation.

Uranus moves more quickly than the other two in its cycle of 84 years, but the three Presidents share its passage through Gemini, sign of fickleness and friendship. Planets in the same element, in this case Air, support their mutual inclinations. Uranus in Gemini thus supports the qualities of a Libran Neptune – belief in dialogue and a transcendent state. Though it applies to all three, when considered by degrees, Biden and Putin have the stronger affiliation between the two planets; it is a stretch for Trump. His strongest association with Uranus, disrupter and rule-breaker, is his Sun – himself.

How do I need to adapt? What is blowing in the wind? Whispered or broadcast, what attention, images or ideas define me, or us? How do I surprise or change sides? Uranus stimulates the desire to be in the know, to cultivate friends, to play with ideas. Uranus in ever changing air. Uranus, the unreliable public.

The fourth President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, is not of the same generation as the other three. Born in 1978 his Pluto lives in Libra – in desire for justice, balance, fair play and devotion to the other. Neptune moved on from Libra, through Scorpio into Sagittarius, with its dream of free movement, truth and law. But Uranus, the rebellious reformer, is uncomfortably placed between the two, in the sign of hidden power, deep secrets and dangerous enemies, Scorpio. Altogether, a very different configuration.

All four men are linked by one place and its history: Ukraine.

Until 13 March 1781 the farthest planet visible to human eyes was Saturn, which marked the Threshold. Beyond it lay the starry infinite, realm of the the divine.

Human beings are restless, curious, and persistent. Picture a small back garden at dusk in the city of Assembly Halls, Bath. The brother, a musician, heads out the door for another long night amusing the English social elite in prime mating season. He leaves lenses carefully ground and polished, telescope positioned, and ledgers ready for his sister’s meticulous observations of the darkened sky, or her entering the calculations required of his. With less interfering ambient light in the city then than now, and through a sustained working partnership, this new celestial body, a tiny prick of light, came to be observed by William and Caroline Herschel.

Discovery of a planet beyond Saturn was exciting to some, but it disordered an established hierarchy and brought into question cosmological givens. Astronomers thought at first to name it Herschel, crediting its discoverer; who, with diplomatic acumen, proposed Georgius Sidus, after the reigning monarch. But – Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, George? Or Herschel, for that matter. Wouldn’t do. However, it did earn Herschel appointment as Court Astronomer, freeing him from the long nights of a gigging musician. Five years on, a stipend as her brother’s assistant granted by the King, freed Caroline to be the first female professional astronomer, discoverer of comets, logger of stars.

The naming of planets is always a bit of mystery. This one, Herschel or George, was discovered at a time of significant political, military and philosophical challenges to order and empire, be it British, French or Spanish. Colonies rebelled. Indigenous populations revolted. The givens of established hierarchy were challenged. It was no small question: From whence do rulers derive authority? The answer animating colonies of Britain in revolt was that it lay within the consent of the governed. One could say, the people.

In time the planet beyond Saturn’s bounds was renamed after his forebear, the Titan Ouranus; although its signature effect seems more that of Prometheus, whose theft of fire allowed humanity the possibility of freedom from the gods. For that he suffered. But for humans the gift of fire to warm and feed the body, applied to metallurgy for forging tools and weapons; also released the capacity to think, observe and experiment. We look now to the motion of Uranus for indications of change, sudden rise of new ideas and innovative technology, a correspondence between the many versus the designs of a few.

In approximately 84 years Uranus makes its full cycle through the signs. One is well on in years when Uranus returns to where it was at life’s beginning. Notice that, mid way through, something very interesting happens.

Halfway along the journey of our life,

Having strayed from the right path and lost it,

I awoke to find myself in a dark wood.

O how hard it is to tell what it was like,

That wild and mighty and unfriendly forest

The very thought of which renews my fears!

So bitter was it that death could be no worse.

Around age 42 everything one learns, assumes to be true, or has absorbed up to this point as self-defining, the purpose, the plan, the right path – finds you lost, alone in a dark wood; O hard to tell what it is like. Each of us lost in our own way. More glibly than helpfully, some call it a mid-life crisis.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is 44. His mid-life crisis was being elected actual leader of Ukraine after having so successfully portrayed a fictional leader of Ukraine, forever coping with the indignity of being leader of a ‘little’ Russia, destined to submit. Candidate Zelenskyy promised peace and reform, but in his first two years in office could effect neither. It was easier on television. Concentrated wealth and unscrupulous power within his own country, from his vast and covetous neighbor, compounded by an American president playing quid pro quo with Ukranian defense, left him nowhere to go, it seemed, but down. His popularity plummeted.

Born in 1978 with Uranus in Scorpio Zelenskyy brings intense feeling to family life, amplified by its square to his Moon in Leo, to creativity and work. He and his post-Soviet cohort are driven to slyly expose the secrets of domination, to loosen their fearful grip through humor. Zelenskyy’s Promethean gift is an ability to connect with his audience – playing them, ordinary people frustrated in the force field of corruption. Young Zelenskyy, appearing on a Russian talent show awkwardly translated, to English ears, as ‘The Club of the Funny and Inventive’ was disarmingly funny. Back home in Ukraine the Inventive Club banded together to create Kvartal 95, a production company of their own in active collaboration with other younger Ukranians who, like him, embraced both technology and personal freedom. Already at war with Russia before the invasion of February 24, most Ukranians were not lost in the dark wood of Putin’s atavistic dream – a restored Russian empire, its inalienable authority derived from the deep past: the Viking Volodymyr’s embrace of Christianity in 958. Governance by mystic sanction. The Divine Right of Kings. Again. No wonder toppled kings and autocrats populate Putin’s aggrieved justification for wider war. In time, nobody wants them. He should know; his grandfather was a cook for Lenin and Stalin. All those statues taken down…

Putin’s power persona, a Scorpio Venus in the First House, has proved unexpectedly unsuccessful on the battlefield. New cause of serious concern for diplomats and defense strategists, is a humiliated Putin. Uranus opposing his Venus by transit, has exposed the weakness behind his pride. It may in fact make him more dangerous.

But that’s him. Uranus is turning the devil’s bargain inside out for both of them.

Zelenskyy, a man suddenly lost in the dark wood of reality halfway through life’s journey, has instead awakened to his real capacity to lead as Uranus moves in opposition to where it was in 1978. He brings now everything he has, including his life, his family, his inventive friends, standing as example and leader for all Ukranians. Not subjects, free people. And, on the day of this writing, Zelenskyy brings himself before the fractured polity of American Congress to appeal to our ideals and our own history; to challenge our leaders to summon the strength it takes to bring peace. It is possible that everything has changed.

Minor addendum: written 16 March, the birthday in 1750 of Caroline Lucretia Herschel.

The Divine Comedy: Hell, Canto I, translated by Louis Biancolli, 1966.

Those of us who did not watch Ukrainian sitcoms during the endless machinations of the prior American administration cannot help but be surprised to discover that a popular Ukrainian comic actor (and excellent dancer) – playing an ordinary history teacher, fed up with governmental corruption, vaulted to political office by a stealth video of an ill-advised rant that has gone viral – is in fact now the actual President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However improbable that may be, it is Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare.

Zelenskyy’s fictional character and his factional character only have wit and courage in equal measure, and generational skill connecting to the people, their audience. Zelenskyy campaigned in selfies and street videos. He asked Ukrainians to let him know 5 things that ought to change about Ukraine, crowdsourcing his political platform. He won with 73% of the vote and in his Inaugural speech said, “To all post- Soviet countries: Look at us. Anything is possible.” Two months later he was being strong armed by an American president threatening to withhold much needed military aid in exchange for ‘a favor.’ Zelenskyy, a pragmatist, is no fool. His audience, his people and his character, are ordinary Ukrainians overwhelmingly frustrated with their country’s corruption, unchanging and unchallenged. But what was the man to do, sandwiched between two power players using him as a pawn? Would he become one of the ‘old politicians’ he lampooned, who “Promise a lot. Do nothing.”

Like Putin, like all of us, he has his own Pluto, his own deep drive for survival. But at what cost? There is the difference. Zelenskyy at 44, is of the generation with Pluto in Libra, which deepens desire for social justice. Putin’s Libran Twelfth House dream of reconstituting a lost social order, the great Russian Empire before the Soviet era, is not Ukraine’s dream. As a newly elected pragmatist, however improbably, Zelenskyy could have yielded to overwhelming power with reasonable justification; in fact he tried to play down the tanks amassing on the border, to tone down President Biden’s sharply pointing at the increasing likelihood of war. Putin eliminated any notion of negotiable middle ground on February 24.

Suddenly, the unafraid to be silly comic actor became a man of courage, an actual leader. Leo is a strange mix of childlike playfulness and heroic action. Zelenskyy’s Moon, Saturn and Mars are in Leo, which means that attachment to his homeland, his sense of responsibility for it, and his personal sense of honor require him to act from the heart, not from self interest. “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

From that moment on Zelenskyy demonstrated generational and personal savvy with business and communication technology. He may be an actor, but he is an actor who owns the means of production. He has Sun and Venus in Aquarius which value innovation and interest in the wider world, skeptical regard for authority, curiosity, and technical facility to amplify social connection. Zelenskyy is fully aware of the dangerous power of disconnection. Putin has criminalized reporting on, or listening to, anything other than state generated propaganda within Russia. It is illegal, punishable by years in prison, for Russian citizens to know or ask what their government is doing in Ukraine in their name. In peacetime Ukraine, ‘peaceful’ only relative to today’s full-on state of war, Zelenskyy appointed the youngest member of his cabinet Mykhailo Fedorov as minister of digital transformation with the intention to make ordinary civic business of Ukrainians a little easier. Now Fedorov deploys an array of digital tools and social media to isolate and wreak havoc on the economy of Russia, the invading enemy. With surprising success, Federov exerted international social pressure to withdraw or suspend businesses still operating in Russia. As missiles blow apart maternity hospitals and kill fleeing civilians, Zelenskyy and his cabinet are left with little choice in the weapons of war but to think outside the box. Whatever the efficacy of digital hacks and cryptocurrency behind the scenes, Ukrainians – and people around the world – take heart and improbable hope from this unshaven servant of the people in his rumpled t-shirt, cell phone in hand, saying, “I’m here.”

It is impossible to ignore the shattering events in eastern Europe these last few weeks. Vladimir Putin, isolated autocrat animated by a ‘Lost Cause’ narrative, sent in the tanks, missiles and an apparently under prepared army, to subdue a large independent nation with a popular democratically elected government.

He had his reasons. They were presented to the world and the Russian people in a tumble of Orwellian Doublespeak: the invaded nation isn’t a nation at all, but actually a ‘little Russia’ held in thrall by Nazified agents of western interest. Then, like every autocrat before him, he eliminated access to anything but state controlled narrative and criminalized reporting of contrary fact. His reasons did not have to make sense or match facts, they just were.

If the reported birth time for Vladimir Putin is accurate, he is a man with four planets in Libra in the Twelfth House. Normally, Libran interests are for balance, negotiation and fair play; however, in the Twelfth they can assume the character of unresolved grievance, a sense of great injustice around ‘that which has fallen apart’ – in this case the former Soviet Union. Behind the scenes the trained KGB agent gathers information: who are allies, who are enemies? Plans evolve as the circle of advisors contracts. Putin’s public face is his Scorpio Rising, augmented by Venus in that same sign in the First House. We have seen the images – a physically fit martial artist, unsmiling ‘sexy beast’ of dangerous unpredictability. We are meant to be intimidated, this is the face of Pluto.

Putin is seventy and of the generation whose Pluto is in Leo, sign of playfulness, warmth, joyful creativity and humor. In this sign of the well loved child, Pluto evokes fearful tension between Innocence and Experience; love and domination. A sympathetic listener might lean in to ask, “What happened when you were a child?” Whatever the answer, the world is now shaken by implacable pain.

This pain has now inflicted real suffering, with more, no doubt, to come. It has also miscalculated. Ukrainians are not welcoming tanks with open arms. The people do not heap bouquets into the arms of soldiers, however confused, for liberating them from who or how Ukrainians chose to be. The vulnerable flee to the borders for safety, if they can, leaving behind those who are totally outgunned, yet prepared to fight. The world watches, with newly discovered flags of yellow and blue, as millions of lives are profoundly disrupted, more environmental devastation wrought and economic activity further disordered. Life has just gotten harder for so many, including Russian citizens who are utterly in the dark. Global petrochemical politics, nuclear reactors operated at gun point, bodies unsafe to bury; it is all Pluto, Lord of the Underworld stepping out of the shadow.

But, deep breath — this is a tale of two leaders. There is more to this than Pluto.

“As Above, So Below”

…four short words capture the foundational insight of astrology: heavenly activity and human experience are in meaningful relation to each other. The Astrologer studies planetary bodies in motion against a starry backdrop, the astronomy above. Here below, linking those patterns to individual and collective life, forming a coherent narrative, arises by the Astrologer’s attending to, with equal interest, innumerable life histories and the unfolding of world events.

A second informing dichotomy, “As Within, So Without” links the inner complexities of human being as dynamically reflected in the realm of Other(s) – figures of influence, circumstance and events with which the individual must cope. In a therapeutic dialogue how often is the crux of suffering reached through painful recognition that the enemy, the oppressor, lies within? Healing is found in the shadow.

Far distant Pluto’s effects on society or individuals, are not easy to witness, to acknowledge or confess. Our deepest drives – for survival, power, conquest or revenge – call it Id, call it Lizard Brain, call it a cauldron of impulses to be tamed and redirected if there is any hope of civilized life, these are the Underworld of Pluto. At root is fear of our fate as mortal beings. We die. All of us. We live lives mostly in denial of that, aggression displacing acceptance. Necessary for survival it may be, yet it is uneasy ground for bringing forth our best selves.

“Nothing is certain in life but death and taxes.” Another bitter pill. Pluto rules both – great wealth, especially fierce competition for it and clever means of disguising it, and the tax man who comes to collect from great and small. The latter usually grumble and pay; the great, not so much. Think off-shore tax havens, shell corporations, the dark mansions of Belgravia. Think ill-gotten gains, the great crimes that lie behind great fortunes. Think Plutocracy.

Social power is rooted in economic power; it matters who has it and who doesn’t. Economic power manifests in that other sense of the word, power as fuel. No longer harnessed to animal labor or gears rotating by wind or water, the post-industrial world is propelled by petrochemicals. Power now is extracted from underworld fissures of Carboniferous biomass, transformed to coal, oil and gas.

When this country was a mere patchwork of colonial outposts finding its way toward economic independence from Europe, wealth was built in exploiting abundant natural resources entirely by human and animal labor. For European markets the most profitable production of cotton, sugar and tobacco, not to mention silver, indigo and rubber, could only be satisfied through enforced labor of unfree unpaid human beings. The hacienda system of Spanish colonial holdings and chattel slavery in the former English colonies of North America were both perfect Plutonian exercises in power. Are/were? Both systems have been superseded by other governmental authority and economic structures, yet the long shadow of injustice lives on. Alongside tales of courage, initiative and ingenuity are the shameful deeds and unsavory bargains of a repressed and forgotten national history. How, as citizens, are we to understand the past, all of it, that it might inform and shape the present?

One can imagine Pluto smiling at the edge of the Underworld, as educators are pressured, even threatened, lest they make anyone feel ‘uncomfortable’ about the past.

Is that a problem? Mercury, as he was known to the Romans, Hermes to the Greeks, is the messenger of the Gods, a traveler and trickster. All activities of the intellect, of communication, barter and exchange – the list of mercurial activities is long – belong to Mercury. Smallest of the planets, closest to the Sun, he is never more than 28^o from that Great Luminary and appears to shuttle back and forth in the sky in his service. The Sun now is in Libra, as Mercury has been since the last of August. When the Sun is in the sign of ‘The Scales’ fairness and balance in relationships is foremost in conscious intent. Mercury’s activity on behalf of that intention is to facilitate clarification of each party’s point of view. His goal is productive negotiation.

Just as when we work or study we oscillate between periods of focused attention and relaxed awareness, sleep we know is critical to learning, Mercury’s to-ing and fro-ing serves a larger purpose. In direct motion information is gathered, contracts signed, plans made and, if all the homework’s been done, things will turn out as intended. But in periods of retrograde motion, the unconscious and unexpected come to bear – things not foreseen, unexamined assumptions, unintended consequences. Mercury, in a way, is asking us to ‘sleep on it.’

How this Mercury Retrograde comes to bear on your chart depends on the position, element and aspects of Mercury and any planets you have in Air signs.

A note on timing: October 18^th Mercury at 10^o Libra resumes forward motion, progresses through Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn; then stations at 10^o Aquarius for a little dance in and out of the latter two signs – a very short retrograde period – in January. To complete the pattern, retrogression through the Air signs, the next is in Gemini in May (2022)

A modest note on meaningful moments: this website was launched 29 September 2021 and while an entirely new form for me, it came when the time was right. Relentless curiosity, a desire to teach and learn nearly everything, to take in the ‘Big Picture,’ is no surprise when one is born with Mercury in Aquarius, sign of the wide winter sky. But then, when Jupiter comes visiting, as he has now, horizons must expand. And so they have. Here.

And Now. Astrology at its heart looks for patterns of meaning in space and time. This particular Now, at the birth of the website, is Michaelmas, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. It is often celebrated in Waldorf Schools with a pageant, complete with Dragon, meteors, villagers, and Archangel; a harvest feast and singing:

Michaelmas time, Michaelmas time   

Time is turning under the plough   

Under the stars, under the signs 

The ploughman toils with deep furrowed brow

Stars, like seeds, scattered over the land

And under the plough by Michael’s hand

It’s a children’s story, but so much more than that. Does it help to know that the Plough is Ursa Major? Or that another line, ‘Time is turning under the Scales’ refers to Libra, the sign initiated at the Autumnal Equinox, when forces of darkness begin to shorten the light of days. Autumn is the season of Michaelmas. Who is this Archangel? Or for that matter, the Dragon? So many mysteries, but they hold a picture of a Heavenly Realm and an Earthly – Human – Realm, mediated by the stars. We live and work and seek meaning between them. It seems a fortuitous moment for courage, initiative and discovery.