Dawne Kovan’s Blog

NB - The readings below can either be read from your Sun Sign - i.e. your birthday - or your Ascendant sign, which is calculated form your time of birth. Try also reading it from your Moon Sign, as Hindu astrologers suggest. 

Don’t know your Moon Sign? Get your FREE Sun/Moon combination reading and discover how your emotions impact with your ambitions to create your unique life path.  Just email me your birth date, time and place and I’ll email it back to you FREE!!! 

Please note that this year is a Leap year, which means that a day has been added to the calenda, so, you may notice that the beginning and end dates in some cases are a day earlier than usual.  

Aries: 21st March - 20th April

Family matters are in your face this month, which may just get in the way of your own personal interests. You will need to put up and shut up at least for a couple of weeks, by which time help will be at hand. If you own your property, you may decide to build an office or some other kind of extension. Your parents or some older relatives may demand some of your time as well. This could be a time when old matters are resolved - thus giving you the chance to think about a brand new beginning. Your career has been going well for you this year, with Jupiter in your Solar 10th House - maybe not giving you results as quickly as you would like - but it really is a case of slow and steady winning the race - and that could be you, Aries!

Taurus: 19th April - 20th May

A good period for you to get out and about exploring your neighbourhood, socialising with neighbours, siblings and other family members. There will be a lot of paperwork to get through as well, this month - could you have been leaving it until you felt enthused enough to get it done? Well, that time has arrived and you’ll likely be surprised by how easily it gets done. If you have to take your driving test, either practical or written then this is a good time. In a very un-Taurus like manner you may be scattering your energies to much - behaving more like a Gemini in fact. Yes, there may be important decisions to be made, but you could just take time out to study your options and go for it. Your children may be filling the house with too many friends when all you want to do is have time to yourself.

Gemini: 20th May - 20th June

This is the month for looking at your finances - both your income and outgoings. You may find that your partner is wanting to make a large purchase that requires a mortgage or bank loan - just make sure you define your boundaries clearly so that you don’t end up having to make all the payments. This could be a good month to start some saving plan or budget. You could also look at your gifts and talents this month - maybe there’s something deep down you’ve always wanted to do, and maybe were good at as a child. Well, this New Moon could offer you a way of finding the courage to go and do it - or at least check out ways of developing it into a skill later on in the year. Talent always demands that it gets expressed one way or another - and it could be now for you.

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Happy Birthday, Gemini!

Geminis have been going through a most interesting few years, since early in the century, really. With Uranus going through Pisces since 2003 and challenging your every idea about yourself, your purpose and your life’s path, you can be sure that you will renewed on many different levels of your life by the end of the period in 2011. So early Geminis made the changes at the beginning of the cycle and now it’s late Geminis (10th-21st June) that are doing so for the next 3 years. 

These challenges fall mainly in the career and home areas of your life - career changes that say more about who you really are and a home makeover that expresses your inner values - don’t get stressed about any of this, just learn to listen to your feelings a little more rather than ignoring them. Instead of suffering nervous tension and burnout, take time out, walk, read and relax - try T’ai Ch’i, for example - it can all work wonders for your nervous system.

This month is an interesting one, as your ruling planet Mercury is going backwards in Gemini over the next 3 weeks. (For more insight on this please read this month’s blog article.) This means that you could receive news from an old friend from the past, lose your address book or have a telecom crash. Please make sure that you back up all your files, so that you are well protected just in case.  

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NB - The readings below can either be read from your Sun Sign - i.e. your birthday - or your Ascendant sign, which is calculated form your time of birth. Try also reading it from your Moon Sign, as Hindu astrologers suggest. 

Don’t know your Moon Sign? Get your FREE Sun/Moon combination reading  and discover how your emotions impact with your ambitions to create your unique life path.  Just email me your birth date, time and place and I’ll email it back to you FREE!!! 

Please note that this year is a Leap year, which means that a day has been added to the calendar. So, you may notice that the beginning and end dates in some cases are a day earlier than usual.

Aries : 21st March - 20th April

We are all subject to the vagaries of Mercury’s retrograde motion - even Aries! You may have to bite the bullet and go through a load of paperwork that you thought you could forget. A good month for getting out and about, maybe checking out the lie of the land for some future projects you may already have in mind. Don’t make any decisions, though until after the 21st June - otherwise you could have to start over. You may design a plan of action and test out your ideas on a family member, who can be trusted.  Make sure you write everything down because things can move ahead very rapidly next month and you don’t need to overlook an important point in your zeal to push forward. With Mars in Leo,the Universe is behind you though, so you are right to feel enthusiastic about your future - just wait a little longer before you leap into action.

Taurus: 19th April - 20th May

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Every time I pick up an astrological journal or even an ordinary newspaper, I read doom and gloom articles that seem designed to send us even deeper into a slough of despond. The recession, the major shifts in corporate power, modern slavery - all coming as the inevitable result of Pluto entering Capricorn.

I tend to look at life somewhat differently - in that I see it as a process of developing and shifting social and technological mores and values. I also work with the Law of Attraction, which has taught me that nothing simply happens without it being attracted in some way or another. By which I mean that as we focus on our fears of recession, bankruptcy, and loss of individual power that is exactly what we are likely to experience.

Conscious Entities

If on the other hand, we look at what the process this upcoming energy brought into being around 20 years ago, we can begin to understand how things are likely to work out differently. If we agree that life is a process, and not sliced like cheese, then we can accept also that the planets in their orbits reflect that process. They are weaving around the Zodiac, always inter-relating and inter-acting. An ancient view of the planets understood them to be conscious entities, and therefore conscious of each other. In other words, as conscious beings they know exactly where each planet is in relation to the others. So, in their orbiting and spiralling around the Sun they will all visit and revisit the same areas of the Zodiac ad infinitum and communicate this to each other. 

From the moment of the Big Bang, that was the birth of the Universe, these conscious entities “knew” where and more importantly for us, when they would “arrive” at a particular point of the Zodiac at any given point. Therefore, instead of looking at the ingress of Pluto into Capricorn with trepidation, we should look (possibly) at the state of Capricorn as it is at present. In other words, when we enter a room, we can always tell if someone’s been there before us by the state that the room is in. Any mother knows that!

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This Monday, 26th May, Mercury, the planet associated with communications and information technology of all kinds goes BACKWARDS!! And will remain so for the next 21 days, whereupon he will then go forwards again for another 4 months or so. Because he is the fastest planet he does this 3 times every year - so for those in the telecom and travel businesses, for example, these phase changes will always chime with quite a few turbulent days, on a fairly regular basis.  

Now, we know a planet doesn’t go backwards, of course - however, seen from the subjective world we call Planet Earth - it does appear to. To be absolutely correct, it is in Apparent Retrograde Motion (the astronomical term for it). The effect of appearing to go backwards can be likened to slow trains and fast trains - as the fast train (A) speeds past the slower train (B), so train B seems, from the viewpoint of the passengers on both trains, to be going backwards. This planetary retrograde motion is caused by the orbit of the Earth overtaking the orbit of the second planet. It happens to all the planets at some point during each year, as seen from the Earth (for where else are we to see it from?).  

Mercury is the Sun’s closest planet and is associated with merchants, communications of all kinds, movement across short distances - railways, motorways, canals; and with public servants, like the health and police services and the workers therein. He rules Gemini, the sign of information sharing, and Virgo, the sign of healing in all its myriad forms.   Much has been written about the particular effects that the Retrograde period of Mercury can have on those who work in the above industries and also people born under Virgo and Gemini. Due to his three Retrograde periods each year many people are born with this position, obviously. I have noticed that these people tend by and large to resonate mentally during the times when the phase is repeated in the sky in real time. In other words, if you are born with a retrograde Mercury (or Venus or Mars, for that matter), you will be particularly effected by the change of phase from forward to backwards. 

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Here in the UK we are sowing the seeds of political change, as indeed you are in the US. However, this article isn’t about politics, either British or American, as it’s not my subject. It’s the phenomenon of change that interests me and our reaction to it. Astrologers  all know that the planets change sign regularly like a series of drum beats each with their own particular rhythm. The Moon is the fastest and Pluto is the slowest. Whether or not Pluto is a planet is not a valid argument as we astrologers will tell you, we have a vast data bank of information on its collective and individual effects. 

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Happy Birthday, Taurus - this is your month to begin a new year all of your very own. And it is year in which relationships figure strongly. Things have been quite intense for you over the last few months with Saturn in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn, the other two Earth Signs. They have been looking across the Zodiac at your own Earth sign with somewhat serious smiles - which means that basically they’re on your side and will support you, provided you put the effort in and cooperate with them - then the rewards could really be quite something! However, as Pluto will be doing his smiley thing for the next 16 years, you’ve got plenty time to get your act together. And easy-going, gentle as you are, you will need to take your time as change comes slowly for you. 

Artistic, beautiful Venus, your ruling planet, will enter her own sign of Taurus at the end of April, so this is a good month to enjoy all the pleasures that life offers you. You could try a new hairstyle or go for a make-over. Your wardrobe may need a revamp which could be great fun, especially if you take a close friend with you and make a day of it!  With Mars slowly going through Cancer at the same time, this could be the perfect time to socialise with family members and also get out and about locally - you never know who you may meet. It is important that you Taureans make an effort to discover new people and groups, rather than always staying within your social comfort zone.

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Pluto stood stock still in the heavens on 2nd April and will begin his backwards move to revisit Sagittarius, the sign of the Cosmic Cowboy, over the next few months. On September 10th, 2008, he will slowly get his act together to finally return to Capricorn, where he will reside until November, 2024.We know that planets don’t really move backwards - it is a relative effect seen only from the Earth (where else would you be seeing it from, I ask?). It is caused by the Earth’s orbit overtaking Pluto’s orbit and speeding forward. This is optically the same as being on a fast train overtaking a slow train - from your vantage point on the fast train, the slow train appears to be moving backwards; from the slow train you feel as if you’re moving backwards. Remember - all the planets have their retrograde periods at some point in their cycles as seen from Earth.

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 There is a move afoot to bring the date of Easter to a regular weekend in April, so that people know exactly when they can book their Spring holidays. This would be a shame because it would be yet another way in which modern society is being disconnected from its relationship with the heavens.

The origins of Easter lie far beyond the present era - far back in pagan times when the relationship between the Sun and Moon were markers for specific annual festivals. From our earliest history mankind has celebrated Easter, the period of highest fertility for all the creatures in the Northern Hemisphere and the strengthening of the Sun’s light. This festival is associated with rebirth, the arising of life after the death of winter. The roots of most Christian festivals can be found to have pagan origins and Easter is no exception.

The culture that eventually grew into the peoples of the Old Testament celebrates Passover at the same period as Easter. In fact, in the New Testament, Jesus is tried and put to death at the beginning of Passover. Therefore, the date of Passover itself is calculated by the same rules that we use to calculate Easter.

These ancient cultures all used a Lunar calendar - and many still do today. This means that the phases of the Moon, both New and Full, form the basis for all dating of events. Passover falls on the first Full Moon in Libra - which means that the Sun has to be in Aries and the Moon in the opposite side of the sky. Lunar phases are not regular and predictable like Solar phases - we always know when the Sun will enter a particular part of the sky, for example, because it visits the same degree of the Ecliptic (or Zodiac) on a specific date of the year. This is why birthdays are important. However, the Moon changes sign every two and a half days and presents her face to the Sun irregularly. 

The Moon’s complete cycle around the Zodiac is 28 days and the Sun’s complete cycle takes a whole year. Therefore the days when the Moon is either New (in the same place as the Sun) or Full (placed in the opposite side of the sky) have to be recalculated for every festival. 

Another thing that’s worth mentioning here, is that many people have tried many times to calculate the exact date of the Crucifixion by the dates of a Solar Eclipse in the early years of our Common Era. The Bible states that “darkness fell over the land” when Jesus died on the cross. This is not possible historically, as a Solar Eclipse can only happen when the New Moon passes over the exact same latitude of the Ecliptic occupied by the Sun, thus extinguishing its light by coming between the Earth and the Sun. And a New Moon at Passover is not possible as it is always celebrated on the Full Moon. A Lunar Eclipse can only be seen at night.

So, each year Easter is celebrated from the first Friday after the Full Moon in Libra - which is a moveable feast that connects us with our most ancient spiritual roots. And that connection must be maintained lest we lose sight of the importance of the Cosmos in our everyday lives.

 I watched the DVD “Elizabeth the Golden Years” yesterday evening -  1st March, 2008  - and saw various news flashes throughout the last few days that were about one of our youngest Royals, Prince Harry.

In my work as an astrologer, I have often written about the British Royal Family - mainly because their birth times are accurately recorded, which makes my life much  more simple as events can be timed more acutely. And no-one fascinates the British Public more than Queen Elizabeth the First - the fiery, brilliant, red-headed “Virgin” Queen.

The term Virgin describes the fact that she was born under the sign of Virgo, rather than being ‘intacta’. However, she did milk the ambiguity somewhat. In an age when astrological symbolism was the lingua franca in court circles at the time, everyone got the joke!!

Elizabeth Tudor was born to be Queen. She was born under the joint influences of Sun in Virgo, Moon in Taurus and Ascendant in Capricorn - all three of them ruled by the element of Earth. Good practical, level-headed stuff, that takes nothing for granted, well able to read the small print on any document and doesn’t get caught up with emotional issues.

That is all I’m going to say on this chart at the moment because I want to get to another Royal personage who has been filling our TV screens and news media these last few days.

And that’s Prince Harry - soldier, hero and all round good egg!!

Another red-headed Royal with Sun in Virgo (only a day different from Elizabeth Tudor’s Sun), with his Moon also in Taurus and Ascendant also in Capricorn. Although he inherits his grandmother, Elizabeth Windsor’s Capricorn Ascendant, it is her Sun that is placed in Taurus - Harry’s Moon sign. Therefore they share very close psycho-genes.

However, his chart is almost identical to that of Elizabeth Tudor. This makes me ask the obvious question - will Harry become King of the United Kingdom?

It is important to realise that Astrology transcends bloodlines - there is no direct physical genetic link between our present day Royal Family and the Tudors. However, in some unseen manner, shared planetary positions between people seem to hint at another hand possibly directing the affairs of humankind. We only have to look at similar planetary links in adoptive families to wonder at the mystery of existence. 

Could his older brother back down from succeeding - in other words could emotional, romantic William follow his mother, Princess Diana and Great-Uncle King Edward the Eighth into a choice between love and duty and let love win?

Wills has a very sensitive Cancer Sun and Moon in the element of Water - born on the day of a  Total Solar Eclipse, which is a highly intense aspect. King Edward’s Sun was in watery Pisces, Diana’s Sun was like Will’s in Cancer - therefore Will’s psycho-genes are very definitely inherited from her. So, to sum up - water signs suggest a life run by feeling values whereas Earth signs suggest the importance of  practical values.

With Pluto the planet of profound changes, transitions and irrevocable endings now entering Capricorn, the sign associated with institutions - it looks as if all collective structures like major oil companies, banks, old universities and old family dynasties are going to suffer massive challenges over the next 15 years.

I do think that the Royal Family will undergo a huge shift through this period and maybe not so far into the future. Prince William’s Sun (the heart of every chart) is now being called on by Pluto through 2008 and 2009.

Like anyone else born around 20-22nd June, he is being challenged to admit his true longings and follow his deepest desires. This aspect, because Pluto falls on the opposite side of the Zodiac to his Sun, would suggest that the arena for this drama is likely to be marriage. In a couple of years along the line Pluto will then call on his Moon which will really change his family life forever and could suggest the birth of children but may not include Kingship!

Please feel free to make a comment on this article - I look forward to hearing your views.

Dawne Kovan
www.dawnekovan.com

When a planet as powerful and as slow moving as Pluto enters a new sign, the world notices - not just individuals but everybody. Look how Pluto has effected the Sagittarian values of religion, travel and international laws through the period 1995 - 2008. Resulting in the rise of religious fundamentalism, the power of ideologies, the global spread of information, a fear of “the foreigner in our midst” and much, much more. 

Last month, Pluto dipped his toe in Capricorn and will stay for about another 4 months - he will begin his true sojourn there in late November and then will remain for 15 years.

The last time Pluto was in Capricorn brought huge changes in the way we lived. For example, during his first year there in 1516 Martin Luther began his challenges to the established church, which resulted in the Reformation. The result of this was the rise in Calvinism and the worshipping of that good old Capricornian value - hard work as the route to God.

We also saw the beginning of European colonisation of South America. So watch that part of the world for major political shifts over the next 17 years.

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The tiny wandering planet Mercury finally changes direction on Tuesday 19th February and will take a few days to begin to pick up his customary speed. All those Geminians and Virgoans can breathe a sigh of relief - at last - clarity and a sense of steaming ahead again. Just a small warning here - decisions made in haste this weekend may have to be reversed after Wednesday. Such a wayward planet!

During next week, two other events occur: firstly also on the 19th the Sun enters Pisces for a month signalling the coming of spring not 30 days on - at last! Here in March 2007 in the UK Spring happened early and was followed by rain for the next 10 months - with very little sunshine and much of the country under water. So we are all slightly sun-starved, to say the least!

The second event is a Lunar Eclipse on 21st February at 2 degrees across the Pisces/Virgo axis. This can be an intense couple of days with lots of emotion in the air. If your birthday falls across the 21st Feb/23 August dates then you can expect some kind of upheavals for a few months around home and family. In fact the last few years have really been a roller coaster for all Pisces/Virgo natives. For those born in the final third of these two signs, life promises to get more and more interesting and life expanding through 2008 - 2011.

Watch this space for further updates!

From your Cosmic Reporter

I’m heading this part of my Astrology blog page with the above quote because the information I’m giving below is in no way “fortune telling” - it is simply the result of observations made over thousands years and I offer it to you to as a piece of possibly useful input.

We are living in a particularly changeable time through this week, due to Mercury and Mars changing direction and Pluto entering Capricorn. this article will guide you through the choppy waters.

This evening - Monday, 28th January, Mercury, which is associated with communications of all kinds goes BACKWARDS!! And will remain so for the next 21 days, whereupon he then starts to go forwards again. Because he is the fastest planet he does this 3 times every year - so for those in the telecom and travel businesses, this can be quite a turbulent few days, and again in 3 weeks’ time.

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