Neptune is starting to station very close to my natal Sun, completing a transit that began around the time my blog began in 2006. My desire to write is still there, but kind of stuck, hence very few blogs recently.

It's like I've had 3 years of going through the news, commenting astrologically, and that's been great. But I don't want to do that so much now, and I'm starting to repeat myself. The less I write, the more congested and tetchy I start to feel, so I'm hoping things will sort themselves when Neptune begins to move forward in early November.

During last year’s US Presidential contest, the Republican ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped in and backed Barack Obama, saying he thought he could be a transformational President. These transformational leaders, the ones who change the country, are the ones we remember, for better or for worse. Like Margaret Thatcher in Britain. Cherie Blair, Tony’s wife, is convinced history will put him up there as a top Prime Minister, but I don’t think he was transformational. He ran with the boom times, and put more money into public services, like Labour does, but nothing underlying changed. To date he is mainly remembered, and hated by many, for the Iraq War, and this seems to baffle him. Blinded by self-importance and religion, he is convinced he is a good guy.

All Obama has to do to be transformational, in a way, is not to mess up too badly, because the fact of him being black and managing to get elected was transformational in itself. What seems to be happening with healthcare, however, suggests that Obama is going to transform the country further. The guiding stars for this process are Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron, forming their triple conjunction in Aquarius for most of this year, and making a conjunction by transit to the American Moon (the people). And the people seem to be far more in favour of the new healthcare provisions than the politicians. So much for Democracy.

Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron have all been Retrograde for a few months now, and this has been a time of thrashing out a healthcare solution that will get through Congress. As the planets turn Direct, we can expect to see legislative progress, the enactment of laws. Jupiter has been the first to turn Direct in the last few days, at the same time as the proposed healthcare laws got passed off by a Congressional Committee, and a Republican, Olympia Snowe, said that at this stage she could back the legislation. Jupiter brings good fortune, and that is what we have seen.

Over the next few weeks both Chiron and Neptune will turn Direct, bringing further crucial progress.

Olympia Snowe was born on a New Moon in Pisces (21/2/47), so how could she not support healthcare reform? With Mercury in Pisces square to Uranus, she is prepared to break ranks with her party. It wouldn’t surprise me if her Moon was also square to Uranus, but I haven’t got a birthtime.

On the subject of lots of Pisces, I did a brief reading for someone at a festival in August, and she was suffering from what is known medically as Ondine’s Curse. This is a very rare condition in which when you go to sleep, your breathing is liable to stop and you will die. So this person has to have a full-time carer in case she nods off, and a respirator for night time.

It was fascinating to encounter such an unusual condition that is named after a Greek Myth and in which astrology also has a take. In the myth, a water nymph called Ondine marries a mortal, meaning she will lose her immortality. Her husband, however, vows to love her and be faithful to her forever. One day she catches him in the arms of another woman. Ondine curses him, stating, "You swore faithfulness to me with every waking breath, and I accepted your oath. So be it. As long as you are awake, you shall have your breath, but should you ever fall asleep, then that breath will be taken from you and you will die!"

The person I met with this condition had Sun in Aquarius in the 12th House, with Moon and Ascendant in Pisces. Venus-Jupiter was rising in Pisces. Pisces and the 12th House are associated with sleep and dream. And what a chart for a water-nymph! She struck me as not very engaged with life, and over-identified with her condition. The only earth in the chart was Mars, so finding the drive to do something practical seemed to me the way forward. And, of course, there is a huge imaginative/compassionate/ psychic ability in the chart, and a wonderful ability to relate to people.

She wanted to leave her husband, so there is the Ondine myth reversed. In one version of the myth, these nymphs can only gain a soul through marrying a mortal. All that Pisces is extremely soulful, but it is unrealised unless they engage with life, symbolised by marrying a mortal. This person in a way was doing the opposite by wanting to leave her husband, a practical man. It was mythologically unsound for someone in her condition!

She was one of those people with such a strong story about herself that it was hard for me as the astrologer to see outside of that until afterwards, when I have time to reflect. The same also happened to me recently when I did a reading for a triple Aquarian. I find myself being more convinced than I should by their story, due to their conviction, and afterwards I kick myself!