As you may know, I have been studying Astrology for a little while. My personal chart indicated quite a big event that would happen around March 16 2004. But what was it going to be?

Astrology Rules

This is actually a true story.

I had tried not to get involved in Astrology. I am an extremely lazy mathematician. Numerology was easy enough as it was simple adding and subtracting but astrology… well that was too much like hard work. Then came the invention of the astrology computer package that did all the boring calculations. So there I was left with no further excuses not to learn.

Although I concentrated mostly on mundane astrology (political and world events) it was inevitable that I also had to learn and understand a little about personal astrology. It was around about October 2003 when I suddenly realised that one of the slow outer moving planets was going to make an important impact on my chart. The question was what impact?

Now you don't need to know much about astrology rules to follow this. There are twelve signs in the zodiac and twelve houses, which do not necessarily fit exactly into each sign. In my case I have my 4^th house at just over 4 degrees of Pisces. The significance of the 4^th house is that it is at the bottom of the chart for everyone and the house relates to things that happen in the home.

The planet in question was Uranus. Now Uranus takes 7 years to travel through one sign. To put this into some sort of perspective, wherever Uranus is when you were born it would take 84 years to travel around your horoscope before it arrives at the point it was at when you were born.

So why was I concerned? The answer to that was in the principles behind the planet. Uranus is the planet of sudden events. It is so unpredictable that it is considered to be an astrologer's nightmare. The planet relates to that part of our nature that is individual. It is associated with new technology, social events, electricity and rebellion.

…in the 4^th house of home!

What was going to happen - suddenly - in my home?

I started to make my calculations. The exact point of ingress was going to be 16 March 2004 but the range of time and how long the aspect would apply could be for weeks. In other words there was no guarantee that the event would happen suddenly on the exact date of the ingress.

I looked at my chart and those of my family. Would this event tie up with other family members or was it just me? My wife seemed to be involved for some reason and possibly even one of my daughters but no everyone. Somehow nothing I looked at made sense. Was there going to be an electrical fire? Uranus (electricity) in the 4^th house (home) making a sudden freedom of an electrical wire at home! This was a very worrying thought. Then I considered the Uranus effect on my computer (new technology). Was my computer going to blow up? No, that did not make sense. My wife would be thrilled and my daughter would not care.

There had to be something else. Now the planet Uranus was going to be in Pisces. Pisces is a sign that relates to large institutions like governmental departments. Both my wife and I work in government departments. Could it be that I was going to be starting a new job? It was a possibility as the opposite point to the 4^th house is the 10^th house of career and these points often work in pairs. Or could it be that I was moving house? That was unlikely, however, my place of work was moving to a new building at the end of March. The problem with that idea was it had no impact on my home life at all. The new building was only 40 feet away from where I worked. You see one of the twists of the Uranus factor is that 'sudden' tends to lean towards 'unforeseen'. I knew I was going to move to a different building for months. No. That wasn't it.

The days and weeks slowly passed. Each day bringing me a step closer to what I now saw as my doom. With each new event that occurred I tried to relate it to this accursed Uranus ingress but nothing seemed to fit. What was the point of being a predictive astrologer, I thought, if I can't even work out what was going to happen in my own life? At least I should be prepared.

I spoke with an astrologer friend of mine who laughed at my foreboding. "The astrologers curse" he chuckled. "Uranus is unforeseen until it is too late. Just be grateful that you know something will happen".

The day before the dreaded 16^th I attended the London Book Fair. My book was floating around somewhere but, to my disappointment, I could not find it. As I was just about to leave I was stopped by someone with a newspaper for a publishing company. We got chatting and she invited me to a party on the 16^th. 'Ah!' I thought to myself. 'A sudden invitation to a social event'. Now that was pretty Uranian and I would be taking my wife. Perhaps this was something significant.

As it turned out it was just a party and nothing of significance occurred. When one of the outer planets makes an aspect to a personal chart - a one off aspect that will not occur in that particular place for the rest of your life - a surprise invitation to a party just doesn't fit the bill. So it sort of fit but could not be the whole event.

Nothing continued to happen for many days after. Then on 25 March another piece of the jigsaw fell into place when I was told that my job was going to change in a matter of days. I did not expect this to happen for a quite a while yet and suddenly found myself with a whole department to close down. Not only that I was not particularly happy about my new role. Uranus provided the sudden event. Pisces is a sign that relates to the oppressed and I certainly felt that. I was about to be swallowed back into the large bureaucratic machine (Pisces) from a job where I had the Uranian freedom to set my own tasks. Now this was a bit more significant to the Uranus ingress but it didn't have enough to do with the home. Yes it made a significant impact to my job but I still felt there must surely be more to it than that.

Another aspect of Pisces is its relation to fluids and gas. Add a drop of Uranus to it and you get sudden events, possibly involving new technology or electricity, surrounding water and gas. Stick the event in the 4^th house of home and you could conclude that a sudden event (Uranus) at home (4^th House) will occur involving water or gas. When one considers the worst possibilities it sounds like a gas explosion. I had thought of this event but explosions would normally involve Uranus and the planet Mars. Mars had nothing to do with it as far as I was concerned.

So what do you think happened on 28 March?

My central heating boiler suddenly broke down! There was no Mars, as I said, involved. So no fire. And that was the problem. The pilot light would not come on. Water (Pisces) had started to leak. The boiler had worked fine the night before and had just suddenly (Uranus) stopped working. Fortunately I have a friend who runs a plumbing company. He popped around within half an hour and happily condemned the boiler. My wallet suddenly felt a whole lot lighter. The boiler was there when we moved in 16 years ago. Uranus would have been in my 1st house of self at the time.

It could have been worse I suppose but it seems to me that the Uranus ingress into my 4^th house of home has been made up of a number of different events. Perhaps it is part of a trend that will only fade when the aspect moves away. But this cannot be the end of the story for one other important point that I haven't mentioned yet.

One of the curious things about some planets is that they appear to go backwards at certain times. This means that Uranus is going to go back over my 4^th house later on and then go forwards again. In other words I have two more bouts with this planet until about the same time next year. I had planned to buy a new computer but somehow I think it might be worth waiting a bit. I might still change jobs and I may even move house. Whatever the big event is it hasn't happened on the first hit but looking at the evidence so far I doubt very much that it will have anything to do with being offered a new job at a party hosted by a plumber in my house. I shall just have to wait and see.