The Real Meaning of Global Warming

I do not like global warming being used as yet another stick to beat people with. “Here’s this wonderful planet and we are destroying it. It shows what bad people we are, and to redeem ourselves we must change our ways and stop doing lots of the things we enjoy doing. And it’s our duty to give a hard time to anyone who won’t change.”

Oh dear, that sounds like an evangelist preacher. Funny, that.


Of course there are major environmental issues, but they are much broader than CO2 emissions which, politically, it has all been boiled down to. And if you stand back from the fray, it’s not at all certain that man-made CO2 is the chief cause of global warming.

All we can say is that global warming is happening. That is certain. Let’s not rush in too quickly with judgments about it, that it is a bad thing and must be stopped, and that we are the bad people causing it.


Let’s be astrologers instead. We are used to thinking symbolically, we know that life works that way, that outer and inner reflect each other in all sorts of ways, not just via the planets.

As astrologers we know that human consciousness is changing because the earth herself is changing. So if the earth is warming up, that says something about humanity collectively ‘warming up’.

Every astrologer will probably have a different take on exactly what this might mean.

I’d say something like this: Humanity’s heart is warming up. By no means everybody, not even a majority. Maybe just a small minority, but this is enough to make a difference to the world. And it has been accelerating in the last few years, just as global warming has accelerated. I can’t prove this, but I’d also say, given the profound connection between inner and outer, how could it not be true?

As Ken Carey writes (or channels!) in The Third Millennium:

“You who have been motivated by love bring to bear on collective human awareness an influence much greater than your historical reason might suppose. Individually you have an impact on the collective predispositions of your species far greater than that of those who are merely treading the timeworn paths of self-centeredness.”

Another way of looking at it is that the earth is heating up, so we are heating up: i.e. the issues facing us collectively are getting hotter and more clearly defined. We are in a place, or have been brought to a place, that we have never been before. ‘Civilisation’ as we know it is not a permanent state of humanity, it is merely a few thousand years old and, if we are to believe the significance of global warming, it is about to change, about to tip over into something else.

Civilisation has had many great achievements, but it has also intensified traits such as the mob-mind, where we surrender our judgement to others; greed, or the accumulation of wealth for its own sake; the perception of humans as purely physical, self-centred beings, divorced from their true nature; the natural world as an inanimate resource to be exploited; the institutionalisation of power and dominance as ways of relating; and so on.


We are at a point where we can see this as never before. And global warming is accelerating, so human consciousness is fast reaching a tipping point, a global tipping point. I don’t mean this in a doom-laden way at all. Of course a lot of things will go wrong, they always have done. But we are also collectively going to learn from the past, and a way of being that is several thousand years old will begin to change.

So keep doing the amazing things you do, the blogging, the writing, the downloading from the spirit-world, talking to animals, whatever it is. Because even though we’re a minority, there’s a lot more of us than there used to be, and it’s changing the world! Maybe there’s something in that 2012 stuff after all?


I mentioned Ken Carey. I’ve been re-reading his ‘Return of the Bird Tribes’, which is an amazing book. It’s one of those books that will occasionally jump of a shelf and ask to be read. It’s a bit like you know how you get a sense sometimes that you’re being looked after, a sense of spirit guides – or maybe you’re the sort who can just go and chat to them (women seem to be better at this than men)? Well it’s like humanity has them collectively, which to me is common sense. And this book Return of the Bird Tribes is an account of the history of humanity and its true purpose from the point of view of one of these collective spirit guides.

You can tell I’m having a Neptune transit!

"Park hosts pensioners' play area "

Here's one from bbc news for Jupiter (play) and Pluto (empowerment) in Capricorn (old people):

A playground designed specifically for pensioners has opened in a park in north Manchester. The Older People's Play Area on the Dam Head Estate in Blackley, is kitted out with equipment to strengthen hips, tone legs and train the upper body. It was set up by the local residents' association, who were inspired by a similar playground in Germany.

The park, which cost £15,000 to build, was tested by locals aged over 70 before it opened to the public. It was paid for by Northwards Housing, which said it was "delighted" to support the scheme. It can be found next to the under-fives play area, and has six pieces of equipment designed to give older people a gentle workout.

Joan Fitzgerald, 76, chair of the Dam Head Residents' Association (DAMRA), said it was "great fun." "I'd recommend anyone to come and have a go, after all you're never too old to play," she said.

Taking the Bull by the Horns...

Mars in the sky has been stationing between the tips of the horns of the Bull for the last week or so, and will continue to do so until early next week. What a place for Mars to station! Astrology is the art of banging symbols together until something comes out of your mouth. And in this case, you don’t need to bang very hard. Things can really happen. Bold steps can be taken. Mars can give accuracy to the blind charge of the bull: he has control of the bull’s weapon, the tips of his horns, the bullet in the gun.

So think Bull. Last week Hamas took the bold step of knocking down the part of the wall around Gaza that borders with Egypt, and their people flooded through, desperate for provisions. It was a political coup. And what did they use? BULLdozers!

Last week the Federal Reserve took the bold step of knocking ¾% of interest rates, the biggest cut for 26 years. It helped stabilise the markets. When Mars was last there in mid Sept, they lopped ½% off interest rates. And what figure do we find in Wall St? A BULL!

It’s risky playing with Bull energy, for it is dangerous. Be careful of cows until the middle of next week! Yesterday a friend was doing some TB testing on her cows, and an aggressive one knocked her over and almost managed to trample her head.

The ex-President of Indonesia, Suharto, who was brutal (and economically successful) in his rule, died last week. I had a funny feeling that his death had to do with Mars. So I looked up his birthdate: June 8 1921. And there was Mars between the tips of the horns of the bull!

He also had Mars conjunct Sun and square Saturn, so there was a violent (Mars) signature to his life and leadership (Sun and Saturn). He died at the completion of a Mars cycle, which is fitting for such a person. His natal Saturn was underneath the belly of the lion, an appropriate place for a ruler, and it is back there in the sky now at his death, another cycle completing.

Politically, this week sees the grand showdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, each fighting the other for the Democratic nomination. Feb 5 is Super Tuesday, when 20 states vote, and this can determine the outcome of the race. So what better symbol for this fight than Mars between the tips of the horns of the bull. The symbolism is saying that this fight could get deadly.

We also have Jupiter in the face of the Archer at present. So it is a battle of ideologies, it is going to be exceptionally fierce, and it could get really dirty. Just watch them over the next week! And also keep a look out for bulls!

Asteroid 2007 TU24 - for one night only! Special free performance!

From : Skyandtelescope:


An 800-foot-wide chunk of rock will pass less than a half million miles from Earth on the night of Monday-Tuesday, Jan. 28-29. And because asteroid 2007 TU24 is crossing the far-northern sky, it will be visible all night at mid-northern latitudes. Stargazers at mid-northern latitudes can see asteroid 2007 TU24 all night during its closest approach, because it’s passing quite close to the North Star.

On the night of closest approach, Monday-Tuesday (Jan. 28-29), the asteroid is predicted to be 11th magnitude or brighter all night for viewers in the Americas, making it visible in small telescopes and large binoculars. At its peak, about 8 hours after closest approach, the asteroid is forecast to be magnitude 10.3. And the brightness should fade fairly slowly, so TU24 will still be pretty easy to catch on the night of Jan. 29-30.

The Nature of Reality

According to Buddhist Teaching, the Universe is Mind-created. The universe is in a deep sense a projection of collective consciousness. So when we learn about how the world and other people work, we are also learning about ourselves. You can’t separate inner and outer, self and other. We are incredibly connected to everything and everyone around us. But I would say that, wouldn’t I, with Neptune fast approaching a conjunction with my natal Sun?

Because of this connection between inner and outer, it means that when we think of reality in a particular way, reality has a way of becoming that. And then we think reality was that way all along and we just discovered it. Like if you decide that the Universe works rationally according to certain physical laws that can be discovered by a detached observer, and particularly if loads of you decide to think like this, then Reality actually obliges, and you have a scientific universe which sort of holds together, up to a point.

And I think it’s the same with astrology, and it’s why all the different forms of astrology work, even though they can be contradictory, like western astrology being 23 degrees ahead of Vedic astrology.

All these ways of looking at the Universe are real, they do actually describe what is ‘out there’ (and ‘in here’); but they are also ephemeral products of consciousness, they are like consciousness putting on a new dress and looking at itself in the mirror. So they are not absolute.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the fact that all these different astrologies work makes me suspect that we’re making it all up, that I could get any set of symbols to describe any situation if I tried hard enough. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and most weekends it makes me realise just how strange and subtle Reality is.

And perhaps the biggest reason Reality is so hard to grasp is that we can’t help but divide our experience into inner and outer, self and other. So the whole basis of a ‘me’ trying to describe ‘other’ is false in the first place. So any philosophy, any science, any astrology is going to run into limitations which, if you are honest about them, will point you to this more subtle unitary reality.

This is where religion often goes wrong, because it’s practitioners can’t handle the uncertainty involved, they need solid ‘Truth’ to base their lives on. I say ‘goes wrong’, but actually people often need this level of truth to cope psychologically. I think there can be a natural process whereby eventually, perhaps after decades, they start to feel limited by it.

At times, like under a Neptune transit, the divide between inner and outer, the illusion of yourself as a centre of experience, fades a bit. And then you don’t have to bother any more about trying to work out the nature of Reality, because you are experiencing it.

Pluto and Our Economic Philosophy

I’ve personally given Pluto in Sagittarius a bit of a bad press, focussing as I have on its shadow side of religious intolerance and fundamentalism, credit and stock market bubbles and extreme economic greed. But Sagittarius is also about philosophy, and I think that during Pluto’s transit through this sign we have seen the beginnings of a profound change in our economic philosophy, which will eventually impact on the whole way we think about life.

It has been forced on us by circumstance, by environmental issues becoming politically mainstream, as well as by energy supplies just starting to become limited. We have begun to think in terms of sustainability, of renewable energy supplies and not wasting resources.

We have collectively only just begun to think like this, but as the environmental and energy issues intensify in the coming years, it is going to force a much bigger change in our thinking. And this will be good.

The idea of continual growth has been the cornerstone of our economic philosophy. A business only wins respect if it is growing. This is bonkers. It puts tremendous and unnecessary pressure on everyone and everything. Surely the economy is there to meet our materials needs, not as an end in itself, a devouring monster that has to be fed more and more of our precious resources and more and more of our precious time and energy? And which distorts human nature by tying our sense of self-worth to our economic performance.

So I think that Pluto in Sag has seen the beginnings of a shift from a philosophy of continual and endless growth to a philosophy of sustainability. A shift from insanity to sanity, to economic activity again having its appropriate place in the scheme of life. Wild animals know how to do this one: when they need food, they find some. When they need shelter, they get some. And if they don’t need to, they’ll do something else.


The Ingress Chart for Pluto in Capricorn on 26 Jan at 2.38 GMT suggests that this theme will continue. Pluto, Venus and Jupiter are conjunct in Cap, trine to retrograde Saturn in Virgo. The empowerment (Pluto) of a philosophy (Jupiter) of wealth (Venus) based on an acknowledgement of practical limitations (Saturn/Cap).

Interestingly, Pluto's Ingress into Sagittarius in 1995 also had a (loose) stellium of Pluto, Jupiter and Venus, providing a continuity of theme between the two long transits.

Economic activity has always been central to human life, even when it’s about sustainability rather than growth. So this gradual shift in economic philosophy – driven by circumstance rather than by a sudden improvement in human nature – is going to change the way we think about everything. The world will be a very different place in 15 years time, we will view life very differently, as Pluto finishes his time in Capricorn.

Pluto Enters Capricorn: A Sky Perspective.

I posted this today at the visual astrology blog. It's a Fixed Star take on yesterday's piece. I love Fixed Star astrology, it has a visceral appeal to me because it is stuff you can actually see, even though in my rainy English garden, surrounded by street lamps, I've yet to get round to some serious investigation of the sky. But what astrologer does read the actual sky these days?

Mars is currently stationing between the horns of the bull, which is a very powerful and aggressive place for him to be, particularly as he is standing still. This is, of course, a potentially warlike configuration, but it can also lead to decisive action.

When Mars first passed between the horns of the bull in mid September 2007, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates in the U.S by half a percentage point to ease the on-going panic in the financial markets due to the subprime crisis. Decisive economic (Taurus) action. Now, 4 months later, Mars is back to finish the job, and again the Fed has cut interest rates, this time by ¾ of a point, a huge amount. Some have said that the Fed should have acted sooner, and that such a huge cut in one go is a tacit acknowledgement of this. Mars is completing what was left half-finished in September, with the added power of his stationing. He is also completing another journey, from the tip of one horn – Al Hecka – to the other, El Nath.

Because he is stationing, Mars will not begin to move decisively away from between the horns until early to mid-February, so we can expect to see plenty more action from the Fed and other western financial institutions between now and then to try and stabilise the markets.

As this week progresses, Jupiter will be moving into the face of the Archer, while on Saturday 26 Jan at 2.38 GMT, Pluto will make his first Ingress into Capricorn. So this week’s Mars-Jupiter sky story will be part of this Ingress, and therefore to some extent characteristic of Pluto’s 15 year transit of Capricorn.

So Jupiter will be conjunct Facies, the nebula in the face of the Archer. This gives a potential for religious zealotry, while Mars near the tip of the bull’s horns gives the potential for the use of fearful weapons. A nuclear armed Islamist state is easily imaginable here, a state that is prepared to use such weapons. Iran and Pakistan are the obvious candidates. There is also Russia, whose astrocartography has both Mars and Pluto lines passing through it during the Pluto Ingress.

So this could be one of the issues within Pluto’s passage through Capricorn, a period which could see the arising of some dark and destructive (Pluto) governments (Capricorn). This is getting a bit heavy, but it’s a heavy combination! The last time we had this Mars-Jupiter sky story was at the beginning of May 1972. On the 1st of May that year, a campaign of genocide began in Burundi in which up to 500,000 Hutus were killed.

Economically, however, I think this sky story may be a good one. Pluto in the Ingress Chart is conjunct Venus and Jupiter, and trine to Saturn, which is good for sorting out economic difficulties and creating long-term economic health on a realistic basis, rather than the endless unsustainable growth and credit bubbles of Pluto in Sagittarius. Mars in its placement between the horns is giving the ability to take decisive action, and Jupiter in the face of the archer gives the ability to stare unflinchingly and accurately at the economic problems.

In the Pluto Ingress chart set for New York – i.e. Wall St – Pluto is within ¼ of a degree of the IC, and the Angles are all 0 degrees of a Cardinal sign. So this is a very powerful and transformative chart for Wall St – and therefore for the rest of the world, economically – and shows that we are at the start of a new era. An era that won’t just be a correction of recent Sagittarian excesses, but which on a deeper level will involve a recognition that there are limitations (Capricorn) to the world’s resources, and that a new economic model is needed. The Pluto Ingress Chart for New York has Markab on the Descendant. This star can be seen as the saddle of the winged horse Pegasus. The saddle is the still and steady point on the moving animal, so it is suggesting a steady hand on the economic rudder during Pluto’s passage through Capricorn.

The Heliacal Rising star on the day of Pluto’s entry into Capricorn in New York is Acumen, which on the level of economics describes the difficulties facing the world as we enter this new Pluto era. The Heliacal Setting Star is Pollux, and this could be said to describe the soul-searching that will be required to sort our economic difficulties. It is not a matter of tweaking anymore, it involves the whole underlying model and the way we live our lives.

But despite all the economic turmoil that is heralding Pluto’s entry into Capricorn, both regular astrology and Fixed Star astrology suggest to me that it is going to come right. This is what you’d expect of Capricorn, which isn’t about crashes any more than it is about bubbles, both of these being equally unrealistic and ungrounded.

HOLD YOUR HORSES!

Global markets are very volatile at the moment, as Pluto moves from optimistic, over-the-top Sagittarius to cautious, realistic Capricorn. It is a very different mindset, a very different approach to the economy that the world is entering. Pluto will move into Capricorn in a few days, will be back in Sag from June, and then permanently back in Capricorn from the end of November.


It is a bit like a hot air balloon trying to land in windy weather. The balloon (Sag) is landing (Cap) about now, will bounce back up in June, and will finally land in November. This first landing is unfamiliar territory, it seems like all sorts of restrictions are being placed on economic growth, whereas what is really happening is a return to sound fundamentals.

The chart for Pluto’s Ingress into Capricorn on 26 Jan tells us this. It is a nice chart. Pluto is conjunct the 2 benefics, Venus and Jupiter, and trine to Saturn. Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, is retrograde, so it is a time for sorting things out, which is what is happening. More and more banks are owning up to their sub-prime debts. Consumers are addressing their years of over-spending by tightening their belts. Good sound stuff, and the stock markets are panicking, because they are not used to this. They are used to the excesses of Sagittarius, so that a bit of good news will send the markets soaring, and a bit of bad news will send them plummeting.

Click for larger image.
Look how close Pluto is to the IC in New York i.e. Wall St. And look how the Angles are all at 0 degrees of a Cardinal sign - this is big, and it's a new economic era. And it's not just because the stars say so: it is becoming clearer that world resources are limited (Capricorn), that unlimited growth (Sagittarius) is not possible. So we are entering a new period not just because it's time for a bit of sound book-keeping, but because on a deeper level a new economic model is needed.

So, back to the stock market, the astrology is telling us there is no need to panic, it is going to come right. This first landing of the balloon is the most difficult period, because it is unfamiliar territory. It probably will take until the end of the year for things to settle.

Using Fixed Star astrology, the star Markab is conjunct an Angle (the Descendant). Tight orbs are used, so this is very significant. Markab is the brightest star in the constellation of the winged horse Pegasus, and can be seen as the saddle, which is the point of steadiness in the moving animal underneath. It means maintaining stability under pressure. So again, things will come right for the stock market. If you've got investments, just hang on in there!

Get a Grip, Big Brother

When Pluto passes through a sign, we collectively encounter the shadow side of that sign (as well as its strengths). A shadow side of Capricorn, which Pluto enters this month, is over-control of the individual by the government or by corporations. This issue has been looming for some time due to the increasing amounts of data that governments and corporations are holding about us.

Funnily enough, the issue has been coming out in reverse over the last few months: there has been not enough control by governments of data they hold on us. Details of 3,000,000 learner drivers in the US have gone missing; the UK government lost CDs in the post containing data on 15,000,000 people; a laptop was stolen last week from a car containing details on 600,000 Service personnel; and so it goes on. And those are the ones we get to hear about.


Somewhere governments and corporations are not taking this seriously, because there are simple remedies for a lot of these failures. To them, they have just mislaid a load of information that to them is like a statistic. So they keep doing it. It’s like they don’t realise these are private details on actual, individual people, none of whom is a statistic.

I think part of the problem is that a government or a corporation is a collective, it has a collective mind that is stronger than any of the individuals who make it up. Many of the individuals within those collectives are no doubt appalled and gobsmacked by the ongoing breaches, but it is not translating into collective action.

And this puts the shadow side of Capricorn in another way: Capricorn is about society and its collective laws and values, and at its worst the individual is nothing compared to this. What matters to this sort of Capricorn is that the country is ruled properly, and information about people is needed to do that, but it doesn’t matter if the individual is violated along the way, because there is no such thing as an individual.

So we may be entering a period where we will have to stand up for our right not just to be different, but to be an individual in the first place. We may have to hold our breath for 15 years till Pluto enters Aquarius, when we’ll be free again to wander round in purple hair and slippers.

You can kind of see why, apart from astrology: the world is entering a much less secure period, we are going to need thrift and new technologies to survive. The survival of the collective in its present form is under threat, and there is always less room for the individual in those sorts of times. So I don’t see it as sinister, I don’t think there is a plot. I think it is just what happens when times get insecure. A bit like what happened in the US after 9/11 and liberation fries and all that. But as astrologers, we know that things are cyclical, and that eventually things move on.

The Death of Benazir Bhutto (Again)

I first wrote about the death of Benazir Bhutto in late December. Today I have written a version that incorporates some Fixed Star astrology that I put up at the Visual Astrology blog:

In my last visual astrology post I wrote about Hillary Clinton and the Moon-Mars eclipse of 24th December. But the death of Benazir Bhutto was much more striking, occurring 3 days after the eclipse. The blogosphere had had plenty of speculation as to what this eclipse might mean, including the known possibility that an asteroid might hit Mars in late January!

Benazir Bhutto was born on either the 21st or 23rd June 1953, with Sun at 29 Gemini or 1 Cancer, and Mars 5 degrees further on in Cancer. Whichever way, her Sun-Mars midpoint is 2 to 3 Cancer, and the Moon-Mars eclipse was at 3 Cancer, bang on the mid-point. It was one of those times when astrology almost shocks you, this eclipse really was a judgement from the gods that was carried out swiftly and literally and shockingly.

I think her death was eminently predictable, given her situation, the recent attempt on her life, and the fact that, for example, transiting Pluto was opposing her Sun and moving to oppose her Mars. It was one of those times when you are reminded that astrology really does work. The Oxford and Harvard educated Bhutto either did not consult an astrologer or did not care, for politics was her lifeblood. The Moon-Mars eclipse merely provided the timing for the event. It has the quality of a Greek Tragedy, in which Bhutto the tragic heroine in her hubris tried to defy the gods, she tried to defy natural law, she went back to Pakistan to oppose the whole political direction that the country is now taking.

Lest we idealise her, it’s worth remembering that she and her husband were accused of siphoning off 1½ BILLION dollars from the country while she was premier. A number of countries provided documentary evidence of this, and in Switzerland she was convicted of money laundering. This side of her is described by her Venus in Taurus square to Pluto. If we take the 23rd June Chart, we find that in the years of her Prime she had Venus in Paran to Alphard, the heart of the serpent. The serpent speaks of passion, often unconscious, which allied to Venus can come out as greed. If you like, the serpent also speaks of betrayal, and her theft of money was also a betrayal of her country at the time she was supposed to be its protector. (She is also alleged to have had her brother murdered for speaking out against her, a betrayal that goes both ways.)

In her posting of 28th Dec, Cornelia points out that on the day of the assassination, the Moon was in Paran with Algol and Alphard. We do not need to look for a psychological interpretation here: Algol has the literal interpretation of a foul death, and it is feminine in nature, as is the Moon.

According to 3 separate reports, she was shot sometime between 17:09 and 17:12 on 27th December in Rawalpindi. During that period Facies was conjunct the Descendant (and opposite Mars which had just risen!), so we can see that as the defining sky event of the assassination. This is perfect: the Descendant is where we encounter or attract others; Facies is not only potentially very violent, but also ruthless, a quality needed in an assassin; he also would only have had one chance, so he needed deadly accuracy, another attribute of this star in the face of the Archer; finally, the Sun was setting, so Facies, like our assassin, was not visible, outshone by Bhutto’s presence.

There are a few other sky connections worth mentioning. Algol has been mentioned. Her male counterpart, Capulus, was conjunct the IC at the moment of the Moon-Mars Eclipse, set for Karachi, Bhutto’s birthplace and where she had been living since her return to Pakistan. In the stars of her latter years (which I suppose she must have been living through, given her death), Bhutto has Jupiter in Paran to Capulus, which gave her the strength, or if you like wilfulness, to return to Pakistan at the time she did.

The exact moment of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction of 12th Dec was in Sagittarius, widely opposite Mars, and conjunct the IC in both Karachi, the old Capital, andIslamabad, the modern Capital. This conjunction is strongly suggestive of the violent (Mars) religious fundamentalism (Jupiter Pluto in Sag) arising from within the community and its traditions (IC). In his posting of 30th Nov, Michael points out that this conjunction took place within the heel of Ophiuchus the healer, but within range of the archer’s bow. So the conjunction was a portent of the violence still to come. But we also have to take Ophiuchus seriously: this upheaval will eventually heal the country, not in a way that we as westerners might like, but an Islamist Pakistan would probably be brutal enough to bring a kind of peace to the country.

Bits and Pieces

I’m not always up to speed when it comes to computers. It took me about a year of blogging before I got round to working out how to put images on the posts. Now, as Neptune comes up to conjoin my Sun, the photo of me has gone weird and doesn’t want to sort. Maybe it’s more accurate than I realise? As we approach the exact conjunction in April, all you will be able to see will be a puddle that was once me.

The other day I was introduced to the wonders of the Advanced Search option on Google, where you can type in your website under ‘Links’ and find all the sites that link to yours. I found several good astro-bloggers who’d linked to me but I hadn’t returned the favour. So I’ve corrected that!

I’ve been looking at the Mundane Astrology article in Wikipedia, and attempting to correct what seems to me to be Vedic evangelism! Specifically, there is a section called ‘Horoscopes of the USA’, which makes no mention of the Sibly or any other commonly used chart, but rather what we read is:

“A growing number of mundane astrologers now consider the formation of the country to have occurred with the Articles of Confederation. David Solte's chart is based on the time in 1777 when the Articles were sent to the states for their ratification. The SAMVA USA chart is based on the event on February 2, 1781 when the USA became legally a perpetual union of the thirteen states and thus a free, sovereign and independent nation state. This chart was generated using the rectification techniques of ancient vedic astrology, giving the time of 5.00pm”

So I changed the beginning to say “A growing number of Vedic – as opposed to western - mundane astrologers.” At the end I added on a bit to say that the most commonly used chart is still the Sibly, and that it was generated using accepted medieval techniques rather than a recorded time. The Vedic author deleted my changes, I put them back in again and they are still there!


There seems to be a bit of evangelism going on around this SAMVA USA Chart. I received an email recently asking me to publish it on my blog, but without much in the way of reasons as to why it’s a valid chart!

That said, a fair bit of research does seem to have gone into it, which you can read at the Cosmologer blog.

Hillary Clinton and the Moon-Mars Eclipse

I've just put this posting up on a Fixed Star blog (more details in a few days) that expands on some of the things I said in my last post:

On 24th December, the red planet Mars was obscured by the Full Moon at 3 degrees of the Moon’s home sign of Cancer. According to Robin Heath, this occultation, or eclipse, occurred at 3.45am in the UK. Eclipses are portents because nature is not acting in its usual manner. I was wondering what it might mean, what events might unfold in the coming weeks that would reflect this eclipse.

These things are very hard to second guess, but I got half way there when I looked up 3 degrees of Cancer in Nicholas Campion’s ‘Book of World Horoscopes’: there it was, the US Venus (Sibly Chart) at 3 degrees of Cancer. Venus is to do with wealth, so I reckoned the eclipse might precipitate a time of reckoning around the sub-prime crisis: events might occur that would force the major financial institutions to own up to their liabilities, enabling the economy to settle back on solid ground again. This may yet happen, especially with Pluto entering Capricorn later this month, conjunct Venus as it Ingresses, and moving to oppose the natal US Venus.

I was half way there because there is another meaning of Venus in a Mundane chart that I didn’t consider, which is the women of a nation. The Moon-Mars Eclipse was a portent of Hilary Clinton’s ‘emotional moment’ in the run-up to the New Hampshire Primaries! Machismo (Mars retrograde) overwhelmed and eclipsed by the healthy feminine (Full Moon in Cancer). This event was significant because she is the first woman to have run for President in what is a very competitive male world. And she has spent many years being a ‘pretend man’ to survive in this world. And you can see her capacity to do this in her chart (26th Oct 1947, Chicago, Illinois, time unknown).


She has Sun in Scorpio, as well as Venus in Scorpio square to a Mars-Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Leo. She is tough and ambitious and a survivor. But there is another side to her, which is her Moon in Pisces, square to Uranus. A lot of people, not surprisingly, do not like Hillary Clinton, but they don’t always realise that she has worked on behalf of children all her adult life. This is her Moon in Pisces, it doesn’t like the limelight (or the rest of her personality!), so we don’t get to see it. But it is square to Uranus, it is longing to break free, and it broke free last week when she had her emotional moment. It was politically opportune, but it was also for real, and the women voters instinctively recognised this and voted for her.

Hillary Clinton is 60, and so is in the period of moving into the stars of her latter years. And probably the most significant single configuration there is the Moon in parans with Bellatrix, because you have a major planet aligned with a major star. The Moon is another feminine planet, it symbolises at best the qualities of care and nurture and compassion, and Bellatrix will give her the capacity to develop and express these qualities as she gets older. Which, on a personal level, would clearly be a good thing for her. But if she becomes President, this process would assume a collective dimension, it would have huge cultural significance in the macho world of American politics. And Bellatrix, as a major star, will give her the power to have this collective impact.


But, as with many of the other major stars, this success has to be earned, and in the case of Bellatrix there is success only through facing one’s shadow – and in this case, if she becomes President, through the collective also facing its own shadow. Hillary Clinton isn’t a tough guy just because she has to survive in American politics. She is like that anyway if you look at her chart. Her Moon in Pisces gets some expression, but not enough to make her seem fully human. The shadow in her is the coldness and the drive for power for its own sake. To the extent she can acknowledge this and relax it, she will be able to harness the power of Bellatrix in paran with her Moon. And the whole culture will benefit. If she continues to be hard-as-nails Hillary, her Presidency will fail. In fact, she probably won’t get elected. She has enough people who hate her anyway (she has Venus conjunct Chiron in Scorpio, not good for popularity), but as the New Hampshire Primary showed, if she can allow herself to be a woman, to feel, to care, to let that be seen, she will succeed.

It is interesting that over the next few years Pluto will oppose the natal Venus of the US Sibly chart, and Neptune will conjoin the Moon. Pluto-Venus speaks of the same issue on a collective level, the need for women to become more empowered, but the need to face the shadow side as well for success to be achieved.

So if Hillary becomes President, it could herald a very interesting time for women in American culture.

A paran of her prime which she will fortunately be leaving behind is Venus with Menkar. This led to her terrible humiliations through her husband’s indiscretions and their parading in all their detail in public.

Obama the Redeemer and Clinton the Tough Guy

The US Presidential Primaries are headline news over here in the UK, as well of course as in the USA. I accept that candidates need to campaign in poetry, as the saying goes, while governing in prose. You need to connect with people personally and you need to connect with their aspirations. But when Barack Obama stands up and addresses his audience with the words “Good afternoon, believers”, I think he is going way too far.


It ironically puts him in the same political camp as George Bush, which is precisely what his voters are longing to get away from. It of course has a big appeal to young voters, who rightly want a change from the Bush years. But it is also easy to manipulate that desire in young people, and this is what Barack Obama is doing when he uses those words.

Obama is not simply a political opportunist like Schwarzenegger (who I nevertheless admire for taking on the Federal Government over the environment). From his voting record it is clear that he has a solid liberal political position that is intelligently thought through. But he also has Sun in Leo SQUARE to Neptune in Scorpio. A square like this in a politician is dangerous, there is a lot of room for inflation and self-delusion and building up a blind cult following.

It needs a lot of self-awareness and self-discipline to handle it creatively. It is a very good aspect for an artist or musician who is not too much in the public eye. It gives a lot of inspiration and imagination and creativity, and also that continual challenge from the square to Neptune to know yourself, to break through delusion, to separate fantasy from artistic imagination, to laugh at your own pretensions.

I think it would take an exceptional person with this aspect to be fully in the public eye, with a big fan base, and not get carried away by it and start to believe that they are some sort of Christ figure. But this is exactly what Obama is starting to do. If he becomes President he may, like Chavez of Venezuela (who is also a Leo, but with Moon square Neptune) bring in some genuinely liberal measures and be hugely popular. But he will probably also, like Chavez, become inflated and autocratic. Though we are not certain of Obama’s birthtime, he quite possibly also has Moon square to Pluto, giving a hidden hunger for power for its own sake. But don’t you just love him?

While with Obama I think it is important not to get carried away by the surface rhetoric – in fact, we need to mistrust it - with Hillary Clinton I think it is necessary not to think of her as just the tough, controlled figure that comes across. She certainly is that, and you can see that from her Sun in Scorpio along with Venus in Scorpio square to a Mars-Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Leo. But she also has Moon in Pisces, and as astrologers this gives us a privileged insight into her.

It suggests a compassionate human being under the tough surface. We see the same in the case of Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister. He is very Piscean, but we don’t generally get to see much of it. What we see is the tough, controlled side. We see it occasionally in, for example, his genuine desire to help the underprivileged. Pisces does not like the limelight, it is far too sensitive for that, and this is also the case with Hillary Clinton. All her adult life, for example, she has done a lot of work on behalf of children. It seems she does care deeply. But she’s not going to show it. Not just because as a woman in politics she needs to appear tough. The tough guy is also in her chart.

But her Pisces Moon is also natally square to Uranus. So it feels trapped by her ambition and control, it is longing to break free, which is exactly what it did the other day in the run-up to the New Hampshire Primary, when she had her ‘emotional moment’. Of course it was politically opportune, but it was also real. We know that because she has Moon in Pisces, and the women voters of New Hampshire felt instinctively that it was real.

Because Uranus was involved, this moment had a collective quality to it, it was saying that as a woman you don’t have to pretend to be a man to succeed in politics. You can be a woman. This was why the women voted for her. I think this is very important. Much of the ‘empowerment’ of women through feminism has involved women being freer to engage in the men’s world but on the men’s terms, and this has been a distortion. That is as much of a distortion of women as being told they have to remain in the home (which is now looked down upon, another distortion.)

In the US Sibly Chart, the Moon is at 27 Aquarius and Venus is at 3 Cancer. These are the 2 planets to look at when considering the women of a nation (though Venus is the main one), and over the next few years Neptune will conjoin the Moon and Pluto will oppose the Venus. This suggests a big change for American women. So it would be very opportune if Hillary Clinton were to become President, not as a pretend man, but as a woman. And we can rely on her Uranus to keep making the case, even in spite of herself, because she has a Uranus square Uranus transit impending. At the same time Bill Clinton, with his Venus-Neptune Rising, will probably make a better First Lady than Hillary ever did.

The Astrology of China

In her posting of 6 Jan, Lynn Hayes quotes from an article that graphically shows what a major world player China already is, and how that can only escalate. She concludes that Chinese mega-expansion is going to be THE big Pluto in Capricorn issue. I think she’s completely right, and it’s one of those issues that is so obvious that you don’t think of it!

Which means that there is a need to understand China through its astrological chart. I haven’t been able to find much on this, so I thought I’d give it a go myself.

I think the starting point is to come up with some possible charts. There aren’t many countries that have just one chart. At what point is a country born? It is arguable. And were the events recorded, or do we need to attempt some rectification? And was it just an aspect of the country that was born, like the government, with popular recognition coming later?

In the case of the USA, for example, 2nd July 1776 was when the government came into legal existence, and the 4th July 1776 was when the people were involved through the Declaration of Independence. Even then, the actual times remain open to debate and guesswork.

The same applies to China. China became a Republic in 1911/12, and there are various possible charts for this. But I want to look at China as the Communist Peoples’ Republic. There seem to be 2 main charts for this, neither of which have a birthtime. Firstly, there is 21 Sept 1949, when Mao proclaimed at a political conference: “We announce the establishment of the Peoples’ Republic of China.” Then there is 1 Oct 1949, when at a mass rally the proclamation of the central government of the new republic took place. (See Nicholas Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes).

So we could provisionally say that the Sept Chart is for the country as a whole, and the Oct Chart is for the government and its international relations.


What I like about the Sept chart is the Sun and Moon in Virgo, which describes the predominantly agricultural nature of China at the time that it went Communist and for decades afterwards. Even now, with the big shift to industrialisation occurring, they are quickly becoming technologically (Virgo) advanced, while the up-and-coming leadership (Sun) of the country has been selected not from e.g. lawyers, like you often get in the west, but remarkably from engineers, a Virgo profession. The Moon in a chart is the people, and its conjunction to Saturn emphasises the hard work for which the Chinese are known, which is also a Virgo characteristic. It also describes the restrictions (Saturn) placed on the people (Moon) by the government (Saturn).

As for a birthtime for this chart, the proclamation took place in the opening session of the conference, so I’m going to make a stab at 10.24am in Peking. The 2 main events that I am rectifying for are the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the death of Mao and the economic changes that followed.

The Great Leap Forward of 1958-60 was an attempt to rapidly transform China from an agrarian society into an industrialised society. But it was a disaster and set the country back years. By transit, Pluto was crossing the 29.57 Leo Midheaven at the time. The Midheaven is also to do with the leadership of the country, and the Great Leap Forward was very much one man’s doing, Mao’s. (After this he lost much of his power to make economic decisions). Though it is the ‘People’s Republic’, it has never been any such thing, and the Leo MC points to Mao’s kingly role for 30 years.
The Sun is also to do with the leader (I’d say the actual leader, rather than the institution behind it, which I’d say is the MC), and here the (wide) natal square to Uranus describes Mao’s eccentric, even mad at times, leadership. (The first emperor of China, who had the vast terracotta army built, also went mad). The ‘Great Leap Forward’ also took place as Neptune began to conjoin natal Venus, dissolving (Neptune) the country’s wealth (Venus) through economic (Venus) delusion (Neptune).

In this rectified chart I also like Mars and Pluto in Leo in the 9th: the aggressive (Mars) control and repression (Pluto) through ideology (9th) by an autocrat (Leo). Mao’s natal Moon was somewhere near the middle of Leo, connecting him to this ideological repression. Jupiter is in Capricorn in the 2nd (just), and trine to the Sun, showing the potential for great wealth (Jupiter in the 2nd) arising out of hard work and professionalism (Capricorn).

Pluto has been squaring the natal 11th House Sun at 27.45 Virgo over the last few years, a period in which China has become much more powerful (Pluto) in the world community (11th).

The Cultural Revolution of 1966 onwards was an attempt by Mao to rid the country of its ‘liberal bourgeoisie’ elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. His real motivation is said to have been an attempt to regain full control of the Party after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward. The Cultural Revolution created chaos on many levels, brought the country to the brink of civil war, and only ended with Mao’s death in 1976.

It was launched officially on May 16th 1966, with Uranus and Pluto both stationing and within 20 minutes of a degree of each other in mid Virgo. This is a very powerful astrological signature, and shows how the revolutionary idealism and power struggles that we saw in the west in those times were every bit as strong in China. Uranus and Pluto at the time were on their way from transiting the Chinese Moon-Saturn in Virgo and moving towards the Sun at 28 Virgo. This does not help rectify the chart, as House placements and Angles are not involved, but it strengthens the case for a 21st Sept Chart.


Mao was born on 26 Dec 1893 in Xiangtan. He died at 10 past midnight on 9 Sept 1976 in Peking. This event impacts the Oct 1st Chart strongly (see later), but not so the 21 Sept Chart, suggesting that while his death may have been very significant for the government and its foreign relations, it might not have been quite so significant for the country as a whole – they still had the same type of government. But what we do see is Saturn 2 years off conjoining MC, suggesting a coming of age for the government after the madness of the Mao years; we also see Neptune 2 years off the 2nd House Cusp, suggestive of the big economic changes that began a couple of years later, which have allowed China to develop into what it is now.


There is some evidence that 3.15pm as a time for the Oct 1st chart may be based on a recorded time, so I’m going to provisionally run with that. As I said, I’m using it as a chart for the government and its foreign relations. By transit, we can immediately see the chart functioning effectively in the case of Mao’s death. Pluto was at 10 Libra, conjoining the Oct 1st Sun at 7 Libra. You don’t get much more powerful transits than this, and it also suggests the power struggle which followed Mao’s death.

Sun in Libra also suggests a government that likes to be diplomatic, that does not, for example, denounce other countries as ‘The Great Satan’ or as belonging to an ‘axis of evil’. It puts the Chinese Sun in square to the US Sun at 13 Cancer. This was set off on April 1 2001 when a US spy plane crashed in China. The Sun was at 11 Aries, Venus at 8 Aries, and the Moon was in Cancer. Courtney Roberts Conrad writes about this incident and the need by the US for the Libran qualities of diplomacy and apology at StarIQ.

I think the Libran Sun also describes the Chinese government’s double-speak and not saying what it means. The Sun is square to Uranus and trine to the Moon/ASC in Aquarius, so here we have an ideologically driven government whose ideas in the case of Mao could be disconnected from reality (the Sun also conjoins Neptune). It also gives us the slogans. (In the Sept Chart, we see this in Mercury conjunct Neptune in the 11th) “Smash the Gang of Four.” “Raise fewer babies but more piggies.” With modern changes happening, they have the slogan; “Shout fewer slogans and do more practical things.”

Mind you, we can’t afford to laugh, we have our own slogans that have corporate rather than government origins. And they don’t always translate well. Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “Finger Lickin’ Good” came out in Chinese as “Eat your fingers off.” When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave." Then when Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola." The only problem was that the characters used meant "Bite The Wax Tadpole." They later changed to a set of characters that mean "Happiness In The Mouth."

In the Progressed Chart for China (Oct), Jupiter will conjoin the MC in 5 years time, describing its long-term expansion on the world stage; in the same year, the Prog Moon will Rise in Taurus, describing the economic success behind its growth as a world power.



At the same time as these events in the Prog Chart, Pluto will be squaring the Libran Sun by transit. The last time Pluto made a hard transit was around 1976, when Mao died, and the gradual transition to a western style economy started. This time, the Pluto transit may mark the beginning of a transition to a western style political system.

Mind you, I don’t necessarily view that as entirely a good thing. What I think is very strange about democracy is that the candidates for what ought to be highly skilled jobs are selected by people with no experience in that job, i.e. by you and me. You don’t get that in any other profession. You couldn’t run a hospital that way, or a legal practice. So why do so in what is arguably the most responsible job of all, i.e. running the country? Why’s that job so different?

So both charts seem to work in their own way. In a nutshell, I’d say the 21st Sept Chart, with its Sun and Moon in Virgo, describe well the Chinese people’s attitude to work, and the agricultural and now increasingly technological nature of that work. The very airy Oct 1st Chart doesn’t describe the Chinese people well, but I think it is pretty good for their ideologically driven government.