On January 26 there’s a public holiday called Australia Day. It marks the date when the colonisation of Australia began (January 26 1788). It fucks me up that astrologers use the chart for this moment as the birth chart for Australia, when it’s really a chart for an invasion.

I’ve been studying the astrology of sieges recently. If you look at the colonisation chart, the Sun ruler of the 7th house is inside the rising sign Aquarius. Al-Kindi says that in a chart for a siege, this shows the enemy breaches the walls and takes over the city.

Venus, the ruler of the 9th house of foreigners, is also placed in the rising sign, along with Pluto and Saturn. I won’t go too much further into reading the chart, you can see it for yourself. From the perspective of the colonised people, the chart seems very fitting.

The moment in time depicted in this chart marks a tragic turning point in the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And as a descendant of colonisers, my life is also bound up in the legacy of violence and humiliation that began at this same moment in time.

But for years, astrologers in Australia have tended to view this chart from the perspective of the colonisers, using it as a birth chart for Australia. For example taking the rising sign Aquarius to show “the Australian people” and the midheaven to show the government etc. etc.

Now there’s a movement in Australia to stop celebrating 26 January which I completely support. And while we’re at it, astrologers can also stop looking at this chart from the perspective of the colonisers. If you want to use a birth chart for Australia, use the Federation chart.

People talk about decolonising astrology, maybe here’s just one small and very obvious example of how we can start doing that.