Little Wonders: Helen Adams Garrett

Contents:

1. Your ideal companion
2. What is a type?
3. Romance
4. Partners
5. What the self seeks
6. Sex
7. Friendship
8. Mars
9. Mercury
10. Nodes and karma
11. Portrait of your ideal companion
12. Love, like and lust
13. Marriage and divorce
14. The wedding chart
15. Danger signals in the wedding chart
16. Kennedy wedding
17. Culmination of marriage

Comment:

This new book combines two previous ones: The first twelve chapters are from Your Ideal Companion, first published in 1981. Chapters 13-17 are from Wedding and Divorce Charts, of 1990. These earlier books have been discontinued.

Garrett is wonderfully concise. She does not drown us in details. In chapter 2, she identifies astrological types, which is to say, chart-based shorthand for how you relate to other people: Sun, Moon, Ascendant, hard aspects to these from critical planets, and how they (i.e., you) related to others based, not so much on the houses per se, but the 5th & 8th houses from the Sun (or Moon). Garrett could spend pages and pages analyzing the charts, but instead boils it down to:

A Leo man with Scorpio rising married a Taurus Sun person. Her Taurus Sun fell in his seventh house of partners. Her Pisces elements were in his fifth house with no strong bonds, nor was her eighth house compatible. Love went away early.

His next relationship was with a Scorpio Sun type with a Virgo ascendant. Her Neptune is on her ascendant and rules his fifth house, Pisces. He seeks Neptunian types for romance, and her first house Neptune makes her much like a Pisces.

Her Scorpio Sun is a reflection of him because he has Scorpio rising. Her Venus in Scorpio conjunct her Sun (point 8) identifies with her Venusian qualities to satisfy his seventh house Taurus and compliment his Scorpio ascendant.

As a Leo Sun, Pisces falls eight signs away (sex angle), and with Neptune in the first house, her Pisces type satisfies his eighth house. Since she has Neptune in Virgo and Venus and Sun in Scorpio, the Virgo ascendant is not puritanical and supplies ample romance for his Leo Sun. (pg. 5)

Garrett does not supply charts, which I missed, but her points are clear. Chapter 3, Romance, concerns the 5th house cusp. Chapter 4, Partners, is on the seventh house. Chapter 5, What the Self Seeks, is about the 1st house / 7th house polarity. Chapter 8, Sex, concerns the 8th house. Chapter 7, Friendship, is the 11th house. Chapter 8, on Mars, notes its aspects with Venus, with notes on out-of-sign aspects. Chapter 9, Mercury, concerns communication. Chapter 10, Nodes and Karma, briefly delineates synastric conjunctions to the nodes.

Chapter 11 sums up the first section for each of the 12 ascendants. A Virgo ascendant has a Capricorn 5th house and an 8th house in Aries. It seeks one who can pass the tests and understands the urgency of making many bank deposits. Garrett further adds, The partner should be willing to accept correction, enjoy inexpensive pleasures and be sexually responsive upon command. (pg. 39) Yikes!

In the second section of the book, on Weddings and Divorces, Garrett starts, not with the wedding as an elected event, but with the day of the wedding already in the past. She is, in other words, delineating the train wrecks that result.

Chapter 14, The Wedding Chart, the man's money is shown by the 2nd house, the woman's by the 8th. 3rd is his communication, the 9th is hers, the 4th is his family and their conjugal home, the 5th is children, the 6th is the health of the husband, the 12th is the health of the wife, etc. Chapter 15, Dangers in the Wedding Chart, informs the reader as to the various effects of Saturn, the progressed Moon, retrograde Venus, etc. Chapter 16, The Kennedy Wedding, is a case study of the marriage of Edward and Joan Kennedy, who ultimately divorced. Chapter 17, Culmination of a Marriage, is another case study of divorce.

Another of her excellent small books.

AFA, 71 pages.

Understanding retrogrades

Mercury retrograde: Interpreting Mercury retrograde, Progressed Mercury retrograde, Interpretation memos, Transiting Mercury retrograde, Mercury retrograde in health

Venus retrograde: Interpreting Venus retrograde, Progressed Venus retrograde, Transiting Venus retrograde, Venus retrograde in health

Mars retrograde: Interpreting Mars retrograde, Progressed Mars retrograde, Transiting Mars retrograde, Mars retrograde in health

Jupiter retrograde: Interpreting Jupiter retrograde, Progressed Jupiter retrograde, Transiting Jupiter retrograde, Jupiter retrograde in health

Saturn retrograde: Interpreting Saturn retrograde, Progressed Saturn retrograde, Transiting Saturn retrograde, Saturn retrograde in health

Uranus retrograde: Interpreting Uranus retrograde, Progressed Uranus retrograde, Transiting Uranus retrograde, Uranus retrograde in health

Neptune retrograde: Interpreting Neptune retrograde, Progressed Neptune retrograde, Transiting Neptune retrograde, Neptune retrograde in health

Pluto retrograde: Interpreting Pluto retrograde, Progressed Pluto retrograde, Transiting Pluto retrograde, Pluto retrograde in health

Additional observations: Aspects of retrograde planets, Retrogrades in health, House cusps.

Comment: Garrett has studied the mechanics of retrogrades. She notes, for example, that Mercury retrograde picks up at the same place in the zodiac as the Mercury retrograde some ten months before, she discovers the 96 year Venus retrograde cycle (by sign), aspects formed by retrograde planets, transiting & progressed retrogrades, the number of houses a retrograde is from the sun, retrogrades in health & more. Notably free of the karmic retribution stuff (as found in Martin Schulman, for example). One of the best books on retrogrades, with excellent tables & diagrams.

AFA, 93 pages.

What are retrogrades
Interpreting retrograde planets
Retrograde planets in the signs
Sun-retrograde outer planet aspects
Health & retrograde planets
Progressed & transiting retrograde planets

Comment: Contrasts the geocentric (ephemeris) sign position of retrograde Mercury, Venus & Mars with their possible heliocentric positions, a useful new slant on retrogrades. Skips that for the outer planets, where she contrasts the advancing & receding aspects between retrograde planets & the sun, eg, Sun trine Saturn as Saturn goes into retrograde, then the Sun - Saturn trine as Saturn is about to go direct. These two books on retrogrades by Helen Adams are useful & include things we've long wished for in books about retrogrades. Concludes with health & retrograde planets, retrograde planets by progression & transit. Stuff you won't find elsewhere.

AFA, 75 pages.