in Mountain Astrologer online mag. http://www.soulhealing.com/november01astro.htm         Have you ever wanted to know additional ways of interpreting empty houses? Or what the original meanings of retrogrades and the Moon's nodes are? How about completely different -- and incredibly useful -- meanings of the twelve houses? Read on... Five years ago, my astrological life permanently changed. After having practiced Western astrology professionally (and joyfully) for over twenty years, I attended at the UAC'95 conference in Monterey, California, and decided, on a whim, to attend a lecture by Diana K. Rosenberg on fixed stars. At the lecture, Ms. Rosenberg offhandedly mentioned that a particular person was of course a blend of Taurus and Gemini because their Sun sign was in Tropical Gemini and in Sidereal Taurus. Her very nonchalance in making this statement enabled it to bypass my "anti-Sidereal" filters and affect me deeply. (At the same conference, Rob Hand delivered his groundbreaking lecture on Sect, and announced the inauguration of Project Hindsight.) The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to West Virginia for a Project Hindsight conference on ancient Greek astrology. And what did I find there, but additional lectures by some excellent Vedic astrologers. As I sat in these Vedic lectures, I found myself enchanted and enriched by the incredible Hindu legends of the planets, and suddenly realized that Vedic astrology is the oldest continuous tradition of astrology in the Indo-European world and that if I wanted to study an ancient astrology, this was the place to begin. It never suffered from religious persecution or loss of texts as other astrologies did, but instead steadily developed over thousands of years. And so I began to learn Jyotish, as Vedic astrology is also known (Jyotish means the science of light). Since Project Hindsight was already encouraging us to use ancient Greek techniques in our astrological work, I was quickly struck by just how many Vedic insights and methods were completely applicable to my Western practice. (I have professionally used Western astrology -- and still do -- with great success to elucidate a person’s psychodynamics, natal and unfolding life lessons, temperament, compatibility, and soul purpose.) Blended Signs. The first thing I noticed was that Ms. Rosenberg was right. People are a blend of their Tropical and Sidereal placements. For example, people with their Suns in late Scorpio (after roughly 24 degrees for twentieth century births), whose Suns stay in Scorpio in both zodiacs, are archetypal Scorpios, with fixed, stocky bodies, incredible stamina, intense reactions, and powerful wills. Their blended counterparts (those with Suns before about 23 degrees of Tropical Scorpio, who have their Sidereal Suns in Libra), are gentler, longer limbed, and more verbal, indecisive, and intellectual. I have coined the term "keystone" for a planet (or the ascendant) in a person's chart that stays in the same sign in both zodiacs. Such keystones transmit the meaning of the sign they're in purely, without modification, and fully embody the element, mode, and other characteristics of the sign. People with a lot of keystone planets can be very congruent and consistent, for better or worse. People with no keystone planets, on the other hand, can be more changeable and adaptable. This was the beginning of a great odyssey to bring Vedic ideas to my, and other's, Western practice. What follows herein are many of the insights and methods I've learned that are directly transferable to Western astrology. Note: Since this article applies Vedic principles to Western charts, all charts in this article use the Tropical Zodiac, and the Western Equal House system. I use the Equal House system because it works best with these methods and is the closest Western house system to Vedic Whole Sign houses. Tropical Whole Sign houses, as it turns out, doesn't work as well with these principles.