ERIS, PLUTO AND CERES

In her blog of 26th Sept, having quoted from Andrew Harvey’s Dark Night of the Soul, Lynn Hayes comes out with this gem:

"It's becoming more and more clear to me that the newly tripartite nature of Pluto embodies the symbolism of this process: Eris creates the discord and strife that begins the death of the ego under Pluto, and Ceres presides over our emergence from the underworld and the regeneration of our lives." (astrodynamics.blogspot.com)

Eris, Pluto and Ceres are the 3 newly classified dwarf planets. Eris has a new name (it was Xena), so there is a whole new mythology to be explored. And Pluto and Ceres have a new significance to be explored. In particular, Ceres has been promoted from one amongst dozens of asteroids, so it is no longer enough to treat her as that subset of the Moon which is about how we nurture ourselves.

Yes, Ceres is a nature goddess (I knew very little about her till this afternoon, and here’s my Moon-Saturn in Sag pretending to be an authority already!), who presides over the growing of crops and is also an embodiment of motherly love. And that’s pretty important, but the story about her that is most relevant here is the abduction of her daughter Proserpina by Pluto while she was picking flowers. Ceres didn’t know what had happened, and spent years grieving and looking for her. Eventually she discovered that Proserpina was now living in the Underworld as Pluto’s wife. Through Jupiter’s intervention, she managed to get her daughter back for 6 months of the year, which became summer, expressing Ceres’ joy, and the other 6 months became winter, an expression of her loss.

It is through this story that we encounter Ceres’ connection with the Plutonic transformational process. Through Proserpina’s abduction, both mother and daughter are forced to move on to the next stage of their lives: Proserpina loses her childish innocence and becomes a wife, while Ceres has to let go of her child and re-encounter her as an adult. And this is part of Pluto’s function. Often we don’t want to move on to the next stage, we’re quite happy as we are, we’re often not even aware that it’s time to move on. But it is in the nature of life to move on to the next stage – animals do this naturally, they don’t have a problem about how to live, unlike ourselves. Pluto is the agent of that Necessity to move on and to transform.

Through her daughter, Ceres becomes a bridge between this world and the underworld. She has earned the right, as Lynn Hayes puts it, to ‘preside over our emergence from the underworld and the regeneration of our lives.’ As a goddess who also presides over the growth of nature and crops, she embodies that new life, and that fullness of life, which takes place at the other end of the transformational process. But it is a life that has lost its innocence, a life that is aware that winter, which has a beauty of its own, is necessary so that life can be renewed. Death and a letting go of the old are needed for re-birth.

Ceres is positioned in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and so she is also a bridge between the purely personal planets - which end with Mars – and the social/collective planets, which begin with Jupiter. And in the story, Ceres is awoken from the self-contained joys of motherhood into a wider connection with the scheme of things, both on a social Jupiter/Saturn level, through Proserpina's marriage, and on a deeper, outer planet level through Pluto’s abduction of her child.

So we could say that in a chart, Ceres is that place where we can find new life, new inspiration – but only through a greater acceptance of how the universe actually is, rather than how we would like it to be. And the sign and the house placement will give us a sense of where to look for that kind of nourishment (c.f. Ceres and nurture) as well as the kind of fantasies about reality that need to be let go of.

Though we have this transformational triad of Eris, Pluto and Ceres, by transit it is still Pluto that really matters, as Eris is too slow moving to do much in the way of transits, and Ceres is too fast moving to be deeply transformational on her own. Eris and Ceres could, one imagines, be useful guides on the way in and out of the Pluto underworld transits, but a bit of empirical research is needed on that.

Eris takes around 557 years to orbit the Sun, an average of about 46 years per sign. She is currently taking about 100 years per sign, so there are times when she is taking significantly less than the average of 46 years per sign. Between 1750 AD and 1800 AD, for example, Eris moved through 48 degrees i.e. about 30 years per sign.

In my last blog I suggested that though Eris can embody the Underworld in one of its least conscious and most destructive forms, positively she can give us the power to go to those Underworld depths in order to be transformed. So this holds out the fascinating idea that there are periods in history when there are more opportunities to enter the Underworld - due to the greater frequency of Eris transits - than at others! These opportunities go through a 557 year cycle.

Eris will regularly move at a particular speed in a particular sign, giving us a new quality to consider for each sign: how easy that sign finds access to the Underworld, or engagement in deeper transformational processes. With Eris currently in Aries, there are very few transits, so not many opportunities for transformation. This fits with Aries’ ruler, Mars, whose straightforward and willed approach does not cut much ice with Pluto, for it is precisely the conscious will and its pretensions to omnipotence that Pluto undermines, creating a respect for deeper principles in life. So Aries does not have easy access to the Underworld. But once Mars has wised up enough to get there, his strength and vitality and initiative could be deeply transformative, reflective of the length of Eris transits in Aries.

Eris was moving much faster through Sag and Capricorn from 1750 to 1800, suggesting that these 2 signs have easier access to Pluto’s realm. Certainly a number of Pluto's qualities – such as his association with death – came from Capricorn’s ruler, Saturn, so one can see the connection there. As for Sagittarius, its ruler, Jupiter, is king over the gods, including Pluto (he did, for example, intercede on behalf of Ceres). So there is a strong connection there. I must say that I do not naturally think of Sagittarians as naturally being Underworld types, but at the same time Pluto does not seem to have had a problem manifesting himself in his current transit through Sagittarius – far from it, the world has been hit with waves of fundamentalism.

But all this doesn’t mean that we don’t need to consider personal Eris transits in Aries. They are just rare and very long-lasting in our present age. I have one example, and it is not of someone who has been attempting to be conscious!

This person was born with Sun-Mars-Uranus conjunct in Aries, square to Pluto in Cancer. Not an easy configuration. Her natal Eris is around 2 Aries, and natal Sun and Mars are at 19 and 20 degrees of Aries respectively. She lived a fairly normal life until the early 1980s, living with her husband and raising her children.

As her children began to leave home, Pluto exactly opposed her Sun-Mars, and Eris came within 5 degrees of conjoining her Sun-Mars (I find that outer planet transits definitely begin to kick in within 5 degrees). She began to cause a lot of trouble for her family members, always plotting, lying, deceiving and trying in crude ways to get power over them (having spent the previous 20 years letting them have too much power over her).

The Pluto transit finished, but the trouble-making only intensified as Eris spent the next 20 years approaching her Sun-Mars. Having alienated most of her family by the early 1990s, and as Pluto approached to square her natal Moon, she moved into a house on her own and began to fall out with neighbours, solicitors, utility suppliers, builders, more distant relatives and so on and on. She ended up with no water supply because she had fallen out with the water board (she had ample means to pay her water bills.) Eventually, as Eris moved into exact conjunction with her Sun-Mars in the early 2000s, she fell out with the only remaining family member who was prepared to have much to do with her. Now, in 2006, this long Eris transit is finishing its exact conjunctions to her Sun-Mars, and will begin to separate next year (though it will probably be in orb for the rest of her life.) There are signs that her ability and even her desire to cause trouble are weakening as she weakens, even though her current neighbours are, inevitably, “horrible”.

This rather sad story does at least illustrate Eris’ power in the negative sense, and that the transits do actually seem to work. And who knows, after 20 years the consequences of creating strife may have had some sort of small awakening effect on this person. It is interesting seeing Pluto and Eris working together, Pluto giving her the power to take on her family first, and then later all sorts of other people, and Eris channelling this power into feuding. And, we could say, Eris facilitating the Pluto transits in the first place, so that she was able to move into Pluto's realm quite easily. It has been an unholy alliance, but it does suggest that these 2 dwarf planets can work well together.

What I need next is a more creative example of a 20 year Eris Transit. Anyone know of one?

Eris Pluto Ceres Astrology

THE BLOODLUST OF ERIS

"There are many, many stories of Eris accompanying her brother Ares onto the battlefield. She is often described as having an insatiable desire for bloodshed. Even after all the other gods had withdrawn from the battle, she remained, rejoicing over the slaughter." (Zanestein.com)

Eris, the Goddess of Strife, is the new dwarf planet out beyond Pluto in the Scattered Disc (an area beyond the Kuiper Belt). She is associated with strife, with discord (which she created at a wedding she hadn’t been invited to, and which led to the Trojan War)and with revenge, but what I want to look at here is her bloodlust. Her discovery and naming suggest that this aspect of humanity will be coming more into focus.

This is, of course, traditionally Pluto’s realm. But Pluto has rather a large remit, having to stand for the whole of the Underworld, so it is maybe just as well that Eris has come along and taken some of it off him. It may lead to clearer definition around Pluto’s function. And it may also help us understand more fully that we are not just the civilised, rational human beings that we like to think we are – beneath the surface we are just as savage, animal, natural, ‘primitive’, as we ever were, and it can only help to be aware of this. It is often only in emergencies, or at times of war, that this side takes over – or at least becomes more apparent – and it can overturn our sense of who we think we are.

Synchronicity can often be a good pointer, and as I began thinking about Eris the other night, I saw an interview on TV with the novelist J.G.Ballard, and one of his points was precisely this, that we are a violent species, it is never far below the surface, and the current popularity of violent computer games expresses this.

I think this is an aspect of us that is beyond psychoanalysis. Yes, a lot of violence happens because somewhere we have been hurt or because of the way our parents treated us etc. But there is also violence in us that is just THERE. Hence the regular collective bloodlettings, called wars, that continue to happen. Hence, in peacetime, the popular outlets for violence, such as the Roman Games, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, public hangings, hunting, wrestling, boxing, and violent films and computer games. It could be argued that these are all necessary for a peaceful society. And Eris is a WOMAN – a message for any dinosaur feminists who still think that it is just men who are the cause of the world’s problems. Women enjoy the spectacle of violence just as much as men. They were the ones in Britain who sent round the white feathers in WWI. Private Lindy England, convicted of torturing Iraqis, is a woman. The Lakota women had a terrifying reputation for torturing prisoners. Nor we should be surprised when we hear about American or British soldiers torturing Iraqis. Or vice-versa. We should not be surprised at the cruelty of the Japanese in WWII. We are that discredited idea, the Killer Ape. Children can enjoy inflicting pain. So can adults, especially when they are given license to do it by the government in times of war. The famous Millgram psychology experiments, in which ordinary Americans gave what they thought were agonising electric shocks to people because an ‘authority’ told them to, shocked people. It shouldn’t have. This is Eris. Or the case of the man standing at a high window, contemplating suicide, and a crowd gathering beneath, cheering him on, calling him ‘chicken’ for not jumping. This in the modern West. Nor is it the preserve of thugs and rednecks and psychopaths and Muslim extremists and inner-city gangs and violent criminals and the mob mentality, which ‘we’ are not. Eris is within all of us.

I don't think she is something about ourselves we can 'transform', however distasteful we may find her. What we can do is to acknowledge and not judge her, and be aware of her as a power within us.

So what might it mean in a chart? (See Zanestein.com for an ephemeris). I did a bit of research among people, or events, involved with excessive violence or carnage, and it was remarkable how Eris just kept making significant hard aspects, especially to the Sun, Moon and Angles. There were very few charts where this wasn’t the case.

Eris has been moving at about 3 degrees a decade for the last century, beginning at 22 Pisces in 1900 and is at about 20 Aries now.

Here are some results:

9/11: (Eris) square to MC
The Lockerbie Bombing: conjunct MC-Mars
1st H-Bomb: square to Mars-Chiron.
Columbine Massacre: square ASC
Hiroshima: conjunct Venus-Node, opposite Chiron-Neptune
2003 Iraq invasion: opposite Moon, square Mars-Chiron

I include the Iraq invasion because of the carnage it has led to. Interestingly, Eris forms a t-square in George Bush’s chart (is anyone surprised?) to Sun, Neptune and Chiron. I have always associated GWB with death – he was of course noted for the number of executions that took place while he was governor of Texas, taking on average 15 minutes to make up his mind when presented with appeals for clemency. He has Pluto Rising, which I have used to explain it, but I think that Eris square to his Sun suggests a bloodlust behind it, an enjoyment of death and carnage – and carnage is precisely what he has caused in Iraq, an outcome predictable by anyone with knowledge of the region.

This is all a bit grim, but the (provisional) case needs to be made. On to a few people:

Serial killers:
Jeffrey Dahmer: conjunct Moon-Desc, square Saturn, conjunct Mars
Fred West: opposite Sun
Peter Sutcliffe (Yorkshire Ripper): opposite MC-Neptune, square 8H Venus (women)
Ian Brady (multiple child killer): square Sun (ruler of his 5th-children), Venus and Mercury, conjunct Saturn, square Chiron


The Kray twins: square ASC
Mike Tyson: square Sun-Jupiter
Bill Gates (ruthless destruction of competitors): conjunct Moon-MC
Joseph Mengele: conjunct Sun
Ariel Sharon (accused of war crimes): conjunct ASC
Winston Churchill (who thrived on war): square Sun
The Incredible Hulk: conjunct Moon-Mars
Jim Jones: square ASC

Interestingly, Sharon Tate, who was on the receiving end of the Manson family’s bloodlust, had Mars square to Eris – so it can work the other way as well.

Phew! As I said, this is not systematic research, but it was remarkable how few of the likely individuals I chose at random did NOT have a hard aspect to Eris. And it does seem to bring Eris onto the stage astrologically, associated with bloodlust, carnage, and cruelty. Some may protest against the inclusion of Bill Gates, who is of course re-inventing himself as Mr Save-the-World (which in itself I don't want to knock), as well as being that morally superior type, the American Success Story. But Eris and the history of Microsoft suggest otherwise.

Let’s look at a few examples of people who seem to have been able to use Eris’ power creatively. Again, I got about 80% hit rate for the likely people I tried. For people born before 1900, I have extrapolated the Ephemeris (which begins in 1900) backwards. So it’s a bit approximate.

Sigmund Freud: Square Moon, sextile Sun. Freud posited the unconscious, suggesting that we are not the rational beings that we would like to think we are. He came up with the idea of Thanatos, the death wish (for oneself) and an aspect of that he called Destrudo, the urge to destroy both oneself and everything else. Though not identical to Eris, there is obviously overlap here.

C.G.Jung: Sextile Moon, trine mercury, Venus, square Mars. Like Freud, Jung explored our archaic depths. This is not something one can just decide to do. One needs the power to do so, the power to actually be taken there, and this is maybe also part of Eris.

The Dalai Lama: Square Sun-ASC. What is remarkable about the Dalai Lama is that he has been taken to Eris’ realm through the brutal invasion of Tibet by the Chinese, a brutality which has continued to the present day, and he has taken an approach of non-violence and non-retaliation. This is not a naïve or inauthentic position, but one of real insight into the nature of violence that has had a widespread influence. He has experienced and acknowledged Eris, and used her power for the opposite of her normal role.

Anthony Hopkins: Square Sun, Mercury, Venus, conjunct Saturn. Hopkins famously played the role of Hannibal ‘the Cannibal’ Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Jodie Foster, who played the detective who has to deal with him, has Eris opposite her MC. She was also subject to a graphic gang rape in The Accused. In both cases we have the power of Eris being used creatively to demonstrate her realm to audiences.

Glenn Close, who played a psychopathic ex-lover in Fatal Attraction, has Sun conjunct Eris, and Marlon Brando, who played the Godfather, had Eris trine ASC and widely square MC.

So these are examples of the creative use of Eris: to plumb the archaic depths, to gain insight into the nature of violence, and to reveal her realm on screen.

There is an attractive feature of Eris which is her free, unrestrained nature: she has an insatiable desire for bloodshed and glories in the slaughter, but what she is also doing is breaking taboos, the taboos which in some ways are needed to hold society together, but which also trap us. A ‘civilised’ person is in many ways an unfree person, trapped in notions of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong. (Pluto, through his rape of Persephone, is also a breaker of taboos.) It is in many ways our archaic nature, with all its power, that is suppressed by the laws and norms of society, so for consciousness to progress beyond a certain point, to plumb our true natures, we have not to feel inwardly bound by these laws. Practically speaking, it means dealing with all those internalised 'shoulds' and 'oughts' which we may be only half aware of, but on which Eris will exact her revenge if she is strong in our charts. (Interestingly, we are dealing with Saturn's realm here, and one form of Eris was his daughter, her mother being Nyx, 'Dark Night'.) This is not an easy matter, as these conditionings run very deep, but Eris also has the power to give us that freedom. Astronomically, her freedom from the normal rules is reflected in her orbit being way off the ecliptic, 'out of bounds'.

This principle is understood in Tantric Buddhism through the Dakini or Skywalker, a fierce, naked female figure, wielding a chopper, trampling on demons, her hair flung back in ecstasy, and completely unrestrained in her actions.

Any kind of creative activity requires an ability to suspend judgement and allow a deeper power to express itself. It is perhaps part of Eris’ function to help us do that.

So what might Eris mean in the chart of a ‘normal’ person? This requires a load of research, of questioning people who have her significantly aspected. I have one case history so far. This person has an unaspected Sun conjunct Eris in Aries. So quite a pure case, uninfluenced by other planets, in a sign that Eris would feel comfortable in. The only confusing factor is Aries, which is ruled by Mars, who shares some characteristics with Eris. One difference is that Eris functions outside of any rules, whereas we normally find Mars in the service of a governing king. And this often seems to be part of the Aries growing-up process, as they move from fighting for someone else’s cause – as warriors usually do – into fighting for their own vision. So Eris could be an esoteric ruler of Aries, Aries functioning at its best.

Anyway, this person tells me that when she gets angry, it’s like something else takes over, and this something is quite capable of grabbing the kitchen knife and killing. (Eris and the Berserker Warrior would also be worth exploring). Fortunately, another side of her remains aware of the consequences, and she’s never got anywhere near going for the knife! She has never used violence, but she believes that the assassination of certain people would be a good thing for the world, and feels that she could become an assassin herself. She has always been very aware of people’s capacity for violence. From my own observation, this person also has a conflict, basic to her life, between continuously judging herself according to rules she’s picked up along the way, and letting go of all that and feeling confident in what she’s good at. When she does this, remarkable things happen effortlessly. This sounds like Saturn as well, and I think it partly is (square to her ASC). But it also seems to me to be about Eris’ challenge to break free of the internalised rules, ignore the need for other people’s good opinion, and function freely from one’s true nature, which is able to draw on unusual, 'uncivilised' powers.

My only other case history is myself, with natal Mars in 3rd House Capricorn square to 6th House Eris in Aries. I suppose the fact that I have written this blog describes the aspect! But I have had to learn not to try and 'make' things happen (Mars) around society's ideas of 'achievement' (Capricorn), but rather just do the things I am deeply drawn to without pre-conceived notions of where it might take me -and these are the things that turn out to have real power, where other people start going wow! The square to Eris makes it unusually self-destructive (Eris) for me to be wilful (Mars), and surprisingly powerful and liberating (Eris) when I step aside and let something else guide me.

Eris Astrology 9/11 Bush

THE DEMOTION OF PLUTO

Nearly a month ago Pluto was demoted by the International Astronomical Union from the status of planet to dwarf planet. This happened due to the discovery of a 'planet' larger than Pluto in the 'Scattered Disc' beyond the Kuiper Belt, which was provisionally named Xena (a warrior goddess), but has now been officially named Eris, the ancient Greek Goddess of Strife, who at one point was snubbed and indirectly started the Trojan War. And she has certainly caused trouble as a heavenly body, as the demotion of Pluto was highly controversial, with senior members of the IAU claiming that the vote had been hijacked. As far as I can tell from www.astro.com, Eris has been in approx the first 15 degrees of Aries for the last 50 years - a sign she no doubt feels comfortable in!

The scientific reasons for re-classifying Pluto seem fair enough to me, and I'm not complaining. Good scientific reasons or not, however, the fact is that on an archetypal level we have demoted the Lord of the Underworld, which is a really stupid thing to do.

So what might this mean? Pluto has been in Sagittarius since 1995, and has a couple more years to run. Sagittarius at its worst is fundamentalist and intolerant, and we have seen plenty of this in the world as Pluto has passed through this sign, whether it is brainwashed Arabs and their version of Islam, or brainwashed Americans imposing 'democracy' on other nations. Fundamentalism in whatever form divides the world into Good and Evil (Christianity, of course, has a long history of this), with Evil being 'out there' and to be combatted.

As Christianity declined in the West during the 20th century, there came to be room for the Shadow, an idea that tends to diminish Evil as 'out there', and encourages us to look within for what we don't like 'out there'.

It seems to me that the rise of fundamentalism - both Middle Eastern and Western - has medievalised us, it has reduced our ability to recognise our own Shadows. The demotion of Pluto may be a reflection of this process. We are no longer taking our underworld so seriously.

The meeting to decide the fate of Pluto began at 2pm on Aug 24 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic. The Sun was conjunct the Moon in 9th House Virgo, and the Moon was opposite Uranus. Sag was Rising. So you could say it was all very mental and scientific (Virgo/Uranus), and as for 9th House/Sag, Sag is known for being a sign that flies off without consideration for ordinary human realities, and certainly not much consideration for the Underworld. (With Sun in Aquarius, Libra Rising, and Sag Moon, I really have had to learn this one!) That is why the esoteric ruler of Sag is the Earth.

As for the chart for Pluto itself, I couldn't find anything in the discovery chart (18 Feb 1930, 4pm, Flagstaff, Arizona). However, the naming chart (8am, 14 March 1930) has the Sun at 23.19 Pisces, which you could say is Pluto's 'identity', which has just taken a hit. Eris was first discovered on Jan 5 2005, setting in train the series of events that would lead to Pluto's demotion, while Pluto itself was at 22.54 Sag, just 11 days off its first exact square to planet Pluto's Sun. This square transit, therefore, covered the whole period of the debate about Pluto's status. Of course Uranus will be conjoining Pluto's Sun in a couple of years time, so I don't think the story around Pluto's status is over just yet.

By the way, Eris' Moon is named after her daughter Dysnomia, a goddess of chaos and lawlessness. Someone's been having fun. Lock up your sons.

Eris Pluto Astrology

DAVID CAMERON

David Cameron (for readers who aren't British) has been the leader of the Tory Party since the end of last year, and may win the next general election. He was born 9th Oct 1966, at 5.55am, London.

I have had some debate over his birth time. My original source was Annabel Herriott, who buttonholed him at the last Tory conference, and he said 6am. Which, of course, is probably one of those rounded-up times. Recently a friend of hers who knew Cameron's secretary got her to ring his mother and ask! Back came 5.55am. I find birthtimes often work better a few mins before the given time, my theory being that the time would be recorded once the baby is done and dusted, rather then the moment it emerges.

The reason it matters so much with DC is that his ASC could be either Virgo or Libra. 5.51am is Virgo, 5.52am is Libra. I favour Virgo for a number of reasons.

We can all see the Libran smoothness and tactical fence-sitting, but I think that is adequately explained by his Sun conjunct Venus in Libra. He is not, however, just a fence sitter. He is also being incredibly careful and thorough about policy. Zac Goldsmith, the environmental campaigner, recently said that the Tories currently have 150 people working on their environmental policy. This is Virgo.

DC is the first leader of either of the 2 major parties to come from the mid-to-late sixties generation, when Uranus was conjunct Pluto in Virgo, opposite Saturn conjunct Chiron in Pisces. He therefore represents a whole new spirit in British politics. If his ASC is in late Virgo, then this new Zeitgeist just about conjoins his ASC/DESC axis, which it doesn't if his ASC is early Libra. The seriousness with which he is taking environmental issues suggests that he does indeed embody this new Zeitgeist, he is a true child of the sixties, and Uranus-like it is coming not from Labour, where we would expect it, but from the Tories. Labour does not have a monopoly on idealism.

Another factor in favour of DC having Virgo Rising is his Transits. We should expect a major transit in his chart at the moment, due to his becoming leader of the Tories last year. With 1 Libra Rising, there is no transit - only the very early stages of a square from Pluto to the ASC. With late Virgo Rising, tr Pluto is still in the early stages of squaring the ASC, but it is in sign, and more importantly, the current Pluto square to his Uranus-Pluto opp Saturn-Chiron feeds through to his ASC in late Virgo, and becomes a powerful personal, rather than just generational, transit. Pluto, which addresses issues of power, is describing the emergence of the 1960s revolutionary idealism in to British politics. Interesting times.

Like Tony Blair 12 years ago, DC's leadership of the Tories has so far been charmed. As Pluto moves to exactly square his ASC over the next couple of years, we can expect to see his authority within the party, and his chances of winning the next election, strengthening. His Progressed Sun-Moon cycle is moving towards an opening square over the next couple of years, which suggests him really getting into his stride.

DC is smooth, he is charming, he has a grasp of the future, and he could well generate some sound, well-worked out policies. And he also has Mercury in Scorpio square to a Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Leo. I don't want to criticise someone that I don't know very well, but he is a politician, and politicians will say one thing and mean another, they have hidden agendas, and they get inflated by power. Mercury in Scorpio square Moon-Jupiter in Leo. Be warned.

Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher also has Sun in Libra and Moon in Leo. What this means, if anything, is hard to say. He is currently distancing himself from her, e.g. his criticism the other day of the poll tax in Scotland. But, like Tony Blair, he may turn out more like her than we would think. Mercury in Scorpio square Moon-Jupiter in Leo. At the same time, though Thatcher can seem a bogeywoman, her policies have become the centre ground, and Labour has not reversed them - with e.g. its privatisation within the NHS, it has been extending her policies.

Cameron Blair Astrology

VOCATION

My (free) sitemeter claims that no-one has looked at this site for the last week, which is unprecedented, but I've chosen to believe it, and kind of lost interest in blogging. But I've now got proof it ain't true, so I'm back with enthusiasm. Anyway, please email me if you have had a look recently, just so I know you're out there! And if you want an email astro update (at no charge) let me know. Astrology is my favourite pastime. And I think it's time to get another sitemeter.

About a week ago I got a computerised career and vocation horoscope (I'm 12 Feb 1958, 22.38, London). It said some good things, but also got me on the wrong track for a while. I tend to look at the Sun (developmental path) and the MC/10th House (Life direction, calling) for vocation. In my own case, I have Uranus and Pluto in the 10th, and Sun conjunct Chiron in the 4th in Aquarius, opposite Pluto. Finding my path, and my place in the world, is not a straightforward matter with this lot.

It might have been easier did I not have a strong Saturn (conjunct Moon, sextile Sun and ASC). Saturn is determined to find its place in the world and to make its mark, and so when I was younger I was determined to 'achieve' something, even though I didn't know what I wanted to 'achieve' - all I really knew was what I DIDN'T want. So Saturn kind of got in the way of the much more subtle approach to vocation that my chart required.

With the outer planets you have to let them come to you, rather than the other way around, and with Uranus and Pluto in the 10th, this is something I have had to learn around vocational issues. While the computerised career and vocation horoscope I had said many good things, it seemed to emphasise proper training and turning your talents from an interest into a profession. This spoke to my Saturn. I love reading novels - at the moment I've got George Eliot's Middlemarch on the go for the 3rd time - but I started to feel that this wasn't enough. What I obviously needed was a proper training so that I could analyse and criticise and write about literature. Maybe I should do some formal study - after all, I had only scraped through my university degree in 1981 because I had lost interest in that kind of study, and maybe it was time to put it to rights. And so it went on, and before I knew it, I had destroyed the real connection I do have with literature. (Incidentally, I have 3rd House Saturn in Sag.)

Vocation can be a subtle thing. If you are lucky, you can combine it with the need to earn a living. I have a romantic view in my mind of a vocation as an all-consuming passion which one was born to do. Some people do work like this. Vajramala, who I live with, is like this around horses and animal psychology. For myself, I like to do a bit of astrology (actually, quite a lot!), I like to set up sweat lodges, I like to read novels, I like to spend the night in my yurt in my field, and I think that animals are going to appear somewhere in all of this at some point. I am 48 years old, and actually I'm perfectly happy doing a bit of all of these things. And it has its own pattern and meaning, which I wouldn't have the temerity to try and analyse. But because I have a strong Saturn, and because our society and my background demand 'professionalism' and 'achievement', I can easily end up thinking it's not enough.

And I don't think this is just my own 'problem'. It reflects an imbalance in society. Yes, I have Chiron, Uranus and Pluto influencing my chart. But they are outer planets, and therefore reflect wider issues. I think it is enough to find interests and people that we really connect with, that we love. This may take most of our adult life to find, it is not an easy matter, and there can be necessary betrayals along the way, self-inflicted or otherwise. And there's no telling what will interest someone! But it's easy to start then thinking that we need some sort of certificate or qualification that makes our interest more 'real', because that's the way our society works. Of course formal training can be helpful, but the qualification is only a starting point - how embarrassing to be hanging on to those letters after your name 10 years after you got them - and don't let anyone tell you it's the only way.

The Saturn-Neptune Opposition is of course underway, and like I said in an earlier posting, I think it has a vocational dimension: Saturn making its mark in the world, connected to the callings of Neptune. Working well together, whole new genres and movements can come into being, and we can expect to see this. But they are also in opposition: the claims of the world (in a certain sense) and the callings of the soul can be genuinely opposed, and in my own case learning this is still work in progress.

BLAIR, NEW LABOUR & THE NEXT LEADER

You can tell the school-term has begun because suddenly I'm blogging more! I hadn't quite realised how much the lack of peace and quiet interfered with interesting ideas occurring to me. I thought I was just getting old and boring. What a long haul that summer holiday was!

Before I go further, I just want to mention Annabel Herriott, who does a sterling job getting hold of British politicians' birth data. She does a great service to the astrology world! She seems to favour the direct method, which involves attending the Tory Party conference, going to meetings, and then buttonholing the politician present and asking him when he was born. As a method, it yields some good results. What we need is an astrologer doing the same at the Labour Party conference.

Anyway, on to business:

Tony Blair: 6 May 1953, 6.10am, Edinburgh, Scotland

It is fascinating watching power gradually draining away from a leader until he is forced, 'voluntarily' or otherwise, to step down. It is not usually in a leader's nature to go of his/her own free will - even Wilson's resignation was, according to a recent TV programme, due to the onset of Alzheimer's. So I think we need to be quite skeptical about the voluntary nature of Tony Blair's declared wish to stand down after 3 full terms in office.

Until the Iraq issue arose in late 2002/early 2003, Tony Blair was riding high, with 2 landslide election wins behind him. This was the point at which the long seepage of power away from him began. In his natal chart, we see a fixed Sun-Moon-Pluto t-Square (wide in places.) These hard aspects describe his psychological need for power as well as, by transit, where he stands in his ability to hang onto it.

And it has been Neptune transits to this t-Square that have presided over his gradual fall from power. Neptune first crossed his Moon (at 11.30 Aquarius) in early 2003, as the Iraq issue divided both his party and the country, and set in motion a lasting opposition to Blair. The squares from transiting Neptune to his natal Taurean Sun took place from mid 2004 to late 2005, and during that period another decisive loss of power took place, as he declared he would only serve one more term, and as he won a general election with a much reduced majority, followed by a clamour from many of his his MPs for him to resign.

The next decisive series of events will occur around the opposition from Neptune to the final point of his t-Square, Pluto, and as I have said in a previous blog (When Will Tony Blair Go?), I think that this period will see the final draining of his power. For some time now, it hasn't taken much for clamours for him to resign to be heard from the ranks of his MPs. As I write (Sept 2006), Blair has just returned from his annual holiday, and this has been seen as an opportunity for a fresh round of calls from his MPs for him either to set a date for his departure or to quit now. And this time, more MPs than ever are behind the calls. The seepage of power is gathering pace.

The Labour Party Conference is in late Sept this year, just a month before Neptune turns round to move towards making its first opposition to Blair's natal Pluto in mid-March next year. So I think we are almost certain to see the next stage in his gradual fall from power over this 6-month period. He will probably have to set an exit date during that time, and he may have to do it against his will. In Jan 2008, Neptune makes its final opposition to Blair's natal Pluto, so we should see him gone by then, well short of a 'full third term' in office.

There is another chart worth looking at, which is the chart for the moment Labour was declared to have won the 1997 election, at 3.17am, on 2nd May 1997, in London. This is a chart, I think, for the whole continous period of government by Labour that will carry on, at least for a while, after Blair. It is a chart for New Labour in power.

In this chart I am taking the Sun as the leader, the Moon as the party members (much as the Moon in a country's chart is the people) and the MC as the mission, the overall direction, of the government. The Sun is in Taurus, like Tony Blair's Sun, so that is all well and good. The Moon is in Pisces, opposite Mars in Virgo. This does not suggest a party at peace with itself while in power. It suggests a lot of in-fighting, and a membership that can be pushed around (Pisces) but which will fight back (Mars.) Gordon Brown is a Pisces, which suggests that some of the infighting just might have something to do with him.

The Moon is at 8 Pisces, and Mars at 17 Virgo. (I use 10 degree orbs for Sun or Moon aspects). Uranus began conjoining the Moon in March 2005, and will be opposing Mars right through next year. So Tony Blair can expect continual, and unpredictable, opposition from within his party until he leaves.

It is interesting that one of the 2 charts for the Labour Party - Feb 27 1900 - has the Sun at 8 Pisces (near the Moon of the present government)and the Moon around 10 Aquarius (near Tony Blair's Moon). So it's as if the current conflict in the Labour Party is not fortuitous, as both Blair and his opponents have very basic astrological links with the original party. Pisces, if you like, is the compassionate element in Labour, but which can be hopeless at governing; and Aquarius is the modernising and ideological tendency, which we see in Blair (though he is not without the compassionate element, if we look at the money he has put into public services).

Back to the chart for the present government. The MC is at 15 Sag, and as Pluto crossed this point in 2001/2, we saw a lurch to the right as Tony Blair threw in his foreign (Sag) policy lot with George Bush, firstly over 9/11 and the revenge invasion of Afghanistan, which his membership was able to accept, and then over Iraq, which many could not accept. But both were part of the same Pluto transit to the MC, so both were part of the same change in policy direction. With hindsight, and using astrology, the party membership should perhaps have been more mistrustful than they were about Blair's motives around 9/11 and Afghanistan.

So on to the next change in direction, when Uranus squares the Labour Government's MC, from March 2007 through to Jan 2008. This suggests to me that, though he may well be leader through most of next year, Blair will not be able to maintain a strong sense of direction within the government - not surprisingly, given that he is on his way out. We should expect to see an unsettled government right through next year, with a firmer sense of direction only re-establishing itself as the transit winds up in 2008.

But a hard transit from Uranus is not just about being unsettled. It is also about surprises! Blair is already trying to control policy after he has gone, and the astrology is saying that he won't be able to do this. None of us, at this stage and with Uranus coming in, can have much idea of where the government is going to head post-Blair.

Which suggests that Brown may not be leader after all! With his Sun at 1 Pisces, he certainly has a following among the membership through the government's Moon at 8 Pisces. But that Moon is opposite Mars. He also faces a lot of opposition from within the party.

The natural leader for the New Labour Government, which has Sun in Taurus, is a Taurean, like Tony Blair, and like.... John Reid! (8th May 1947, Bellshill, Scotland, 23:00). Like Blair, he also has Sun square to Pluto, so he certainly wants the top job. And he has the transits for it (assuming his birth time is accurate). This year and next year, Pluto is squaring his MC at 26 Virgo, and next year and the year after Pluto is conjoining his Moon at 28.33 Sagittarius (and remember Labour's MC is in Sag). So we can certainly make out an astrological case for him being the next leader. If he isn't, his Pluto transits probably describe a fall from power. Now Alan Johnson (17th May 1950) is another Taurean with Sun square (just) to Pluto... Tony and his astro-cronies!

What we probably can say from the astrology is that, though we may well end up with Brown (who I admit I am not in favour of, due to his prolonged and childish sulk at not having the top job), we cannot be at all sure of it, and if he does become leader, we can expect a surprising new policy direction.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Since 1993 we have been in a rare period in which all three outer planet pairs – Uranus-Neptune, Uranus-Pluto and Neptune-Pluto – have been in the waxing phase of their cycles with each other, and will remain so until the year 2047, when Uranus will oppose Pluto and begin the waning phase of its cycle.

The outer planet cycles govern the longer-term patterns and developments of humanity. The waxing phase of a cycle is a creative, constructive phase, which reaches its culmination at the Opposition; after that comes the waning phase, when the fruits of the waxing phase may be lived out, but which also results in the decay of the old pattern and the planting of the seed of the next cycle.

The last time that all 3 outer planet pairs were waxing was during the years 1479-1538 AD, when the Renaissance was spreading through Europe; and the time before that was during the years 965-1029 AD, the period when most of Europe finally came under Christian influence. These were both periods of cultural re-birth, shaping the character of the western world for centuries afterwards. (1)

The earlier period gave rise to the Middle Ages, when the orthodox Christian Church reigned unchallenged as the presiding cultural and spiritual force in Europe. And the period of the Renaissance saw a re-birth of classical learning and knowledge, and an artistic and scientific flourishing, all of which led to a breakdown of the cultural hegemony of the Catholic Church and the birth of the modern world.

So the outer planet pairs are telling us that we too are living in a rare time of cultural re-birth, and that what is happening now will fundamentally shape the character of our culture for centuries to come, presumably until the next time all 3 outer planet pairs are waxing, from 2508-2553 AD. Because it is a time of cultural re-birth, it is also a time of a death of the old culture, just as paganism pretty much died out when Christianity gained ascendancy, and just as the Catholic Church as a unifying cultural force began to die at the time of the Renaissance.

It is hard, if not impossible, for us to know very clearly what it is that is being born and what it is that is dying, because we are living through it, we ARE it. But astrology does at least give us the insight that such a tectonic shift is occurring.

The nature of the cultural change that we are passing through is a whole subject in itself, but it is worth suggesting for now that much of it may be based in the gradual death of an Age in which the solar principle has reigned supreme at the expense of the lunar principle, in which man has been elevated above woman, rationality above feeling, spirituality above nature. This split has clearly characterised – even vitiated - our western culture for many centuries, and yet at the same time it has clearly begun to break down. What will replace it has only just begun to be born.

Like any major cultural change, it has been a long time in the making, and the current astrological configuration needs to be seen as the intensification or fruition of a pre-existing trend. The Renaissance, for example, began not in 1455 but in 13th Century Italy. In the same way, Freud’s work, which displaced man as a rational animal and gave power to an irrational ‘unconscious’, began to be published at the end of the 19th Century, 100 years before the present cultural re-birth.

It is easy to be pessimistic about humanity’s future in the coming decades. We do, after all, face a number of major problems, any one of which could lead to a collapse of our present civilisation: there is the coming energy crisis, when the supply of oil will no longer able to meet demand; there is the spectre of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, which has started to become a reality over the last decade; and there is the environmental crisis, just one aspect of which – global warming – could eventually make the earth a lot less habitable.

All of these problems are becoming immediate, and with the Uranus-Pluto square that is coming up in just a few years time, it is hard not to see some kind of a reckoning, a necessity to really face these problems. I think we are on the verge of a very testing period. The Uranus-Pluto Square will hit major points in the charts of all the major western powers.

So there may well be wars, famines, environmental disasters etc. But also, something deeply new is coming into being, a seed that is only planted once every 500 years. It seems to be in the nature of human civilisations that we do sometimes pass through very difficult times, and since WWII we have had a remarkable run of peace and prosperity, at least in the West. But there is also renewal.

So we need to see the coming Uranus-Pluto Square against this essentially creative cultural backdrop. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have wars, plagues and natural disasters. But it does suggest that it is not the end of civilisation as we know it: rather, it is a period in which, at all sorts of levels, something new is trying to be born.

The last Uranus-Pluto square was also Cardinal, and it was in the late 1920s/early 1930s. It resulted in WWII. As a t-square with Saturn it lasted longer, and was tighter, than the coming Uranus-Pluto-Saturn t-square, which I therefore expect to be less cataclysmic. Also, the last t-Square took place against the backdrop of a dying civilisation, it was one of the death throes of the last 500 year period. So I think we can be more optimistic about this one, even though there are similarities to the 1920s/30s t-Square.

I think that the essential meaning of the coming Uranus-Pluto Square is an intensification at all levels of the wider process of renewal – social, political, artistic, religious, technological, environmental and so on. Uranus, the planet of evolution and revolution, of sudden change, of originality, inventiveness and genius is being re-empowered and transformed by Pluto. It is a very testing and challenging transit, but because of that it contains the power to re-energise and move things on in all sorts of creative and unexpected ways.

If we think in terms of centuries – a human rather than an astrological category – then the Uranus-Pluto Square is the first real test of this new century. The Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001/2 was obviously very important, but it was not 2 outer planets aspecting each other. So even 9/11, traumatic as it was for the USA, will start to fade in significance as Uranus begins to square Pluto. It will be seen, perhaps, as just one incident in a relatively short-lived struggle with the Arab world, based ultimately on control of the oil supply.


(1) For the sake of accuracy, there have been 3 major periods since 965 AD (including our own), of between 52 and 78 years, when all 3 outer planet pairs have been waxing. There have also been 2 minor periods: 5 years between 1137-1142AD, and 10 years between 1891-1901AD. These 2 periods could be seen as prefiguring what came later, e.g. the re-discovery of Aristotle’s works in A.D. 1150, foreshadowing the Renaissance re-discovery of classical texts.