Astrology: The only introduction you’ll ever need. Charles Harvey

of the military.

      As a result, someone who was generally considered to be a relatively simple soul managed to win almost every contest he entered, and to succeed in putting bills through Congress despite being head of a minority Government.

      MARRIAGE

      Getting married is a major venture for anyone, and if you have a choice, it makes good sense to plan the timing of this event. This will have implications for years to come, and can optimize the chances of mutual understanding and a long-lasting and happy bond. Indeed, throughout the Indian sub-continent and much of Asia, few couples will get married without first ensuring that the day is a propitious one for them. In this case the astrologer will look at the possible dates and see:

       which dates and times yield the most harmonious charts;

       the relationship between the chart and the charts of the bride and groom.

      Likewise if success is going to hinge upon the wellbeing of one or two key people, then it is a good idea to choose a time which will bring out the best in them and minimize the sense of stress and strain.

      BUSINESS PROJECTS

      The time to start any particular project will depend both on the nature of the work being undertaken and the chart of the people most closely involved with it. If you are starting a project you want to develop quickly and to catch the public eye, you will need to choose a different kind of time from a project which requires plenty of peace and quiet and a slow, steady approach.

      By analogy, if you are arranging a mail-out and want to optimize the chances of it going smoothly and your communication being read, it is a good idea to ensure that Mercury, planet of communication, and the Moon, which rules the mood of the moment, are well placed. The kind of placement the astrologer will choose will be dependent upon the kind of mail involved. If the desire is to encourage a sense of optimism and wellbeing the astrologer will want to choose a different kind of climate to one which is suggesting that people enrol on a course of study, or purchase life insurance.

      No matter how good the starting chart for a venture, it cannot of itself make up for lack of sound preparation and good management.

      CHOOSING THE BEST PLACE

      We are each born at a particular place on Earth, and our birth chart is normally calculated for that place. But there is a sense in which each one of us is also incarnated on to the Earth as a whole, as part of the world soul. This may sound like a poetic flight of fancy. In practice, this is found to be an extremely valuable reality. For example, we may have been born in Britain at midnight, placing our sun in the fourth house (see Chapter 7), the position of a home-loving individual who tends to a private rather than a public life. If we move to the other side of the world to New Zealand, where it would have been midday when we were born, and recalculate our chart for Wellington, say, we will find the Sun will be in the tenth house, of public affairs and personal career achievement. Suddenly, from having been a relatively retiring, domestic individual, we are likely to find ourselves out in the limelight, perhaps seeking public office and playing a more authoritative role within the community. And for everyone there will be places in the world where the Sun comes to the fore, and places where it can hide away and obtain some peace and quiet. In short, there are different places where different faces of the soul can thrive.

      Such Relocation Charts, as they are called, have been known about since early this century. If you were trying to decide whether to go to Malaga or Corfu for your holidays you could relocate your chart to each place to see what aspects of your chart are brought to the fore at each resort. It would then be possible to choose the place that looked more likely to bring out the kind of energies you would find enjoyable for a holiday.

      However, you may be a businessman or woman and want to know which areas of the world are likely to be especially advantageous for you or for your company’s products. To calculate a chart for every major city of the world would be out of the question. Happily, with the advent of the computer, the brilliant American astrologer Jim Lewis was able to develop a program, known as Astro*Carto*Graphy, which plots the positions of the planets at the time of birth on to a map of the world. This, and other imitation astro-locality programmes, enables the astrologer to identify immediately where in the world different planetary energies will come to the fore.

      Using astro-locality techniques, it is possible to find parts of the world that will assist in one’s enterprises and self-knowledge, both generally and at particular times in your life. However, such methods need to be used with caution. If your birth chart shows that you have a strong but problematic Jupiter, which makes for joviality but also for over-optimism and extravagance, it may not be advisable to go rushing off somewhere where you can practise your generosity to the utmost! That said, the use of astro-locality can reach parts of your personality and potential that other methods cannot. If a change of scene is as good as a rest, astro-locality can be invaluable in helping us choose the optimum scene.

      JUDGING THE MOMENT

      Someone may already have decided that they are going to start a particular course, or go on holiday at a particular time, or have got married. There may be little choice in the matter. In such cases the astrologer can highlight the main kinds of issues that are likely to arise and point out where the greatest potential and problems are likely to be.