I wish someone would do this on Hillary--she's the one I'm worried about.

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STAR-CROSSED B'DAY BOY

AND a happy birthday to Bill Clinton, who turns 55 today. I asked Linda Ashland, known as the "Park Avenue Astrologer" for her well-heeled and influential clientele, to see what's in the heavens for the former president.

"Clinton can thank his lucky stars for the generous book deal that was completed on a full moon, when Jupiter, the planet of good luck, was conjuncting his midheaven, an angle of the horoscope that rules one's career," Linda says. (I love this stuff, but I haven't the foggiest notion of what it means.)

But Clinton's immediate future isn't all that rosy. "He'll be getting some very hard-hitting aspects over the next 12 months," she warns. "His chart shows absolutely no letup from hard, intensive work [that sounds like good news for his publisher], and he'll have to watch for possible health problems."

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2001

Answers

>when Jupiter, the planet of good luck, was conjuncting his midheaven, an angle of the horoscope that rules one's career

A chart "freezes" the sky overhead the moment you were born. Picture a pie cut into twelve slices. Astrologers have argued for a long time whether the pie pieces should be equal or unequal. The sizes don't matter for this analogy. Each "slice" represents a house. Each house has a meaning, as does each planet. But the analysis doesn't end there: planets can be at all different angles to each other: trune, opposite, conjunct, etc. All of these angles have meanings!

Go back to our uncut pie for a minute. Picture one line cutting the pie into two equal pieces. That's the midheaven, if memory serves.

There are two types of charts. There is the natal chart, which freezes the sky at the time of your birth. Astrologers use a natal chart to spot trends in the individual's life. Another chart is call a transit chart. It superimposes where the planets are today (planets orbit, remember) vs. where they were when you were born. And the analysis of planets in the houses and their relationships to each other begins anew. I think of it sort of like dimensional chess.

Beckie will say that I'm simplified this a fair amount, but that's the basic idea.

As for me, I've decided that astrological analysis has been fairly inaccurate so far, at least as it applies to my life. I've had charts done several different ways by different astrologers, and I didn't feel that any of them were accurate. The transits were a lost cause: when I was supposed to have luck, I had none. When I was supposed to be in a lull, things were popping. I chalk it off to having a lot of planets in Aquarius. (;

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2001

It sounds more as if your birth time was wrongly recorded, Meems. Mine is fairly accurate because I was born at home and my mother heard the clock striking midnight a few minutes before I was born at 0005 a.m. Dad wound and checked the clock every night against the BBC 9 o'clock news (as most people did) because the news began with the "pips" of Greenwich mean time.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2001

I think we had the right time. My mom remembers looking at the clock and that time was what the doc recorded, as well. I'm just a weirdo!

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001

Here's something weird. I was told by a fortuneteller once, no wait. Let me start at the beginning.

I went to a street fair in Coconut Grove once, just looking around ya know, as I had no money to buy art, just fruit drinks like papaya shakes. Anyway, I was walking down Commodore Avenue when a woman in a booth pointed at me and called me over. She was the fortune teller. I didn't want my fortune told, and in fact had already passed her booth when she called me over. she said okay, "just don't go back to where you were born."

Weird huh?

well, I was born in Torrance California, and couldn't see any reason at the time for me to be going back there. So, I sort of ignored what she said and continued to live my life here in Miami.

A few years later, my sister's husband was being reassigned from Alameda back to North Carolina. she and the kids had decided to drive back. she asked me to go with her and help with the driving. For those with geography disability, this is from San Francisco on the west coast to North Carolina [Camp Le Jeune] on the east coast. As the time approached when I would be leaving to fly out there they had a big earthquake. If I had left on time, I would have been there at the airport around that time, possibly on the way to Alameda, like on a bridge. Our plans changed, and I was unable to go, my dad went instead, the day after.

Later, a few years later, I had a job that required travel to various cities. One city was Long Beach. Not far from Torrance, actually. I went there twice while working that job. On one visit I rented a car and drove to Glendale to see a friend, and together we went to Torrance so I could show her the house that we lived in there. Boy did that neighborhood go down the toilet. Our pretty yellow and white house was painted rental tan and brown. The garage, was a mess, and the lawn looked like sh, er terrible. Or apple tree inthe back was gone, and the owners had added a Florida room, as we call it. Closed in sunroom is the more common term I think. It was a real let down to see it.

After that visit, I never went back. That was early '92, the spring before Andrew hit here.

Guess I shouldn't have gone back...

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001

That is weird, Barefoot. And I know the city next door, Redondo Beach, quite well. That's where the western relatives, who had money, checked out. I wish some of that beach property had come my way! (:

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001