In the Introduction to his first book, Astrolocality Astrology: A Guide to What it is and How to use it, Martin Davis thanks me for encouraging him to sit down and write the text book he’d been promising to write for years. It’s no disservice to Martin whatsoever to say that given the choice I would probably change that to “dragging him kicking and screaming to write the text book…” because it was an effort of truly heroic proportions for him.

Like all good Virgos Martin started out by assuming he couldn’t do it and even if he could it wouldn’t be good enough, so we had to find a way to capture his wisdom in action. One workshop, a big pile of cassette tapes, and a very long transcription later, he set about the task of editing his brilliant and entertaining presentation into book format. Astrolocality Astrology is the result of his dedication and determination to capture the magic but also the detail of a very demanding technique, in the process bringing it to a world-wide audience. In the end Martin enjoyed the experience so much that he went on to collate articles from other astrologers in the field into his second book, From Here to There: An Astrologer’s Guide to Astromapping.

Martin’s Unique Selling Point in the area of locality astrology was that he had travelled so widely and for so many years that he had actually lived the techniques he was teaching, and that passion and enthusiasm was evident in all his lectures. Astrolocality Astrology was published in time for the eclipse conference in 1999, where following packed lectures he was delighted to be the top-selling author on the bookstall. That could also have something to do with him personally leading would-be buyers up to the pile of books so he could sign their copy after purchase. As we all know, Martin was never backward in coming forward, yet he carried his knowledge lightly, fully acknowledging those that went before him and insisting that he was simply standing on their shoulders.

 One of my favourite quotes from the revised edition of the book is, “For me personally, I have come to see the map lines as Aboriginal-style, personal song lines. Though we may never walk on them all, we should acknowledge their power in pointing us to our connections with Mother Earth.”

Thank you, Martin for being our guide. May you fly high and well towards your rightful place amongst the stars.