AstroCocktail Newsletter on Planetary Patterns

John and Susan Townley’s AstroCocktail publishes an excellent newsletter. The recent issue, titled “Planetary Order III: Islands in the Sky,” is about the big planetary patterns in our horoscopes. This is the last part of a three-part AstroCocktail newsletter series on how our planets line up around the horoscope. John Townley adds new depth and understanding to the basic patterns (bowl, see-saw, etc.). He writes,

The overall pattern of the chart – often referred to as “Jones patterns,” after astrologer Marc Edmund Jones who first named a variety of them – will add emphasis to certain planets because of their unique positions in the overall marching order of the chart.

Chart patterns are in part significant because of the way planetary order highlights or isolates certain planets and their impact, giving some more power than others around them. By definition, chart patterns become patterns (as opposed to random distribution) because they feature one or more distinct clusterings of planets. That means that when it comes to progressions and transits, those clusters get hit like they are islands in the sky.

Townley uses a variety of different individual charts as examples. Paul McCartney, for example, has a bundle pattern:

All 10 planets are bundled in 1/3 of the chart, leaving 2/3 open. A highly-focused, unifaceted individual, capable of great intensity and depth in one given area, often to the exclusion of all else is the norm. It has all the alienation of the bowl and even more, as it sees less time of strongly engaging transits and must make it all happen in a very brief, intense experience, like living in the high arctic with a very short growing season. These are relatively rare, and often reflect periods of civil desperation or isolation in general, a notable example being the middle years of WWII.

Fascinating stuff!