In Brisbane, the Winter Solstice falls on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 8:34 AM. It's accompanied by a full moon which is a comparatively rare occurrence. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, a full moon hasn't landed on the solstice since 1948 - the year before my birth year. The astrological chart for the moment is characterised by a powerful grand cross in mutable signs between Mercury in Gemini, Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces. Venus is conjunct the Sun and so partakes in the full moon opposition. Sun-Venus is semi-square Jupiter and Mars is quincunx Uranus. Jupiter is almost exactly conjunct the north node of the moon. All in all a quite active chart.
Talking with an old friend last night, who is also an astrological devotee, I was shaken out of the astrological torpor that I had fallen into and stimulated to start looking at astrological matters anew. One topic our talk covered was the fixed stars and for the first time ever, I realised that Astrolog, the software program that I use to generate charts, was capable of displaying a great many of these stars. This was a revelation and a surprise because I've been using the software for many years now. However, I'd fallen into the rut of over-familiarity.
Our conversation also helped me to stumble upon ASTROTHEME that has a comprehensive database of celebrity charts including one that I was specifically looking for, namely Bobby Fisher. Included with the chart is a comprehensive biography. The site will also create charts for you and store them, once you register. The format of the charts is different to what I'm used to but here is my chart as shown on the site:
A permalink is also created for the chart that has been drawn for you. My friend also mentioned some astrologers, two of whom I'd heard about (Nicholas Campion and Robert Hand) and another whom I hadn't (Bernadette Brady). Interestingly, Campion is born two days before my friend (4th March 1953 versus 6th March 1953). During our conversation, the subject of mundane astrology came up and I realised that I hadn't given much thought to the matter for many years, particularly the movement and aspects between the transpersonal planets: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
