A fun spin on serious cosmic stuff! Wendell C. Perry has 40 years experience studying astrology and how it impacts personalities & relationships. He's written two books & published articles in astrology magazines. He's happy to share this website so that you, too, can have fun with astrology to help you in everyday life!
The Midheaven or Medium Coeli (MC for short) is the highest point in the sky at the moment of birth. Like the Ascendant, the degree marking the Midheaven changes every four minutes or so. Taken together, the degree of the Ascendant and the degree of the Midheaven form the horoscope. Most systems for dividing the horoscope circle into sections (called houses) derive from the placement of the Ascendant and the Midheaven.
The Midheaven or MC usually represents the beginning of the 10th House in a horoscope. It is associated with career, accomplishment and our “public” image or reputation. The person with Aries on the Ascendant, for example, might seem impulsive and reckless in terms of his or her outer personality but if this person has Capricorn on the MC (which is likely) then he or she will strive toward substantial accomplishments that have long term value. In the end, the reputation of this person would be that of a productive and rather conventional citizen, despite the more adventurous attributes of their outer personality.
Directly opposite the Midheaven, we have the Imum Coeli (or I.C). Some people also refer to it (incorrectly in purely astronomical terms) as the Nadir. It is generally associated with the home and family connections.
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More Pain for the World Economy
The economic crisis of 2008 may have surprised some politicians and Wall Street bankers but not astrologers. Astrologer had expected something big to break during this period because of the unique arrangement of Uranus, Saturn and Pluto in the sky at that time. The planets formed what is called a T-square, with Saturn and Uranus moving back and forth on opposite sides of the ecliptic (a 180 degree aspect or opposition) and Pluto in the middle at a 90 degree angle (or square aspect) to both.
In planetary arrangements such as this all the aspects are not exact at the same time. The first exact (to the degree and minute of the arc) opposition between Saturn and Uranus, for example, came on Election Day of 2008. Retrograde motion (the apparent reverse movement of these planets relative to the Earth) caused the aspect between Saturn and Uranus to come exact three more times in 2009 and 2010. The 90 degree aspect between Saturn and Pluto was also exact three times during those years.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marriage to Maria Shriver was not only a political oddity—a rising star in the Republican Party married to a member of the most famous family on the Democratic side—it was also an astrological oddity. The marriage joined two Sun Signs that are notoriously incompatible: proud and flamboyant Leo (Arnold) and secretive and emotional Scorpio. But this simple Sun Sign combination is deceptive. Even though Shriver has the Sun in Scorpio, her Moon is in Leo, a fact that would make her very attractive to Sun Sign Leos like Schwarzenegger. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger’s Moon is in Capricorn, a sign that is sympathetic to Scorpio.
Their Mars/Venus profile is, at first glance, quite positive. Schwarzenegger has Mars in Gemini, which is quite compatible with Shriver’s Libra Mars. These are two people for whom the idea of a partnership is more important than sexual or emotional intimacy. Also, Shriver’s Sagittarius Venus curtails the possessiveness and jealousy to which Scorpio Sun Signs are so prone. With her combination of Mars and Venus, Shriver was willing to allow her Mars in Gemini husband at least a little room to explore his curious sexual nature.
It was Schwarzenegger’s Venus in Cancer that disrupted the marriage. One would have thought that, with a Leo ego and Mars in restless Gemini, the former actor would have been caught cheating with an actress or some other woman he had encountered on a glamorous movie set. But people with Venus in Cancer are most attracted to partners who make them feel emotionally secure and who represent safe domesticity. So, it was an affair with his housekeeper that brought him down.
No one gets a second chance to cross a Sun Sign Scorpio, so the fact that this couple’s attempts at reconciliation failed is no surprise. Moreover, with the Moon in Leo, Shriver no doubt saw Schwarzenegger’s affair as an unforgivable affront to her dignity.
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So Which Sign Is Mine?
A very long time ago some Babylonian priests were looking at the sky and they noticed that the sun was aligned with a certain group of stars every year at the spring equinox. They noticed that another group of stars aligned with the sun on the summer solstice, and another on the fall equinox and another on the winter solstice. They connected the individual stars in these groups with lines and made pictures out of them. Then they divided sky into sections of thirty degrees, each with its own picture, and called it a zodiac. The main purpose of these pictures in the sky was to mark the passage of the seasons and the increments in between.
Centuries passed and, contrary of all expectations, the pictures in the sky moved. Astrologers in India continued to use these pictures in the sky to determine the location of the signs of the zodiac and, consequently, they developed their own, quite unique system of astrology. But in the west we decided that it was the change in seasons, the equinoxes and the solstices, that were important. The constellations, after all, were intended only to be cosmic markers for these significant, earthly events.
The recent controversy over the difference between the astronomical location of the “signs” and the signs used by astrologer is a spurious regurgitation of this ancient argument. The system of astrology most people know, and the sign of the zodiac you associate with your date of birth, has not changed. It is based on the assumption that Aries begins at the spring equinox, Cancer at summer solstice and so on. In other words, it is a system that is dependent on the time and not on the location of distant constellations.
The Midheaven or Medium Coeli (MC for short) is the highest point in the sky at the moment of birth. Like the Ascendant, the degree marking the Midheaven changes every four minutes or so. Taken together, the degree of the Ascendant and the degree of the Midheaven form the horoscope. Most systems for dividing the horoscope circle into sections (called houses) derive from the placement of the Ascendant and the Midheaven.
In planetary arrangements such as this all the aspects are not exact at the same time. The first exact (to the degree and minute of the arc) opposition between Saturn and Uranus, for example, came on Election Day of 2008. Retrograde motion (the apparent reverse movement of these planets relative to the Earth) caused the aspect between Saturn and Uranus to come exact three more times in 2009 and 2010. The 90 degree aspect between Saturn and Pluto was also exact three times during those years.
hriver has the Sun in Scorpio, her Moon is in Leo, a fact that would make her very attractive to Sun Sign Leos like Schwarzenegger. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger’s Moon is in Capricorn, a sign that is sympathetic to Scorpio.
