PREVIOUS THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY
October 1st to October 4th 2003
WEDNESDAY October 1
Mars the wandering star
Dear Jonathan,
I am new to astrology but I have been watching Mars since you pointed it out. Er... How did the ancients know it was a planet? To me Mars looks just like a huge star. I would have had no way of knowing unless I had been told. JBDear JB,
Actually, you would. The very word planet means 'wandering star'. It's just that Mars has been hanging around the same section of sky since late June. You won't see, till November, how fast it can shift when it really gets going.
THURSDAY October 2
UFOs, bringers of good fortune by John Michell
UFOs come in all shapes and sizes: the disk, the cigar shape, the flying triangle, the spinning top and, most impressive of all, the silent, many-coloured globe. Mr J. Hills saw one of those near Rotherham. With his wife and four children he was driving home one evening when something appeared above them: 'It was a large, round or oval object with flashing coloured lights, hovering silently. After we had observed it for quite a while. it went off at great speed.' There is a mass of valuable information in the letters you have been sending me through Jonathan. I am very gratetul. This is a large-scale phenomenon, and it is important to know what is going on.
One of the things I have learnt is that UFOs are habit-forming. After you have seen one you are likely to see others. Diane Beever writes that she is, 'not given to fads and fancies', but she has had two clear sightings. The first was by a church at Basildon, Essex. She, her two children and a friend 'stood and watched a long, cylindrical object hovering over the town, with the sun glinting on it from a cloudless sky. After about ten minutes it suddenly took off.' Years later she saw another of the same kind. Other readers have seen plenty, all their lives.
Quite often, UFO sightings are followed by good luck and happiness. One of my letters was from a lady who has asked to remain anonymous. Early one morning in 1998 she saw a spinning top UFO outside her window. 'A light on top of it revolved like a lighthouse beam. It moved up and down and then disappeared... slowly. I stIll can't get over it as I won �46,000 on the football pools two days later.'A 'spinning top' UFO was seen by Keith Mouland at the Glastonbury music festival in 1971. 'As I watched, it suddenly sped off into the night sky at incredible speed in the direction of Glastonbury Tor. I got the impression it, was using earth energy lines. These beings have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. This has affected my outlook on life, and I view my problems against the bigger picture of nature and natural forces.'
FRIDAY October 3
Dear Jonathan... plus End of the Archers by Bernard Fitzwalter
Dear Jonathan,
I have heard that when you reach age 40, you are supposed to 'go to the next sign'. I am a Scorpio but am over the age of 40... Should I be reading Sagittarius? SandyDear Sandy,
Where did you hear that? And while you were there, did you also hear about a flying pig, the tooth fairy or a diet that lets you gorge on curry and chocolate and still lose 5lbs a week? The idea, I assume, comes from the notion of 'planetary progression'. But even if you do believe this technique has any merit, you can't just go around giving out arbitrary ages for when it 'kicks in'. Not, that is, unless you actually ARE the tooth fairy. End of the Archers? By Bernard Fitzwalter
Many people seem to be worried by a recent news report about a dwarf galaxy called Sagittarius being gobbled up by the Milky Way. If you want to understand this, think of the zodiac signs as twelve windows in the sky, through which we watch the planets go by. The planets are just in the foreground; behind them, billions of miles away, are the stars which make up the constellations. Even further away are other objects including the all-but invisible galaxy that everyone's getting so excited about. It was only discovered in 1994 by people looking very carefully. Now, they think, it is being attracted to our own much bigger galaxy by gravitational forces, breaking up as it does so. But that's just what galaxies do over millions of years. None of it, I promise, makes any difference to Sagittarians. I think there is mischief in the way this news story has been worded to give the impression that we are about to lose a sign, thus making astrology collapse.
Jonathan adds; Actually, though, it nicely illustrates a point that Bernard and I keep trying to make. In astronomy, there are often several objects with the same or similar names. There's a galaxy called Sagittarius, a constellation called Sagittarius and a zodiac sign called Sagittarius. All three are crucially different.
SATURDAY October 4
Diamonds are forever plus Stephen Gough
Diamonds are Forever...Capricorns are like fine wine. The more they mature, the better they get. Shirley Bassey is a classic case in point. Born on January 8, 1937, despite a long, brilliant career she is only now coming into her prime. 2004 will be one of the most successful years of her life.Barely a crime... Recognise the name, Stephen Gough? Yesterday Stephen Gough was freed from Inverness Prison. He had been kept there for weeks without a trial, for the terrible crime of trying to walk naked from Land's End to John O'Groats. A lesser person might have turned around and gone home. But Stephen is a Taurean. And Taureans can be very, very stubborn. He carried straight on with his one-man mission to challenge hypocrisy and prudery ...and was promptly re-arrested. I predict this story is far from over. Maybe he'd get better treatment from the Scottish authorities if he claimed to be one of Rod Stewart's paramours. Rod's current girlfriend, Penny Lancaster, famously took her clothes off in a busy shop window last week and nobody arrested her. Interestingly, Rod's ex, Rachel Hunter belongs to Penny's opposite sign. Penny's a Pisces, Rachel's a Virgo. The two signs clearly have more in common than you might think.
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