Astrology and Relationships,
page 3

6. Strong Mars Accents (Magnetic appeal, Mars in the 7th house, Sun conjunct Mars, Venus conjunct Mars, Multiplicity of aspects, Manifesting that good planet, A homosexual - heterosexual marriage); 7. You Are My Ideal (Sun, moon or ascendant of one person in the 7th house of the other person, with the ascendant-opposite-ascendant being the strongest, Progression marriage); 8. Grand Trines (Lack of sextiles, Grand trines in a rut, Doing their own thing, Aquarius square Taurus, Contented sun square sun, Dull marriage, Minister-priest aspect, Anti-sexual aspects, Retired marriage); 9. House Complementarity (Feeling of importance, Many squares, The astrologer intercedes); 10. Career Advancement (Manifesting T-squares, The ultimate marriage, Sun in wife's 10th house);

11. Uranus Accents (Strong impossible love, Uranus in 7th, Mars/Uranus in female chart); 12. Dominant Pisces-Neptune (Neptune ruling the 7th can be nebulous, Marry your alter ego, Venus-Neptune is beautiful illusion); 13. Children Problems (Yours/Mine syndrome, Separation from children); 14. Karma (Karmic marriage, South node aspects, Close aspects); 15. Arabic Parts & Relationships (The Arabic Parts, Erecting the Arabic chart, Arabic chart compared to natal chart, Arabic charts reference two marriages);

16. The Event Chart (Tumultuous romance & its progression, Withdrawn proposal). After Thoughts; Glossary; Appendices; Bibliography; About the author.

Comment: One of the best books on relationships in a long time. Not a cookbook, not a hash of formulas. Instead, short, to the point and intense, based on the author's decades of experience, as an astrologer & as a single (dating) woman. Astrology works when you know how to use it, & the author does. I was surprised at the wealth of practical details: Mars aspects, Arabic Parts, houses, composites, progressions, what to do with Uranus & Neptune, how charts help/hurt each other, more. If you were wondering where all those old aphorisms came from (such as in the back of Robson's Astrology & Sex), they were from sharp-eyed, sharp-witted observers like Nance McCullough.

Namac Publishing, 168 pages.

Part 1: Basic Astrology: 1. The planets - the cast of characters; 2. The signs - the roles you came to play; 3. The houses - the settings where your characters play out their roles; 4. The aspects - how your characters support or challenge each other

Part 2: Your Relationship Profile: 5. Exploring the relationship houses; 6. The sun through the houses & signs; 7. Sun aspects in your chart; 8. The moon through the houses & signs; 9. Moon aspects in your chart; 10. The ascendant/seventh house cusp through the houses & signs; 11. Mercury through the houses & signs; 12. Mercury aspects in your chart; 13. Venus through the houses & signs; 14. Venus aspects in your chart; 15. Mars through the houses & signs; 16. Mars aspects in your chart; 17. Jupiter through the houses & signs; 18. Jupiter aspects in your chart; 19. Saturn through the houses & signs; 20. Saturn aspects in your chart; 21. Uranus through the houses & signs; 22. Neptune through the houses & signs; 23. Pluto through the houses & signs; 24. The north/south node axis through the houses & signs

Part 3: The Art of Chart Comparison: 25. Same planet comparison; 26. Your characters in your partner's theater; 27. Interaspects & the synastry table; 28. Bill & Hillary Clinton's relationship astrology

Appendices: Map your romantic relationship using the CD-Rom; Suggested reading list.

Comment: The first half of the book is a rehash of basic natal astrology, with an uneven emphasis on relationship values (eg, some of the comments about relationships work, some don't, and in too many places, it's absent altogether). As far as the basic natal stuff goes, it's already been done in the Mapping Your.... series (and not very well), by Stephanie Clement. As far as what your natal chart means in terms of your ability to relate to others, John Townley's Planets In Love (from 1978 & still in print) is vastly better.

In the synastry section, here is how Pond describes a favorable Moon to Moon aspect:

Harmonious (including conjunction): Your emotional styles are compatible, allowing you both to feel you can be yourselves. Even the way you experience "downtime" is in harmony, so you can rejuvenate in each other's presence. You speak the same emotional language and likely feel that you "get" each other at a deep level. (pg. 146)

Pond writes much the same gibberish about harmonious Moon/Ascendant & Moon/Mercury aspects (both on pg. 199). These three are, in fact, aspects of telepathy between two people, especially as they move into exact degrees. Reading each other's thoughts, finishing each other's sentences, etc., are common events. Anyone who's been there knows it & any author who's observed it & given the chance, will shout it to the rooftops. We may therefore reasonably fault Pond for being 1. Unobservant, 2. A poor astrologer, and, 3. Failing to research his book. His suggested reading list (aka bibliography) includes a mere seven titles. Of these, only two concern relationships, and of the two, one is Liz Greene's Relating, the other is Pond's own book, Astrology & Relationships, from 2001.

In the front of this book, we learn that Llewellyn has already commissioned Mr. Pond to write, Mapping Your Creativity, to be published in 2006. I'd like to invite Pond to avail himself of the available books (which can be found here, as well as on many other websites) to research & write a book that he can be proud of & that I can justly praise.

Llewellyn, 248 pages.

Appendices: 1. How to use derivative charts; 2. Aspect index; 3. Map your family relationships using the CD-Rom; Charts of the Royal family; Glossary; Bibliography & suggested reading; Index.

Comment: The book is confusing from the start. On pg. 9 is a diagram of family members as indicated by the houses in the natal chart. In the 4th house, it reads, Other parent or stepparent. In the 10th, it reads, One parent or stepparent. Why the ambiguity? Because, right at the beginning of the book, Clement refuses to face a critical issue: Confused by "houses are the same as signs", "modern" astrologers presumed the father was represented by the 10th house, the mother by the 4th. Traditional astrology has reverted to the ages-old view that daddy is 4th house, mommy is 10th. Clement tries to dodge the issue (on pg. 73, she joins the moderns), here are the predictably confusing results:

Same chart diagram, same page 9: The 12th house: Aunts & uncles. The sixth house: Other aunts & uncles. First house: Grandparents. Seventh house: Grandparents, etc. What is this, really? Let me show you how relationships are calculated in a chart:

For the sake of it, we will state that daddy is shown by your 4th house. And just as your brothers & sisters are shown by the third house from your ascendant, then in your chart, your father's brothers & sisters are shown three houses from your 4th house (eg, his ascendant in your chart), which is your 6th. Put your mother in your 10th, her brothers & sisters (your aunts & uncles on her side) are shown by your 12th house. Keeping your father in your fourth, his father is shown, in your chart, as the fourth from your fourth, which is your seventh. His mother is shown by your ascendant.

Your mother's father is shown by your ascendant, as that's four houses from your 10th. Her mother is shown by your seventh.

So it happens that your ascendant represents your father's mother, and your mother's father. (For many families, a strange pairing!) While a good diagram would help a lot, genealogy is no less confusing when astrology is added to it.

And, regrettably, Clement is no less confusing elsewhere. I have been trying to make something out of Chapter 6, Your Parents, see if you can do better: Pg. 73: 10th house breadwinner, 4th house homemaker (straightforward, even if some would disagree). Pg. 75: Parents are shown by the rulers of your 4th & 10th (good). Pg. 75: Prince Charles has Aries on the 10th, Libra on the 4th, so one parent is more determined to fulfill a career role, while the other is more interested in achieving balance & harmony. (Even if you look at Charlie's chart on pg. 6, this does not make sense.) On pg. 76, Clement declares the Moon in your chart represents one of your parents, and Saturn in your chart represents the other. This might be okay in a vague sense, but here, Clement goes on to write delineations, Moon through the signs, Saturn through the signs, for your Moon as one of your parents, and your Saturn as your other parent. I can make nothing of it, neither as planets in signs, nor if I convert the signs into houses & read them that way. (While it's true that those who equate houses = signs are usually ignorant of both, it's also true that, most of the time, the sign delineations they write unwittingly fit the planet's house placement much better.)

Clement has already been tapped to write Llewellyn's Mapping Your Sex Life, due out later in 2005. While I would like to be pleasantly surprised, truthfully, I'm not expecting much. In all the Mapping books, there are CD-Roms with programs. To date, I've not been inspired enough by the books to bother with the programs.

Llewellyn, 224 pages.