Blog

Astrology explained without the fluff

All Posts
Natal

Regiomontanus: the Renaissance astronomer who measured the horoscope

How Regiomontanus, the Renaissance astronomer-astrologer, gave the horoscope its precise tables and a house system still used today.

7 min read·
Health

Part of Sickness in Medical Astrology, Explained

The Part of Sickness is a calculated point in traditional medical astrology built from Mars and Saturn. Learn its disputed formula and how classical physicians read it.

6 min read·
Natal

2026 Astrology Forecast: Saturn-Neptune at 0 Aries, Feb 20

2026 reshuffles the outer planets all at once, with a rare Saturn-Neptune conjunction at 0 degrees Aries, four eclipses, three Mercury retrogrades and a Venus retrograde. A traditional map of the year's structural reset.

7 min read·
Natal

The August 12, 2026 Total Solar Eclipse: Totality Returns to Europe

On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse sweeps across Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain near 20 degrees of Leo. It is the first total eclipse over mainland Europe since 1999. Here is what to know.

7 min read·
Beginner

Marsilio Ficino: Renaissance Philosopher of Astral Medicine

How Marsilio Ficino fused Plato, Hermes and the planets into a gentle Renaissance philosophy of astral medicine and well-being.

7 min read·
Natal

The Sabian Symbols: A Picture for Every Degree

The Sabian Symbols are 360 short symbolic images, one for each degree of the zodiac, channelled in 1925 by clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler and astrologer Marc Edmund Jones, and later reworked by Dane Rudhyar.

6 min read·
Beginner

The Star of Bethlehem: Astrology's Most Famous Sky Sign

The Star of Bethlehem is the celestial sign that, in the Gospel of Matthew, led the Magi to the birth of Jesus. The Magi were astrologer-priests from the East, making it the most famous astrological event in Western culture.

6 min read·
Natal

William Lilly and Christian Astrology

William Lilly (1602 to 1681), the English Merlin, wrote Christian Astrology in 1647, the first major astrology textbook printed in English and the book that codified horary practice.

6 min read·
Beginner

Al-Sufi and the Book of Fixed Stars Explained

How the Persian astronomer al-Sufi preserved and corrected the catalogue of bright fixed stars that classical astrology still reads.

7 min read·
Natal

Eclipses in 2026: Feb 17, Mar 3, Aug 12 and Aug 28

The four eclipses of 2026 fall on February 17, March 3, August 12 and August 28, including a rare total solar eclipse over Spain. Here are their zodiac positions and how astrology reads them.

6 min read·
Natal

Mars Retrograde 2027: Jan 10-Apr 1, Virgo to Leo

Mars turns retrograde from January 10 to April 1, 2027, moving back from Virgo into Leo. A traditional window to review how you use energy and anger, and to refine rather than launch.

7 min read·
Beginner

Why the Days of the Week Are Named After Planets

The seven days of the week are named after the seven classical planets, and the order comes from an old astrological idea called planetary hours. Here is how Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon ended up running your calendar.

6 min read·
Natal

Precession of the Equinoxes and the Great Year

Precession of the equinoxes is the slow wobble of Earth's axis that completes one circle in about 25,772 years, the Great Year. It moves the equinox point westward and is the reason the tropical and sidereal zodiacs drift apart.

6 min read·
Beginner

The Astrolabe: Computing the Heavens by Hand

The astrolabe is an analog computer that flattens the sphere of the sky onto a disc. For more than a thousand years it told the time, located the stars, and found the rising degree to cast a horoscope, exactly what AstroAk now does by computer.

6 min read·
Beginner

The Antikythera Mechanism: The Ancient Computer of the Heavens

The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient Greek geared device, recovered from a shipwreck in 1901 and dated to roughly the 2nd century BCE, that modeled the Sun, Moon, and zodiac. It is the oldest known analog computer.

6 min read·
Beginner

As Above, So Below: Hermes and the Emerald Tablet

As above, so below is astrology's core axiom of correspondence: the heavens and the human world mirror one another, traced to the Hermetic Emerald Tablet.

6 min read·
Health

Avicenna and Astrological Medicine: The Canon and the Stars

Avicenna's Canon of Medicine ruled the sickroom for six centuries and refined the doctrine of temperament. Here is how his medicine met, and quietly limited, astrology.

7 min read·
Beginner

Guido Bonatti: the Medieval Master Who Systematised Astrology

Guido Bonatti, the famed 13th-century astrologer of Forli, wrote the encyclopedic Liber Astronomiae that organised the whole art.

7 min read·
Natal

Jupiter in Leo 2026-2027: A Year to Shine, Create and Lead

Jupiter enters Leo on June 29, 2026 and stays until about July 2027. This bold, warm-hearted transit favors creativity, romance, leadership and stepping confidently into the spotlight.

6 min read·
Beginner

The Music of the Spheres: The Idea Behind Every Aspect

The Music of the Spheres is the ancient idea that the moving planets produce an inaudible harmony built from whole-number ratios. It is the philosophical root of the aspects astrology still reads today.

6 min read·
Natal

Venus Retrograde 2026: Oct 3-Nov 14, Scorpio to Libra

Venus retrogrades from Scorpio back into Libra from October 3 to November 14, 2026: 41 days traditionally for reviewing love, money and self-worth. Hold off on a brand-new relationship, a big purchase or a dramatic new look until Venus turns direct.

7 min read·
Natal

Castor and Pollux: The Twin Fixed Stars in Astrology

Castor and Pollux are the head-stars of Gemini: Castor carries Mercury's nature, Pollux Mars's, now near 20 to 23 degrees tropical Cancer, read only by tight conjunction.

6 min read·
Natal

Chart Shapes in Astrology: Reading the Whole Pattern

A chart shape reads how all ten planets are distributed around the wheel as one pattern. Learn Marc Edmund Jones's seven modern forms, Splash to Splay, described not predicted.

6 min read·
Natal

Chart Shapes: The Seven Jones Patterns

Before you read a single aspect, the overall shape of a birth chart tells a story. Explore the seven Jones patterns and what each says about how a person's energy is organized.

7 min read·