What's Cooking in the Astrology Kitchen?

Take some onion, pepper and feta… or some planets,
some stars and some intuition

We each develop our own tastes in astrology. Some like it hot, some like it cold and some like a quick stir-fry with a dash of transits and a sprinkling of midpoints.

A couple of things that I came across recently started me thinking about the ingredients astrologers use to interpret charts.

What is a stew without onions?
What is a chart without…?

Here's the first thing. A few weeks ago, I looked at a chart for a friend. He was feeling pretty low, but in fact his chart looked good. He has a transit from Neptune to the descendant, but that is so long-lasting and vague that it couldn't entirely explain the weight he felt on his shoulders.

It wasn't until I looked at his soli-lunar midpoint that I started to find a way in to his gloom. Saturn had just finished transiting that point in his second house. From there I was able to see first, that his feeling such a lack of self worth would indeed pass and second, how he could look at his situation differently.

Now I rarely use midpoints. I get plenty of information from the unvarnished natal chart as it is, plus transits and progressions. If it's obvious that one of the big Fixed Stars is conjunct something crucial, I use that. If there's a very exact minor aspect, I use that. By the time all these factors come into play, I have a lot to work with.

But after my experience with my friend's chart, I started wondering if I should use midpoints regularly – until, while perusing Donna Cunningham's Skyscript, I came across the second thing that made me start to question astrological ingredients.

DC is surely one of the best and most experienced cooks in the astrology kitchen. She's smart, she's sensitive, she's clear  – and above all she's accurate. So you could have sautéed my enchiladas when I read that she doesn't do progressions.

The doyenne of California cooking
with a recipe for perfect astrology.

That is stripped down.

And she doesn't do retrogrades. Refreshing.

And I know she doesn't mess around with asteroids, centaurs, theoretical planets, Arabic parts etcetera.

This is the astrology equivalent of Chez Panisse in California or The River Café in London, where I have consumed memorably, madly perfect meals on various occasions.

Here's the method. Take a few of the finest raw ingredients, put them together perfectly, don't mess about. Dine.

So if Donna Cunningham is the Alice Waters (matron of Chez Panisse) of the astrology world, who's Liz Greene? I have her down as Claudia Roden – scholarly, intellectual, impeccable – but maybe she's more Martha Stewart with her diverse business portfolio. The Parkers are obviously Mrs Rombauer and the whole Joy of Cooking team. Rob Hand is Julia Child. Jonathan Cainer is Nigella Lawson. (I could get into the cross-dressing). Is Elsa the Anthony Bourdain of the astrokitchen?

Now I've managed to sidetrack myself on the slippery slope of celebrity chefs. Back to the ingredients.

Here is one recipe for a natal chart:
Take 12 houses. (Don't get into a discussion about house systems, please.)
Add 12 signs.
Add Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, Uranus and the North Node.
Mix in trines, squares, oppositions and conjunctions.
Add Ascendant and Midheaven.
Stir.
Allow to simmer in brain.
Interpret.
Spicy extras: Chiron, Ceres, Juno, Vesta, Pallas.

Here's another
Take 12 houses.
Add Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, Uranus, the North Node, Chiron, Ceres, Juno, Vesta, Pallas, Nessus, Sedna, the Vertex, Lilith. Eris, Pholus, Ixion, and Varuna.

Add 12 signs.

Add Ascendant and Midheaven, Vertex and Part of Fortune.

Stir.

Calculate Arabic Parts.
Shake.
Add a handful of Fixed Stars.
Interpret.
Calculate midpoints.
Interpret again.


I know which one of these will give you a more satisfying dish to dine on.

Here's the start of a recipe I don't follow
Discard all houses…
and another one that begins
Adjust for sidereal time...

Do do you prefer fusion astrology or meat and two veg?