Lunarium Blog

Do the Jyotish and Western systems say the same things in the end?  For example, in Western Astrology, I'm a Taurus Moon, but in Jyotish, I'm an Aries Moon.  Those are different things. : )  I'm wondering if studying the Jyotish Primer (and then the other course offered later) will help me to understand what I'm learning from the Western perspective, or if it's just going to confuse me. I was asked this interesting question by a potential student, and I am sure I will be asked a similar question many times in the future, as there were times when I was asking it myself. It's a natural question for everyone who dares to know both the Western Astrology and Jyotish, the mysterious and powerful Vedic Astrology. The answer I came to is this: different systems of astrology are like two stories told about the same person by two different story-tellers. They both are true and at the same time, they are different. What's important is to be consistent: listen to on...

The widely accepted by the academia history of Western Astrology goes approximately like this: Babylonians kept observing the sky and recording their observations for many centuries, this is how astrology was figured out: by comparing what happened in the sky to what corresponded to it on the Earth. THEN THE GREEKS, who adopted the knowledge of the Babylonians, INVENTED THE HOROSCOPE. For the academics, most of whom do not possess any understanding of astrology, this logical step seems quite plausible. Those few who do possess the understanding, who are aware of how complex horoscopic astrology and its rules of interpretation are, such a sudden invention looks quite puzzling. It’s like if an indigenous tribe in Amazonia suddenly invented a helicopter. That new astrology that emerged soon after the conquests of Alexander the Great was called Hellenistic. Technically, the main difference is in the fact that Hellenistic astrology was horoscopic, which means it made use of the Ascendan...

It is interesting to observe how the discovery of new planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, coincided with important changes in the life of humanity that symbolically resonated with the astrological image of these planets. For example, Uranus was discovered in 1781. This was right in the middle of the American War of Independence, and not long before the 1789 French Revolution. Neptune was discovered in 1846, which was the year when general anaesthesia was used in surgery for the first time. Also, the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. The discovery of Pluto in 1930 is usually associated with an active development in nuclear physics and powerful totalitarian regimes that were established then in Europe and Russia. In the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century astronomers discovered that Pluto is actually one of a multitude of similar objects forming so-called Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. In 2006, Pluto officially lost its status of a proper planet and...

Yesterday's elections proved to be disastrous for the ruling Conservative party. That was a shock, that was against most people's expectations. When Theresa May announced her decision to have snap elections on the 8th of June, everyone was speaking of a landslide victory that was virtually guaranteed for the Tories. And yet the real events took a very different course. This shouldn't have been a surprise for even a moderately knowledgeable student of astrology though. On the day when the snap elections were announced, the 18th of April, Mercury was retrograde. Interestingly, the wording of the announcement carried the symbolism of retrograde motion: Mrs May mentioned that she was against the idea of such elections in the past, but now she changed her mind. Which is totally understandable, this is exactly what retrograde Mercury does to us: it causes us to change our minds. The problem was that she made a major, very important for the distant future decision when Mercury w...

I was asked during my recent webinar whether I am going to teach some form of medical astrology. I keep thinking on how to better answer this question, and this post is a result of my thinking. I am interested in astrological healing for decades (I even worked at some point as an astrological researcher in a medical institution in Moscow), and I have a number of ideas that might prove to be useful for others. But I also have a number of very important questions, for which I have no answers. I can’t teach this subject until I find answers to those crucial questions. All I can offer at the moment is to share my ideas, and I will start right here and right now. First of all, astrology is a great approach to diagnostics. It can show you a problem, or multiple problems, in a person’s life. The basics are very simple but there are significantly more sophisticated methods available too. These are the basics: Find planets in detriment or fall. Retrograde planets are important too. These...

I explained what the Lunar Nodes are and how I approach their interpretation in my article The Lunar Nodes as a Life Guide . To briefly summarise this article, the recipe is: go where the North Node is pointing, then the problems of the South Node will resolve by themselves . However, my main emphasis in that article was on the position of the Lunar Nodes in a natal chart. How do we then understand the message of the transiting Lunar Nodes? The usual direction of the Lunar Nodes is against the normal direction of the planets so we could say that they move “backwards”: from Pisces to Aquarius to Capricorn to Sagittarius and so on. To remind you, there are two of them: the North Node and the South Node, and they are always opposite each other in the sky. It takes 18.6 years for the nodes to make a complete circle around the zodiac, so they spend about a year and a half in each of the signs. Recently (on May 10th) the North Node has entered Leo, and so the South Node has entered Aq...

In my newsletters, I often refer to parallels happening in the sky, and I usually point out that they are important. I was asked to explain what parallels are. I will try to write this explanation in such a way that it will be comprehensible for beginners in astrology but at the same time precise enough for more advanced students. I will start from the very basics and then gradually increase the complexity. If at some point you’ll feel that you don’t understand what I am writing, simply stop, as you will already have a decent idea about the subject by then. Let’s imagine several race cars running around a circular track. Those are planets moving along the ecliptic. Astrology studies this movement of planets, and the patterns they form at specific moments in time. An important part of those patterns are aspects, i.e. interactions between planets. How can race cars interact? Well, they can overtake each other when they pass the same point along the track. Planets have this kind of ...

Some time ago I decided to try a new approach to teaching astrology: micro-lessons. Unlike the project I am working on right now (Astrological Forecasting for Everyone, to be released in either the end of May or the beginning of June), which belongs to the popular astrology niche, the Micro-Lessons were conceived as a way of teaching technical, horoscopic astrology in a way that would be easy and unobtrusive even for complete newcomers. At the heart of this approach is the idea to deliver knowledge in small, easily digestible portions, so that everyone could find time for studying astrology in his or her busy life, and even spending only, say, 15 minutes a day, would still be able to make a noticeable progress over time. Here are the issues I was able to send to my subscribers so far (links go to MailChimp archive): Micro-Lesson #1: Symbols Micro-Lesson #2: the Zodiac Micro-Lesson #3: The Elements Micro-Lesson #4: the Qualities Micro-Lesson #5: Describe Your Sign Mi...

There are roughly three kinds of astrology. First of all, there is popular astrology . Many millions of people are interested in the signs of the zodiac and popular forecasts, at least to some degree. The problem is that this kind of astrology is very superficial. I guess most people believe that there is nothing to astrology but those twelve signs. There is also astrology proper, which I tend to call technical astrology — simply because it is highly technical, indeed. It takes years to learn, and if you are serious about it, it turns into a life-long quest for understanding the complexity of life and Nature. I started my journey in the end of the 1980s, and indeed the more I learn the more I understand the vastness of the subject. There are probably not more than a few tens of thousands of people in the world who can figure out the elements of an astrological chart, and perhaps only a few thousands of those who earnestly pursue this path. The problem of technical astrologers is t...

As it often happens, this post was prompted by an email from a visitor of Lunarium. There was a number of similar questions, so I thought it will make sense to try and address them all. A typical question goes like this: astrologers disagree with each other. One popular online lunar calendar says that on April 14th, 2017, the Moon will be in Scorpio, and it will be the 18th lunar day. The other very popular astrologer says in his calendar that the Moon will be in Sagittarius, and it will be the 19th lunar day. So who do I believe? Here is my answer: The easiest approach is to figure it out for yourself, if only once, and then decide which of the sources of information can be trusted. Let's start with the Moon. Yes, on April 14th the Moon will be in Scorpio. And yes, on April 14th the Moon will be in Sagittarius. My astrological lunar calendar  shows the specific moment in time when the Moon will leave Scorpio and enter Sagittarius. In the time zone where I live (London, UK) i...

I just responded to an email, and I thought the topic and the questions were so common that I should share them here. First of all, many people believe that whereas Western astrology uses the signs of the zodiac, which are equal 30-degree sections of the ecliptic, Vedic astrology uses actual constellations. This is wrong: Vedic astrology also uses a zodiac made of equal 30-degree signs, but it uses the sidereal zodiac. The difference is in the starting point. The tropical zodiac used in Western astrology starts from the point of the vernal equinox, which is easily defined astronomically, and so tropical zodiac is well established, clear and unambiguous. In contrast, there are several different opinions regarding the starting point of the sidereal zodiac. The difference between these two zodiacs is called Ayanamsha, and there are several different Ayanamshas in use by different astrologers. The most popular and, as far as I know, officially approved in India is Lahiri Ayanamsha. T...

In my Lunarium Newsletter , I usually announce to my subscribers that a period of retrograde motion of a personal planet (Mercury, Venus, or Mars) is approaching. I point out the dates and then provide links to various resources about the retrograde motion, how it is understood from the astrological viewpoint. However, as retrograde motion happens every now and then, especially that of Mercury, I am becoming repetitive, and I have to copy and paste the same links from newsletter to newsletter again and again. To avoid such repetitions, I decided to create this post, and in it to bring together all the essential links related to the retrograde motion of the personal planets. Now in my newsletters, I will be able to only provide one link, to this post, and if new sources of information will appear, I will only need to update this one post. So things should become much easier! General Information on Retrograde Planets These links point to the sources of information about the re...

Almost two years passed since I self-published my book, DIY Astrology: Discover the Main Phases of Your Life . The book is doing reasonably well but I wasn't happy about the fact that I offered the readers to do some clumsy manipulations with a calendar to figure out the main phases of their lives. This wasn't in the spirit of Lunarium. Lunarium makes things easy. Normally, you just need to press a button, and everything gets calculated for you. Now the same can also be said about the main phases of one's life, as I created a special online calculator exactly for this purpose . So what are you waiting for? Go find out when you are going to have that glorious progressed Full Moon!

I was looking into numerology of Apple Inc. recently and found something very interesting. Let's start from Steve Jobs. He was born on February 24, 1955, therefore his Life Path, which is the numerological sum of the date of birth, is 1. Next, Apple was founded on April 1, 1976. So its Life Path is 1. The number 1 was very strong on that date, as it was also the day number. It was then incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc., on January 3, 1977. This new date also gives the Life Path 1. Later, the company was renamed to Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007, and again the numerological sum of the date is 1. Finally, Tim Cook, the current Apple CEO, was born on November 1, 1960. Believe it or not, but his Life Path number is 1 too, as well as his Birthday number. Now, here is what Hans Decoz wrote in his book about number 1: "The 1 is the most independent, unconventional, and individualistic of all numbers. It represents the beginning, the source, the innovator, the originato...

This book is a result of my experiment. I decided to try and simplify secondary progression (a method of prediction used by probably most professional astrologers) to such a degree that it could be used by everyone, and still delivered a good amount of useful information. I first shared the idea in one of the issues of the Lunarium Newsletter and asked the readers to try the approach and tell me if it made sense for them. Several people responded that they found the method interesting and useful, so I went ahead and produced a whole book describing the approach and giving detailed examples. The book is now available for free on the US and UK Amazon stores (from the 7th of May for 5 days), and for a minimal possible price in all the other stores. I am planning to keep it at that low price for a couple of weeks from now, as a promotion. Here are the links to the book on the different stores: US Store UK Store DE Store FR Store ES Store IT Store NL Store JP Store BR ...

When I initially implemented the Moon Sign Calculator , I created a time zone selector that would allow to choose pretty much any time zone of those provided by the computing platform. You could choose a region, and then any time zone within that region. Technically, that was a superior solution. The system of time zones in the world is quite complex, a lot more complex than it is commonly assumed, especially when taking into account historical changes. Therefore, even if you had to spend some time to figure out which time zone was the most appropriate for you, the result could be the most precise, within the limitations of the platform. However, that solution proved to be very user-unfriendly. Many visitors, looking at the time zone selector, either were simply puzzled by it, or decided that they need to find their precise birth place in the list. For example, if they were born in Mumbai, they would not be satisfied by the time zone Asia/Kolkata, even though the whole India shares...

First of all an important note : You don't need to own a Kindle device to own and read Kindle books. If you have any computer, or smartphone, or tablet, there is a free Kindle app for it (you will easily find it by making a Google search for "Kindle app"). Just download and install such an app for your particular platform — and you are ready to read Kindle books. I have published a Kindle book that explains pretty much everything there is to know about the void-of-course Moon periods. I start from the history of the concept and show that the void-of-course Moon was known and used in astrology at least a thousand years ago. I then explain step-by-step what a void-of-course period is. The explanation is a little bit tedious but if you'll manage it, you'll know precisely the mechanics of this phenomenon. Finally, I explain a number of ways how you can find out dates and times of void-of-course periods, and how you can use the knowledge in your daily life. Her...

I found this very interesting approach in the book by Kennet Gillman, One After Another . Before attempting to find out an unknown time of birth, the first step is to figure out whether the person was born at day or at night. At day means after the sunrise and before sunset, at night, correspondingly, when the Sun was below the horizon. The criterium is very simple, and in my experience it proves to be quite reliable. Here is the idea: those who were born at day usually have a very important, life changing event at some point from the age of 18 to the age of 19 . Theoretically, it should be at the age of 18 1/4, but in practice it can be a little bit before or after that precise age. On the other hand, those who were born at night usually have a similarly very important, life changing event between the ages of 24 and 25 . Again, the precise theoretical age of the event is 24 1/4. If you are interested in the theory behind the use of these specific numbers, please refer to Kennet G...

First of all, if you do have some idea of what your time of birth could be , like, you were born in the morning or in the evening, or around lunch time, then simply take the approximate middle of the interval (say, 9am for a morning birth). Calculate the Moon Sign using the Moon Sign Calculator (or, if you prefer, a natal chart calculator ). Pay attention to the degree of the Moon (the Moon Sign Calculator always shows the degree, like so: Degree: 10° 29'). If it's not within the first two degrees of the sign (from 0º to 2º) and not within the last two degrees of the sign (from 28º to 29º 59'), then you can be quite sure that the sign defined by the calculator is indeed your Moon Sign. If the degree is within the first or the last two degrees of the sign then you will need to have a better idea of you birth time to have any certainty regarding your Moon Sign. In some cases, you might be able to compare the descriptions of the two neighbouring signs and decide which of th...

I just received an email saying that there is something wrong with Lunarium: the home page shows that the Moon is in Pisces. That, obviously, can't be the case, I mean, the Moon can't be in Pisces, as the Sun is now in Aquarius, and the Moon is full. So the Moon has to be in Leo, the sign opposite to Aquarius. I went to Lunarium , and the Moon was indeed in Leo. So what happened, why another visitor saw it in Pisces? I receive emails with similar complaints from time to time, and the reason for the problem is caching . It can happen in a few different places, from the user's web browser to some server on the Internet through which the request and the response pass between the user and Lunarium. The nature of the problem is that the Internet (including all those bits from which it is made) wants to please you by all means, and for that to deliver each and every page you request as quickly as possible. Since many pages on the internet do not change every minute, web browser...