CLUB NEWS with Secretary - Kevin Rowan-DrewittOur first speaker of the year of was yours truly who gave a talk about the Glastonbury Zodiac to the best attended meeting in over a year, which included a couple of first-timers. I began by giving a brief illustrated history about the Somerset town of Glastonbury and why it was special to so many people. I explained how the town is steeped in history, mystery, magic and myth, with an illustrious past that included the Celts, folklore, the birth of Christianity in Britain, the Holy Grail, sacred wells, Arthurian Legend, Dion Fortune and the Avalonians, New Age Spirituality, alternative beliefs/healing and of course the famous music festival. I went on to say how Glastonbury had many famous landmarks – the 522ft Tor (hill) that dominated the local landscape, the ruined Abbey containing the graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, Chalice Hill which reputedly had the Holy Grail buried within its mound and Weary-all Hill where Jesus’ Uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, struck his staff in the ground and it turned into a thorn bush which is still there today. Added to all these famous landmarks in the 1920’s was the Glastonbury Zodiac, a huge circle of all 12 signs of the zodiac in their right order, drawn into the very land itself by the lines of roads and rivers. It was discovered by Katherine Maltwood, who was a quite remarkable woman.
I gave a brief outline of Katherine’s amazing life, which began in 1878 in London and ended in 1961 in British Columbia, Canada. Along the way she studied sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London, became a socialite, traveled throughout Europe and Asia, had her sculptures regularly exhibited in London, was the inspiration for a mystical adventure novel, discovered and wrote two books on the Glastonbury Zodiac, emigrated to Canada, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and upon her death left her entire collection of arts and antiques to the University of Victoria, British Columbia and thus had a museum named after her!
I told the story of how Katherine was commissioned to create a map to illustrate the first ever book on Arthurian Romances, ‘The High History of the Holy Grail’, written about 1200 A.D. and based on the landscape near Glastonbury Abbey where the knights adventures had taken place. It was whilst studying the local maps for this commission that she suddenly saw the shape of a huge lion in the landscape. She then noticed a giant figure, which turned out to be one of the twins of Gemini, and she then went on to discover all the other signs of the zodiac.
I continued by going through each of Katherine’s 12 zodiac landscape figures in turn, explaining their symbolism and how clues to their existence were to be found on the map. For example, Leo the Lion, had his front paw reaching out to touch Somerton, the ancient royal seat of Somerset. (Royalty is associated with Leo) The old name for the area on which the figure was located was ‘Catsash Hundred’ and the land south of this effigy was still called today ‘Catsgore’. There were also a lot of pubs in the area called ‘The Red Lion'! Similar associations were to be found with all the other signs and their locations. Many members made valued observations and contributions as well as asking a lot of interesting questions, most of which I was able to answer. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and I received much positive feedback. My only regrets were that I left my notes on how each figure was a character in the Arthurian Romances at home, and that I did not manage to ascertain Katherine’s birth chart in time for the meeting. However, I have now and will include both the next time I give this talk.
Our first Guest Speaker of the year was Chris Ogilvie,a practising professional astrologer who came all the way from Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria to address us on 'Pluto Transits' and was rewarded with the best turnout at the club in a long time - the room was packed. Chris had given the talk at last years national conference of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, so it came as no surprise to discover that Chris was an extremely competant and entertaining speaker, with a wonderful relaxed style that was assured and engaging.
She began with the chart for the night, which appropriately had Pluto in the 3rd house of communication! Chris then went on to answer the question ‘What is Pluto about?’ using some great acetates and displaying a playful sense of humour that made members warm to her. Utilising her very relaxed, casual style, coupled with an easy-going demeanour, Chris talked about the positive and negative aspects of Pluto, including the Dark Lord’s habit of ‘clearing out one’s cellar’ – and not always with your permission! She explained about Pluto’s cycles and that her generation were going to be the first to experience a (known of) transiting Pluto opposition to their natal Pluto, and that was going to be very interesting to observe. Chris added that anything with the prefix ‘re’ (e.g. ‘regeneration’, ‘rebirth’ etc.), was good for a Pluto transit. She went on to say that with a Pluto transit, as one would expect, one door closed and another opened, but it was the corridor in between them that was the problem! It was usually whilst clients were experiencing the effects of being in this ‘corridor’ that they came to her for help and advice.
During Pluto transits things came to the surface, Chris explained, and that part of the process is to heal, and added that the ease with which Pluto transits could be dealt with largely depended on the other planets involved. Ways in which Pluto transits could manifest were: mild or fierce; a journey into darkness (therapy); surrender (resistance causes pain); a constipating effect on life; healing opportunities; buried treasure; subtle yet powerful change.
Chris then closed the first half of the evening by using her own chart to explain how she was born to explain about Pluto transits as she had Pluto in the 11th trine the Moon in the 3rd natally and had also experienced tons of Pluto transits. She enthralled members with the stories of her Pluto transit experiences, which were truly quite amazing, and passed on the powerful lesson that she had learnt from them – ‘Under Pluto, do whatever you have the energy for’.
After a short break, during which the socialising was just fabulous to observe (and rather hard to stop!), Chris shared with us case studies of two of her clients, who had given their permission for their stories to be told. The first client had an extraordinary chart and had been through loads of Pluto transits with incredible stories to tell. Her story was one of an amazing life of reinvention, re-evaluation and crisis, and had emerged out of it all as a totally different person – but happy with her life. This showed, Chris said, that with Pluto transits the outcome was the most significant thing, not the bad feeling at the time of them.
The second case study was a woman who had experienced a lot of Pluto transits to her personal planets in the 12th. Needless to say the stories that unfolded were of betrayal, love affairs, abandonment etc. However, the person had found a hidden energy and strength in herself through it all.
Chris concluded her brilliant talk with two final pieces of wisdom on Pluto transits: ‘Pluto pulls you up as hard as he pulls you down’, and ‘If you are in the dark, embrace and enjoy it’. Her talk met with a marvellous reception and I know it will not be long before she will be back to enthral and entertain us again.
Our packed May meeting, including two people completely new to Northern Lights, started on a sad note with me informing members of the sudden death of former member Elvira Salvatore. I gave a brief summary of her remarkable life and then we held a minutes silence in honour of her. She will sadly missed by all who knew her.
Members and guests were then treated to a great talk by my wife Kathy Rowan-Drewitt on Spritual Astrology. Kathy began by informing us of what Spiritual Astrology was, how she got into it, and of her experiences of it whilst studying the Western Mystery Tradition for a number of years.
Starting with the elements, Kathy explained the lesson each one had to learn in this lifetime. Fire signs, for example, were here to learn about love, whilst for Earth it was service, air brotherhood and water peace. Kathy built on these basic concepts by going through each of the signs in detail, which was both interesting and informative and used some brilliant metaphors and turns of phrase that really got her point across very well. This entire first half of her talk was illustrated with some great acetates that used colour to good effect.
After the break Kathy explained what the Moon’s Nodes were and how they showed the theme of what we have been working on up until now in our past lives and what we were here to learn in our present and future lives. She then went on to explain what the Sabian Symbols were and how they can be used to tell our life story. Her list of techniques concluded with how to put your chart on the Qabalistic Tree Of Life and use that to interpret your chart from a spiritual viewpoint. All the above made fascinating viewing and listening and would make a talk/article in themselves, but sadly I do not have the space to go into any more detail myself here. Instead we shall all have to go to Kathy’s workshop on the subject In August (see on the right hand side of this page) or wait for Kathy’s book on this subject to come out, which I am sure it will one day, as it thoroughly deserves to!
Kathy concluded her talk by sharing two of her own case studies in this field which were very enlightening and showed how the techniques were used in practice, and how accurate they were. It was all riveting stuff and members asked many questions about the subject, which Kathy answered with great aplomb and was a credit to her profession. It was a fantastic night which concluded with a great raffle which saw many folk going home with some super prizes and perhaps just a touch of spiritual enlightenment!
