Astrologers with Natal Sun in Cancer

Sun is now travelling through zodiac sign Cancer. I think I've exhausted what there is to say about the attributes of Cancer, the sign; relevant posts from past years can be accessed easily by clicking on "Cancer" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar at right.

This year I'm highlighting well-known astrologers born with Sun in the sign-of-the-month. Wikipedia's list (my source) threw up only three astrologers recognisable to me:

John Dee 13 July (23 July New Style) 1527

Michael Erlewine 18 July 1941

Rob Brezsny June 23 (year of birth not revealed by the astrologer).

Then, while searching for something elsewhere I accidentally came across one more:
Shelley Von Strunckel 15 July 1946.



In John Dee's day astrology was held in much higher esteem than it is in today's world. There could be much to say about Dee. I've mentioned him before in a post about "Magick".

For now, Astrodatabank's nutshell description will suffice, along with a couple of links to websites with more detail.

"British astrologer and a double-agent for Queen Elizabeth I to thwart Spain; signing his messages "007"! Gifted as a child, he was educated in math, philosophy and the occult, the author of two books before he was 21. Dee studied astrology with Cardan from 1552, gaining fame as a lecturer. Married three times, he produced eight kids. Dee died in 1608, Mortlake, England."

More athttp://www.johndee.org/DEE.html
and Britannica.com


Dr. John Dee had 5 planets in Water signs: Sun, Mercury, Jupiter (Cancer), Mars (Scorpio), and Neptune (Pisces).
2 in Air signs: Moon (Aquarius) and Uranus (Gemini). My theory that astrologers fare best when they have Air (mental acuity) and Water (sensitivity) predominant in their natal charts holds good for Dr. Dee.
Mars and Neptune are in the signs of their rulership too, giving them more relevance.




Michael Erlewine:
Extract from Astrology.com

Entrepreneur Michael Erlewine, an internationally-known astrologer, has studied and practiced astrology for over 40 years, as an author, teacher, lecturer, personal consultant, programmer, and conference producer. Erlewine pioneered computerized astrology, the first astrologer to program astrology on microcomputers and make those programs available to his fellow astrologers. This was in 1977. He founded the first astrology software company, Matrix Software, in 1978, and that company, along with Microsoft, are the two oldest software companies still on the Internet.

Michael, joined by his astrologer-brother Stephen Erlewine, went on to revolutionize astrology by producing microcomputer software for the first written astrological reports, first research system, first high-resolution chart wheels, geographic and star maps, and on and on. Erlewine has a least two other careers. In the 1960s, he was a musician. He hitchhiked with Bob Dylan, was the lead singer for the Prime Movers Blues Band (Iggy Pop was his drummer), and opened for bands like Cream at the Fillmore in San Francisco, during the Summer of Love. An expert in blues music, Erlewine interviewed and documented dozens of blues musicians.
Astrodatabank

His natal chart is at Astrodatabank

Watery input from Sun and Mercury in Cancer. Air from Jupiter in Gemini. So, Michael Erlewine does have planets in Water and Air in his chart, but in his case this may not be not the over-riding factor. What stands out in his chart is a stellium (tight cluster) of three planets: Moon, Saturn, Uranus in Earthy Taurus, all harmoniously linking by trine aspect to Neptune in Virgo. It's as though Neptune (creativity) is being harnessed to Moon (inner self), Saturn (business, career) and Uranus(technology, the avant garde) to produce exactly what Mr Erlewine turned out to be, as described above, a visionary entrepreneur with talent for both astrology and business.




Rob Brezsny is one of the growing band of astrologers sensitive about publishing full birth data - and who could blame him? Without more information all we can be sure of is that he has natal Sun in early Cancer. Mercury and/or Venus in nextdoor Gemini would fit him well, and provide some Air to support my theory. Mercury can be found only in the same sign as the Sun or in one of the adjacent signs (in this case Gemini or Leo).

Mr Brezsny is another multi-talented astrologer - also writer, poet, and musician. His weekly horoscope column and website Free Will Astrology has been published for almost 30 years in numerous magazines and periodicals, as well as latterly on-line. His style is quite different from most other Sun sign writers, which is what first attracted me to his work . I remember writing a review about Mr Brezsny's Free Will Astrology (one of the only two Sun sign sites I read) for a website called Sign Show - I checked - it's still around!




Shelley Von Strunckel
from Astrodatabank

"American-British astrologer who writes for the British papers, a column and Sunday supplements. After the death of Patric Walker, she took over some of his columns, most notably in the London Evening Standard. She also appears in TV interviews.

Von Strunckel first went to England in 1985. Very attractive, she married an English barrister in 1990. They are London residents but she keeps an apartment in New York City and travels between the two cities often."

Ms Von Strunckel has Sun and Saturn in Water (Cancer), Moon (Aquarius)Jupiter and Neptune (Libra) and Uranus (Gemini) in Air signs - she's a good example of Water and Air predominant in an astrologer's chart!

Wednesday Woo-Woo ~ MAGICK

Magick with a k - different from conjurors' magic. Magick aka sorcery resides in the deepest darkest corners of Woo. It's a vast subject, if taken from a global perspective, too vast for a modest blog post. I'll simply skim the surface of Western-type magick and its background.

Astrology may play some part in the supposed workings of magick - the timing of spells or procedures, the preparation of a talisman, for instance. Mediaeval magicians would almost always need some level of astrological knowledge, for them astrology was part and parcel of occult practice. I see it as otherwise - but that's just me.

From relatively modern times, Aleister Crowley is the first name that springs to mind when contemplating magick. The name alone gives me the creeps. A predecessor by several centuries, John Dee, has a much better feel for me. Distance does indeed lend enchantment!

It's well nigh impossible now to get a true feel and understanding of what life was like in John Dee's time and place - 16th century England and Europe. Let's see, what was going on around then? Religious reformation, exploration of the globe, discovery and colonisation of new lands, plagues, The Renaissance, developments in philosophy, science, art, literature and politics continued apace. Magic(k) was an integral part of life in the 16th century. At times it must have been difficult to differentiate between magick and reality, living in the midst of such seemingly eccentric change.


Intellectuals used magick in their efforts to discover "the meaning of life". While men like John Dee, scholar, mathematician, alchemist, occultist, astronomer, and astrologer, had sincere aspirations, they often fell foul of religious leaders who sensed that the knowledge they were aiming to acquire could weaken religion's control of the masses. John Dee was fortunate to enjoy patronage and protection from Queen Elizabeth the First for many years, as her advisor. Lesser mortals, namely women - witches - who involved themselves in magic to help themselves, neighbours and friends, were ostracised at best, tortured and executed at worst.

There's an entertaining article on John Dee by astrologer Dr Z : Who's the Original 007?

Magick in the 16th century, and now, covers a varied range of occult activity, the focus of all: to cause change, material or otherwise. Rituals of various kinds play a major part in magickal preparation. These rituals (I'm guessing) could exert an effect of some abnormal kind upon the proponent's brain function. Sexual connections occasionally crop up too. Don't they always?

A broomstick, accessory of any respectable Hallowe'en witch, was thought, in reality to have been annointed with an ointment made from hallucinogenic plants, the ointment then being transferred to the mucous membrane of the broomstick "rider" for rapid absorption, with the result of...well, a feeling of flying I guess. I feel I should add "Don't try this at home!"

A sexual link can be found in the first few lines of Wikipedia's "Magick" section:

The Anglo-Saxon k in Magick is a means of indicating the kind of magic which Crowley performed. K is the eleventh letter of several alphabets, and eleven is the principal number of magick, because it is the number attributed to the Qliphoth - the underworld of chaotic forces that have to be mentally conquered before magick can be performed. K has other magical implications: it corresponds to the power or shakti aspect of creative energy, for k is the ancient Egyptian khu, the magical power. Specifically, it stands for kteis (vagina), the complement to the wand (or phallus) which is used by the Magician in certain sexual magick aspects of the Great Work

Sex sells - whether car, broomstick or magickal ideas.

The $64,000 question: does magick work? Is it possible to "cause" change? Some obviously think so, otherwise the idea wouldn't still be around. This desire to change things seems to be tightly woven into human nature. A favourite quote from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

Ah love! could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -
And then Re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!

A tale from personal experience. Many years ago, after a period of misfortune, ill health and downright bad luck, as a last resort I enlisted the assistance of a so-called magician to change circumstances, by removing what I sensed as a bad influence affecting myself and my late partner. To cut a long story short what he did (if he did anything at all other than take a lot of money from me) might have been instrumental in our losing everything we owned, almost lost our lives too, in a fire. I'll never be certain that there was a connection, but the timing was sinister to say the least.

So.... my advice about magick: leave it alone. Better to be safe, meeting challenges in more usual ways, than sorry after trying to change things using occult means.