It’s never too late to become a Virgin…

The US has a Federally funded programme which encourages young people to remain celibate until marriage. The programme is known as Silver Ring Thing, because the teenagers involved wear a silver ring (on their finger) as a sign of their commitment to celibacy.

According to BBC news, the US government is considering cutting the funding, following a report that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. And with some 750,000 teenage pregnancies a year, America has one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world.

"This national programme which has wasted $1.5bn (£750m) of tax money is a failure and our teens are paying the price," says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood "We've been wasting money on programmes that don't work and we're seeing the consequences every single day."

“State governments receive federal money they must match to fund abstinence programmes. At least 17 states have opted out of the system and others have suspended funding while Congress investigates whether such programmes work.

Critics say there is no evidence that they delay sexual activity and teenagers who have taken a vow of virginity are less likely to use protection if they break their promise.”

Such teenagers do not get taught about contraception. As 15 year-old Mildred from Arizona says: "We get sex-ed classes in school and that should be where teens get the right information - but that isn't happening."

The argument in favour of abstinence is put by a Texan lawyer, who describes himself as a member of the religious right:

"I am convinced that abstinence is the only way for kids," he says. "You begin by teaching the consequences of bad behaviour and the benefits of proper behaviour and you do that in a way that a child can grasp. "Self control leads to a happy, joyful life. If we can learn to control the most basic of drives - the sex drive - for good, then we can control drugs, gangs, alcohol and abusive anger."

If you’ve already had sex, it’s not too late: Teenagers who do have sex before marriage are given another chance by becoming ‘secondary virgins’. "Of course, if you view virginity as number one, and you've slept with someone, of course it's going to be different and you can never go back - but that doesn't mean there's no tomorrow," explains Ashley, who also says she believes teenagers who experiment with sex are laying the foundations for troubled relationships later in life. "A lot of the young people I know who go around having experiences with lots of different people are just preparing themselves for not knowing how to be committed to somebody. Once you get into the practice of doing whatever you want, it's hard to change when you're older."

16 year-old Josh has this to say: "I have a lot of close friends and we pretty much agree on the same thing so we keep each other in line most of the time.”

There’s plenty of room for comedy in all this. Exactly how do Josh and his friends keep each other in line? Do they spray each other with hosepipes? And how exactly do you control the sex drive ‘for good’? Do you have a special box with a pink ribbon on it called ‘Sex Drive’ that you keep in the attic? And where does celibacy end and sex start? When you hold hands? Or is it more akin to Bill Clinton’s definition of sexual relations? And then there are the secondary – i.e. 2nd class – virgins. Do they have to stand in the corner? Are they infectious?

The Silver Ring Thing began in 1996, but it gained Federal funding in 2003 under one of George Bush’s faith-based initiatives. As a Brit, it’s gobsmacking that this sort of stuff could be taken seriously enough to be funded by a government. It’s understandable that a country might have small religious cults that think like this, but not mainstream society. OK, you have Catholic countries which are in theory like this, but they don’t seem to take it seriously. They just go to the confessional and everything is all right again.

Astrologically, I’d see it as Mars (sex drive) square to Neptune (loss and confusion) in the US chart. Mars in Gemini also suggests hypocrisy (like Eliot Spitzer, with his unaspected Sun in Gemini), as well as there being another side to the issue, which is the glamorization of sex that you get in advertising, the film industry and the media generally.

It is interesting that the Silver Ring Thing got Federal funding in 2003, at a time when Pluto was starting to oppose the US natal Mars at 21 Gemini, and squaring natal Neptune at 22 Virgo. It was an attempt at sexual (Mars) repression (Pluto).

So is there an answer? What would you say to a client who turned up with this aspect, who was by turns priggish and licentious? And liked to play cowboys (Mars-Neptune again) at weekends? I’m not sure what I’d say. But I might start with the Sun square Saturn that you get in the US chart, because this is the major character challenge. It makes for someone – or a country – who is very driven and achievement-oriented, but who over-identifies with this and can never get enough and is not at ease with himself, does not feel a solid confident foundation within himself.

A lot of stuff can come out in the sexual arena when we are imbalanced elsewhere. Sexual excess and compulsiveness can be a compensation for the lack of ease and pleasure in the rest of your life, which Sun square Saturn can easily lead to. Sexual repression can be an expression of guilt about bodily pleasure (and the US has no personal planets in earth) and self-loathing: the over-achievement of Sun square Saturn can be a sort of compensation for this self-loathing.

So this is what I might say: as long as you keep driving yourself like this, as long as you have to keep proving you are number one (negative Saturn is very hierarchical), sex is going to remain a tangled and compulsive issue for you. If you can stop and face yourself, and stop running from the imaginary abyss beneath your feet, then your Mars will have a chance to be a bit more normal. Or as normal as Mars in Gemini square Neptune can ever be! If you want normal, try Mars in Capricorn, which is an expert at the missionary position and doing its bedroom duty. Mars in Gemini is more interesting and experimental and – square Neptune – imaginative.

But what about George Bush Himself, who was ultimately responsible for funding the Silver Ring Thing under his ‘faith-based initiatives’ scheme? I never think of GWB as having a sexual dimension, and I sometimes wonder where it is. I can say for sure that he has had sex at least twice in his life, because he has 2 daughters. Do George and Laura pray together for forgiveness afterwards? Do women have orgasms in his world?

What I feel with GWB is that he views sex as something to be controlled, and has channelled much of his own urge into the pursuit of power. This is complete speculation on my part. His ancestor Richard Bush was a member of the Plymouth Colony 300 years ago, and GWB seems to me to be a throwback to those times.

He has unaspected Mars in Virgo. So it may be quite easy for him to shovel his sex drive off to one side, for it is not well integrated with the rest of his personality. Virgo can have integrity, but can also be moralising, prudish and hypocritical. Virgo is the virgin, but is also associated with ‘oriental moon ecstasies’ (Frances Yates, Astrea, p32). Where does George Bush get his ecstasy? Probably in that more war-like manifestation of his Mars, whether it was blowing-up frogs as a kid, sending record numbers to the execution chamber while Governor of Texas, or creating carnage in his war against Islam.

NB Since publication it has been pointed out that Bush's daughters are twins, so we can only be sure that him and Laura have had sex once. Also, he had a reputation when he was in the Texan National Gurad for his taste in coke and hookers. There's the other side of prudish Mars in Virgo. Classic!

Pluto and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

From the New York Times:

“The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law…

Determining the legal boundaries for interrogating terrorism suspects has been a struggle for the Bush administration.”

This is Pluto in Capricorn: setting the boundaries (Capricorn) around torture (Pluto). I think it’s also a measure of how hideous the present US administration is, that you end up with this sort of debate. It’s like something from a horror spoof.

But it’s no surprise given that the 2005 Presidential Inauguration chart has a Mars-Pluto in Sag conjunction in the 8th House: secret (8th House) torture (Pluto) in a war of ideologies (Mars in Sagittarius). The 8th House suggests that while practices like waterboarding are being publicly debated, the CIA under Bush may well be getting up to much worse stuff that the legal system never gets to hear about.

But at the same time, does the US do anything that other countries do not do? At least it is more out in the open and subject to public scrutiny, which I think is a good thing. Of course, it also means that some practices become formally legitimised and therefore more widespread. It’ll be the local police force wanting to use waterboarding next.

It was the Gestapo, incidentally, who came up with the term 'Refined Interrogation Techniques' as a euphemism for torture. The Bush administration also has 'Special Methods of Questioning', 'Extraordinary Rendition' (for kidnapping), 'Sleep Management' and 'Stress Position'. The themes of political misuse of language and government control are central to George Orwell's 1984, a book whose time may have come under Pluto in Capricorn. I'm not suggesting that society will end up fully like Orwell suggests it could, rather that these themes are likely to be strongly present and strongly debated.

My Planetary Pile-Up

There’s a pile-up of planets hitting my chart right now. I’ve been walking around feeling like I’m going to explode, and I even managed to get ill and spend the day in bed, which is highly unusual.

Jupiter is stationing on my Sun-Moon midpoint; Saturn is stationing on my Pluto; I have a Chiron Return; Uranus is squaring my Moon-Saturn; Neptune and the Node are conjoining my Sun; and Pluto is trining Pluto.

The big one in all this is Neptune conjunct Sun, and the rest are cheerleaders (well, not quite). What it feels like is that a defensive shell is dissolving, one that was necessary as a young adult to protect myself against the strange values I grew up around, but which is now in the way, which makes me rigid and defensive and cut off from my wellsprings. So here’s to some skin-shedding!

True to a Neptune transit, I’ve just bought some peyote plants and seeds. This is a long-term project, as peyote is very slow-growing. Apparently the authorities in the US are doing their best to get rid of peyote in the wild (along with some help from tourists), and so control the use of it by Native Americans. So there is a project to cultivate it domestically, and a seed bank to which you can send your seeds and get others in return: in this way genetic diversity is maintained.

The best time for planting seeds, as you might expect, is while the Moon is waxing, while it is still in a phase of new growth; and the best time for harvesting is when the Moon is waning, while it is in a phase of ripeness. So I am waiting to plant my peyote until the 5th of May, when there will be a New Moon in the perfect sign of Taurus.

Another Neptunian event: I've just treated myself to the complete works of Bach, and a decent CD player instead of a salvaged one. I'm just trying it out as I write, Mozart Violin Concertos at high volume with some decent bass at last, wonderful.

Jupiter is about growth. While he is stationing his influence is more powerful than usual. So if you have anything near 22 Capricorn, the next few weeks are a time for putting forth new shoots, trying out things you’ve always wanted to do, or always known you’d be good at.

Scorpio: the next 2 years

For the other signs in this series, go to Topics on the right of the page, and find 'Sun Signs 2008-10'.

Using solar astrology for the sign Scorpio, we have Pluto currently entering your 3rd House, while Neptune and Uranus continue their final 2 years in your 4th and 5th Houses respectively. The Angular Houses are the most significant, so the outer planet that is most affecting you continues to be Neptune, though Pluto changing signs will alter the emphasis of that.

As a deep-feeling, instinctive Scorpio you feel at home in the watery 4th House of home, origins and family. But you also cling to old ways – to old family relationships and to old, outdated notions of who you are. And you can cling like your life depends on it. But as a Scorpio, you know that life involves periodically dying and being re-born; this is how you understand the process of growth.

The forces for change may have been quite savage back in 1998, when Neptune crossed your solar IC. (You may, for example, have placed inappropriate trust in a family member, and come severely unstuck). But since then Neptune’s presence has been more like a gentle insistence, a quiet but steady dissolution of the old. If you are reading this, it’s probable that you are quite a different sort of person to your parents and siblings. Neptune’s transit through the 4th has pushed you to acknowledge this, to stop pretending to yourself that you are part of the same tribe: you really are out there on your own. But there is a deep liberation and empowerment to this realisation, you know who you uniquely are much more than you ever did. Neptune’s function has been to help you drop some illusions, and the sign of Aquarius has helped you feel comfortable as an individual outside of conventional groupings.

Pluto’s entry into the 3rd is exposing you dark Scorpios to the light of reason. It is not enough to know instinctively what is going on underneath how people present themselves. You need to be able to put what you see into words, so that you can understand better what it is that you sense, and so that others can benefit from your insights.

As a Scorpio you have probably had to learn to trust your intuition and your feelings, for they are not a recognised means of knowledge and value-judgement in our society. But you also need to learn when not to trust what you feel: if you are in a bad mood and a bit paranoid, what you feel is not a very accurate gauge of reality. This is what Pluto in the 3rd is about for you. For all its powerful connection to the instincts, Scorpio can be quite a primitive sign that finds it hard to be self-aware, to stand back from how it feels and consider the facts and the broader picture.

Neptune in the 4th has been very much a feeling place for you, and while much transformation has been occurring on that very personal level, it is time to stand back and put it into words and to develop objectivity. Pluto is giving you the power to do this, he wants to drag you out of the primordial swamp. Now is the time for developing the fine art of consulting your feelings while bringing objective facts to bear. This will bring a new roundedness and fineness of perception to what you see. Resistance is futile! If you continue to operate one-sidedly from your gut responses, Pluto will ensure that you get it gloriously wrong.

Uranus gets us to think outside the box, he upsets the comfortable ruts that Scorpios, as a fixed sign, are prone to. Neptune has been dissolving your attachment to old, conventional, family-bound ways of being; Uranus in your 5th is enabling you to walk out and express your liberated self in its unique, individual way. This may appear eccentric and strange to many people, but to you and those who understand you, it appears perfectly normal.


Prometheus steals fire

So the overall theme here is the emergence of a free individual as you cut the ties to the past, bring more reason and objectivity to your experience and then find the unique expression of this new more individuated person you are becoming.

At the same time, Saturn will be spending the next 2 years in your 11th House. Saturn is where we can give concrete expression to the transformational undercurrents of the outer planets. So in a way what is happening is that you have been breaking free of group consciousness, but it also time to return there in a different way. Instead of being identified with one particular tribe, narrowly and unconsciously, you are now in a position to feel your connection to the greater whole. You can come and go as you wish with no sense of guilt, and you have ideas and insights to put into action that are for the benefit of humanity generally.

Sky Transits

Visual astrology is based on events you can actually see in the sky, like Mars passing between the horns of the bull in the constellation Taurus, or one planet making a 90 degree angle to another, or Venus having the whole sky to itself, or Pluto standing still. Astrology began with these sky events, which for me have a sort of primordial power, and then gradually became more abstract.

It is possible to bring a considerable amount of visual astrology into the birth chart through using the actual constellations (as opposed to the imaginary zodiac that we have) and particular stars (for a Fixed Star report go here).

And there are also features of the traditional birth chart we can focus on: aspects between planets, unaspected planets and stationing planets are all events in the sky that can be seen.

But what about transits and progressions, which show us how the natal chart is being activated during the course of our lives? Transits have a considerable degree of abstraction, in that they involve a real planet making an aspect to a point in the sky where a planet used to be many years ago. And Progressions are entirely abstract. This doesn’t invalidate either of them, in fact they work very well. They can make you gasp at the synchronicity of it all, like the Pope’s Progressed Sun conjoining the US Sun on his recent, and first, visit to the US.

But there is still a certain level of power that can only be there when the actual sky is involved. With this in mind, I thought it would be worth experimenting with transits as repetitions of sky events in the birth chart. For instance, the Iraq War began with Pluto stationing on the Midheaven (yes, really!)

When Pluto stationed last September, it became clear that there had been a remarkable fall in the levels of violence in Iraq, and General Petraeus announced that the ‘surge’ was working. Things remained quiet until the next time Pluto stationed in March 2008, when there was an outbreak of fighting that spread to a number of cities. Only a few days ago, with Pluto still just about stationing, Moqtada Al Sadr gave the Iraqi government and the Americans an ultimatum to leave his militia alone or he’ll start a full-scale war. He means it, and he has the capacity to do so.

So it would seem that the Iraq War is indeed sensitive to stationing Pluto.

George Bush was born with stationing Neptune – as well as 12th House Sun in a wide square to Neptune. When he was elected President in 2000, Neptune was within 9 minutes of its stationing point. In 2004, he was again elected under a stationing Neptune. Neptune had just finished stationing when he was elected Governor of Texas in 1994, and was stationing in 1998 when he was re-elected.

So it is possible that if you have a stationing planet in your natal chart, it will not only be strongly influential, but will also act as a trigger for events in your life. The point here is that it has nothing to do with any aspects the stationing planet might make with your birth chart. It is pure sky event. It is that you look upwards over a period of days, and you see Jupiter, say, standing still relative to the stars, and you know that is saying something to you personally, for he chose to stand still at the moment of your birth.

We can also do this with pairs of planets that are in aspect in the birth chart. These 2 gods work together in your life. So whenever they are aspecting each other, they are speaking to you. These aspects can be observed, and again they are not transits, it is not about angles to the birth chart.

Take the case of Tony Blair and Saturn-Neptune. He was born in 1953 under a conjunction of these 2 planets in Libra, and can be seen as an reflection of his religious convictions and socialist ideals, both of which fuelled his career. Under the 1972 opposition, he went to Oxford University. Under the 1980 square he got married (to a Catholic) and began his political work in London. There was a conjunction in 1989, and the year before he had been promoted to the Shadow Cabinet. Under the square of 1999 he was busy enacting the early legislation of his time as Prime Minister. And then under the opposition of 2007 he stood down as Prime Minister. So the cycle of Saturn-Neptune hard aspects describes key moments in his political life, and can be seen as the gradual unfoldment – for better or for worse – of his early religious and political ideals.

Interestingly, he did not become an MP (in 1983) under Saturn-Neptune, but under a Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Libra, and this perhaps reflects the extent to which the pursuit of power was on his agenda. As an early friend said, Tony Blair wanted to be Prime Minister, and he didn’t mind too much which party he was affiliated with. And as soon as he stood down as PM, he resigned as an MP as well.

Though the Moon’s Nodes cannot literally be seen in the sky, they are not entirely abstract, as they represent the places where the Moon’s path crosses the Sun’s path, and this can be located in the sky. George Bush was born with Uranus conjunct North Node, and in his case the cycle seems to correspond to the various scrapes he has got into: during the 1976 conjunction, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol; during the 1991 conjunction he sold a load of shares (against advice) pretty obviously on the basis of insider knowledge; and during the conjunction of early 2007 he was looking into the political abyss due to the mess he’d made of Iraq. All have a common denominator of reckless behaviour (not helped by a natal unaspected Saturn). He always seems to get out of his scrapes, but with Uranus conjunct Node, you’d hope he’d have started learning something by now.

Using the same method, you could see what happens to George Bush every time Saturn is unaspected.

Speaking for myself, natally I have both Neptune and Jupiter stationing, and a Neptune-Node-Jupiter conjunction, so there are plenty of ‘sky transits’ to unpack here. The Neptune-Node conjunctions of 1974 and 1991 were both pivotal for me in determining my future direction (Node) but also involved a lot of confusion (Neptune). There is another conjunction in 6 days, but I think there is less confusion this time, and a clearer sense of expansive possibilities.

Anyway, I’ll be interested to see if these ‘sky transits’ work for other people.

So Who is it that is Brainwashed?

416 children have been taken by police from a Mormon sect in Texas, amid claims that under-aged girls are being forced into marriage.

The case is now in court, and ‘one expert on children in cults told the court that the girls may have believed that marrying much older men was their free choice because they had been raised in that belief. "Obedience is a very important part of their belief system," said Bruce Perry.

Although many of the adults and children at the YFZ ranch seemed emotionally healthy, the sect's belief system was "abusive", he added. "The culture is very authoritarian."

I can’t in principle see the difference between this and the way children are raised in the wider culture. Both involve brainwashing. Look at the pressure kids are under at school to perform from an increasingly young age. Their teenage years, a formative time when they often no longer know who they are, are devoted to cramming information into their heads in order to pass exams.

Their ability to do this is taken as a measure of their intelligence, and has a long-term effect on their lives. It determines whether or not they become ‘winners’ or ‘losers’: they are brainwashed into believing that when they grow up they must ‘succeed’ in certain very narrow ways, and adults who cannot play this game usually find it very hard not to have a low opinion of themselves.

So when the cult expert told the court that the girls didn’t in fact have free choice about marrying older men because they had been raised in that belief, he was opening a huge cultural can of worms, as well as a very tricky question. As usual, the wider culture is wanting to project its own problems onto a deviant minority, unaware that it suffers from exactly what it is (rightly) accusing the Mormons of.

The question is tricky, because what people consider to be their free choice as adults often involves elements of brainwashing from when they were kids; in fact this brainwashing easily comes to determine the whole course of their lives. At the same time, adults need to be free to act from their brainwashing if they so wish. Just let’s not be under any illusions that this is often all that ‘freedom’ is.

All societies have brainwashing, there is nothing unique about ours. Look at Christianity in medieval Europe, and the very rigid world-view that people had to adhere to. But when you are in it, it does not seem like brainwashing, it just seems to be how things actually are.

This is a good Pluto in Capricorn subject, because Capricorn deals with conformity, and Pluto with the power used to get that conformity. So while the next 16 years will probably produce a lot of pressure to think and act like our neighbours and like the government wants us to – and entering into uncertain times, these pressures always increase – they may also bring more awareness of this particular shadow (Pluto) that is raised by Capricorn.

Papal Bull

The Pope is currently visiting the US. He is giving his Church there a hard time over the paedophile priest scandal. He has also said the following: "We will absolutely exclude paedophiles from the sacred ministry…. What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" Ah, now I understand: the problem of paedophile priests has nothing to do with the Church and everything to do with American culture. And if it does have anything to do with the church, it is the American church and not the Vatican at which we must point the finger.

The Vatican is well known for providing a refuge from the law for its paedophile priests, when it hasn’t been able to quietly move them on to other parishes where they can carry on as before. The Roman Catholic Church considers itself to be above the law, and so does not have a problem with protecting and covering-up for these people.

At the same time, I don’t want to demonise the paedophile priests – demonising anyone is unhelpful, however bad they are, it’s a way of making ourselves feel good. And paedophiles are the modern witches in this respect. The problem that a lot of these priests have is arrested emotional and sexual development. They are shut away in seminaries at a formative age and encouraged to feel guilty about their sexual impulses. These celibate retards in skirts are then let loose on the community in a position of spiritual guidance, and the power that comes with that.

No wonder there is a mess. Pope Benedict cannot address the real issues because to do so would involve changing some of the church’s basic attitudes. He is known for having a phenomenal intellect and subtle mind, but he has spent his life putting those abilities in the service of the church’s stupidity. As such, I do not view him as an intelligent man.

Before he became Pope he spent 24 years as “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.” In common parlance, he was known as the previous Pope’s ‘Enforcer’. It was a hard cop-soft cop act, so that John Paul II could appear saintly while someone else did his dirty work for him. This is a fairly common strategy for people in positions of spiritual authority.

The role of Prefect of the Congregation is best known for matters relating to Doctrinal enforcement. And in Joseph Ratzinger’s case (as he then was, of German origin), he came down hard on some of the South American liberation theologians. Other issues also prompted condemnations or revocations of rights to teach.

Ratzinger also had authority over other matters including clerical sexual misconduct. In 2001 he issued his notorious “Crimen Sollicitationis”, which affirmed and clarified the Church’s right to keep secret its own investigations into clerical sexual misconduct. In other words, he legitimised the cover-up that was going on. Under normal circumstances, he could have been prosecuted for inciting people to withhold from the police information pertaining to serious crimes.

So for him to announce in the US that he is deeply ashamed of the paedophile priests, without acknowledging his own role in allowing, even encouraging it to continue is deeply hypocritical. But hey, we are dealing with the Catholic Church, so what do you expect? Just don’t get caught up in the popular fantasy that he is ‘spiritual’. Remember it is a ghoul that you see waving mildly to the crowds from the Popemobile.

Roman Catholicism is the largest single religious denomination in the US, accounting for 23% of the population. I can understand it as a sort of tribal affiliation, I think that’s OK. But to take its rigid and fantastical doctrines seriously is another matter, and I’ve no doubt that many Catholics have enough sense not to do so.

Ratzinger was born 16 April 1927 at 4.15am in Marktl, Germany. He has some very nice bits to his chart – Sun in Aries trine to Neptune; Jupiter Rising in Pisces. This gives him a strong connection to the mystical, the spiritual, to God. This is fundamental to his personality. On its own it’s pretty saintly. Stick in Saturn in Sagittarius in the 9th, and you have a religious leader, a Pope. (The Dalai Lama also has Saturn in the 9th House. The last Pope had Pluto in the 9th.)

But then you have Moon in Libra square to Pluto in Cancer. The Moon is less obvious than the Sun, and Pluto tends to be hidden. Here you have the murk, the appetite for power and control and the ruthlessness which Ratzinger may not be very aware of. It is his Shadow, and what he personally identifies with are probably the saintly bits.

With Pluto in Cancer in the 4th House, he is fiercely protective of his own tribe and its traditions. He also has a Mars-Node conjunction in the 4th, which adds to this quality. And it is a blind quality, for it led to the cover-up over the paedophile priests. It is a ‘My country, right or wrong’ sort of attitude. Under the saintly surface, what we see operating in this man is Pluto at its most primitive and pre-human. He has the Node there as well, so in theory this lifetime involves him coming to understand this aspect of himself. But he was 74 when he issued his Crimen Sollicitationis, so he seems to be in no hurry to learn.

By transit, Pluto is currently opposing his Mars-Node conjunction, so the issue is being activated. At present, he sees it as ‘out there’, as we can see in his criticism of the American Church. But as the transit progresses, the issue may come closer to home, he may find himself under fire as well. This is the way oppositions often work: they begin by being projected ‘out there’, and gradually we come to see (if we are open to it) that it involves us as well.

This Pope is destined to have a strong relationship with not just the US Catholics but with the US as a nation. The US Sibly chart has Sun at 13 Cancer square to Saturn at 15 Libra. Ratzinger has Moon at 14 Libra square to Pluto at 14 Cancer. This is a very powerful connection, and it has a lot to do with power (Pluto) as well as the US Presidency (Sun). So no wonder George Bush (with Sun at 14 Cancer square to Moon at 17 Libra), in an unprecedented move, greeted him. And it was perfectly timed: Ratzinger’s Progressed Sun is currently at 13 Cancer in an applying conjunction to the US Sun.

So we are going to need to watch this space over the coming years. Roman Catholicism is a huge political constituency in the US, and via that constituency the Pope looks likely to be having a huge influence on the US.

It is no doubt Tony Blair’s dearest wish that his friend George should convert to Catholicism, like he did himself last year. The Pope and George Bush are both fundamentalist Christian by nature. Maybe, with their mutual hostility to Islam, it is simply a case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend; but with the Pope’s Pluto-Moon square tightly conjunct to Bush’s Sun-Moon square, I think we are likely to see a very strong relationship developing between these 2 Plutonian men.

In 2006, the Pope made the following statement during a speech: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” I am sure he has a willing adherent in George W Bush.

Mars-Uranus opposite Moon-Saturn?

From Winnie the Pooh:

‘By the time it came to the edge of the forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river. And being grown-up it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly, for it knew now where it was going and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there someday.” But all the little streams higher up in the forest went this way and that - quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.’

I reckon Tigger is Sagittarius; Winnie the Pooh is Taurus; Eeyore is Capricorn; and Kanga is Cancer.

Any suggestions for Owl, Piglet, Roo and Rabbit?

The Collapse of Civilisation?

Don’t worry, I’m not about to predict the end of the world. Though if it were to happen, I’m sure us astrologers would be among the elect who were saved. Hoarding baked beans and dried BigMacs would probably also help.

But last week I was reading an article in New Scientist about the conditions under which civilisations come to an end. One problem is complexity, where you get lots of interconnected aspects to the civilisation, so that problems with just one aspect can quickly escalate into a full-scale crisis. Our civilisation is more tightly interconnected, not just nationally but globally, than any civilisation that has come before. There are a lot of strengths to this, but also weaknesses.

In the UK some years ago, fuel tanker drivers went on strike to protest about fuel prices. Within a few days the whole country was starting to grind to a halt. In 1918 there was a world-wide flu pandemic that killed millions of people. This could easily happen again, it’s the sort of thing that has always occurred from time to time. If we had another one, and say 30% of tanker drivers stayed at home to avoid being exposed to the flu, the article reckoned that also would quickly lead to major breakdowns. And that’s not to speak of all the other vital service workers who would stay at home. And the thing about these breakdowns is that they wouldn’t necessarily be easy to recover from, they might take years and years, if at all, because of the sheer complexity of what has fallen apart.

Another issue is innovation and resources. Some civilisations were very innovative. What happens is that a problem gets solved – you invent irrigation, say, to have enough water for your crops. But this then leads to further problems – over-population, say – and you innovate further. Eventually you end up with a very complex society and a strain on resources, and this is when you are most likely to suffer a collapse. This is exactly the point we are reaching now.

Apparently the civilisations that have lasted the longest were the least innovative, like the ancient Egyptians, because you avoid the problems of complexity and strain on resources. In the case of our civilisation, however, the level of innovation is completely unprecedented. So it may be that the old paradigms do not apply, that we have become so effective at finding solutions that we will be able to carry on inventing our way out of our problems. I suppose this is the $64,000 question.

You can see the process of problem-innovation-further problem with the looming world-wide food crisis. We have cars, they create too much greenhouse gas, so we need to find a different fuel. So farmers start growing lots of bio-fuels to begin to solve this problem. This means less food is being grown, so the price is going up and people all over the world are starting to find basic foods unaffordable. There have already been food riots in a number of countries.

Personally, it seems to me that growing bio-fuels is the wrong answer for all sorts of reasons, and we will sooner or later have to get used to using public transport much more instead of personalised vehicles. And I hope that Saturn in Virgo – well-considered and practical solutions to environmental problems – will get us on the right track over the next couple of years. Instead of the grand statements of intent we had under Saturn in Leo.

But the bigger question is Pluto in Capricorn. We need to re-structure (Capricorn) on all sorts of levels simply to survive (Pluto). Pluto in Capricorn is saying that we can’t just keep innovating to try and stay one step ahead of the game. That on its own will no longer work, even though it might have seemed so under expansive Pluto in Sagittarius. So there, in a way, is the astrological answer to the $64,000 question of our times.

It will be interesting watching this process on a global scale over the next few years. The big one so far has been the banking system, where there is a growing realisation that a return to fundamentals, a return to basic book-keeping, is needed. Food may be the next one, because there could easily be enough to feed everyone if we got Capricorn about it. And if the food shortages start to affect the poorer people in rich countries, you will inevitably get rioting there as well, and this will force the issue. Saturn in Virgo (a sign of agriculture) is beginning to station retrograde, as well as being trine to Pluto, so the next few weeks may see this issue grow in prominence.

Pluto is impersonal, he is a principle of natural law. He doesn’t ‘care’ about us. The choice as to what we do with those natural laws lies with us. We have collectively got to a point where deep re-structuring on all levels is needed, and Pluto entering Capricorn simply reflects this. To the extent that we re-structure, we will be able to survive, and in a much more sane and sustainable way than previously. To the extent that we do not re-structure, there will be widespread destruction and collapse. And I am sure we will see elements of both over the next 16 years.

Of Tibetans and Void Moons

In my Monday posting, I commented that the chart for the Tibetan protests has Sun conjunct Moon in Pisces (10 March 1959, 7am, Lhasa, Tibet), and that Pisces is not a very good place for starting things, as we have seen with the Iraq War, which has Sun at 29 Pisces.

What someone pointed out at our astrobabble group last night was that the Tibetan Uprising Chart also has a Void Moon. So it really was a lost cause from the word go, and there has never been any serious pressure on China to relax its hold on Tibet.

A Void Moon occurs when the Moon is not going to make any major in-sign applying aspects with any planets before it leaves the sign it is in. The Moon traditionally activates the other planets, transmits their energies to earth. So on a Void Moon nothing can happen.

In the Tibetan Chart the Moon is at 25 Pisces, and all the other planets are at less than 25 degrees, so that is clearly void.

The Titanic set sail on 10th April 1912 at 12pm from Southampton, UK. The Moon was at 29.36 Capricorn. This is a Void Moon. It is in an applying conjunction with Uranus, but Uranus is at 3 Aquarius, so it is out of sign and does not count. If they’d waited ½ an hour, the Moon would have changed sign and no longer been Void, and their journey would have stood a much better chance of completion.

Now for a qualifier: I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that a Void Moon is an unwise time to start things. In the ordinary way, if you are making plans, it certainly is an unwise time. But I think a Void Moon also works a bit like Pisces: there is a gap that we cannot fill with plans, but through which energies and events can pass if we get out of the way. It is a place of Magic rather than Will.

So the Void Moon can be seen as very potent in a particular way, while being impotent in the usual ways.

And I think this says a lot about Tibet, which has not just Sun conjunct Moon in Pisces, but a Void Moon as well. They certainly chose their moment to rise up against the Chinese! It has doomed them to failure in the ordinary sense, it just isn’t going to work.

But it is also a chart of modern Tibetan aspirations, and it is an extremely good chart for maintaining the magical traditions for which they are known. What I’d say to Tibetans inside Tibet is OK, you need to press to be treated better by the Chinese, but if you quietly keep practising your native Bon and Buddhist traditions, they will flourish, you will have an enormous power working through you that the Chinese can do nothing about, and they may hardly even notice it.

Sun conjunct Moon in Pisces in the 12th House plus a Void Moon: I can hardly think of a combination that is more potent for channelling magical power, for being collectively guided from a higher source. And it means that, however much the Chinese oppress them, the Tibetans will probably remain an inspiration to the rest of the world. As China’s economy expands, it is being forced to have stronger and more open relationships with the rest of the world, and it becomes less easy for China to operate in the old authoritarian ways. This means that, over time, the influence of Tibet as a ‘spiritual’ tradition, as the guardian of much that we in the West have lost, may increase.

I'm glad to see the Australian PM has spoken out on a visit to China about the human rights situation in Tibet. My blog is clearly having an effect. Most western leaders are too timid, too afraid for their economies, to do so. It's all about money. President Sarkozy of France did suggest a week or so ago that his country might boycott the Olympic Games, but then let it be known a few days later that he had been misquoted.

Today the Olympic torch passes through San Francisco, before heading on to Buenos Aires, and it looks like the Americans are going to lay on a good protest. With a Cardinal Sun-Mars-Jupiter t-square in the sky at present, it is a good time for such action.

Meanwhile a couple of jokes to cheer us up:

REVENGE IS SWEET


Being 1/2 Irish, I have the right to post this one:

IRISH PARAMEDICS


By the way, I wasn't serious about my blog affecting Australian foreign policy. Not everyone gets my way of putting things. Like someone who thought I was praising Obama when I put up a picture of the Messiah, and told me I was being prejudiced in his favour.

The Tibetan Protests

The Olympic torch was carried through London yesterday (6th April) and, as has happened in other countries, it was used as an opportunity by the Tibetans and their sympathisers to protest against Chinese rule. Today the protests have continued in Paris. It is a controversial tactic, but the Tibetans have been so victimised while the world looks on, doing nothing, that I can’t say I blame them.

What China has done in stealing Tibet for itself seems to me to be no different than what the USA did in 1848 in pinching 40% of Mexico; or what the British did, as another Empire, in conquering India. The trouble is that these days you can’t get away with it so easily, even if it is Manifest Destiny.

Since its annexation by the Chinese in 1950, the plight of Tibet has gained enormous sympathy in the West. This has been helped not just by western opposition to communist expansion, but also by the spiritual hunger of the west, which has projected its ideals onto cultures like the Native Americans and India and the Tibetans, who seem to embody something completely ‘other’.

Of course, you can only ultimately satisfy this hunger within yourself, but a bit of outside assistance, even from a very foreign culture, can help us along the way. At the end of the day, though, it comes down to being able to recognise what is real, and staying true to that. It is very simple, but it can take a long time to get there – and when you do, you realise that most people don’t live like this, especially, perhaps, ‘religious’ people.

Tibetan resistance to its occupation has also been characterised by peaceful protest, and this has been a very genuine reason why there has been so much western sympathy to its plight. The western perception of Tibetan spirituality is not just projection, there is also something very real in it. And the Dalai Lama, the leader in exile, has been a wonderful example to the world. He is far from your average hierarch, whether political or spiritual. He is very human, very down to earth, he has humility and humour and compassion and sense. So it’s no wonder us westerners feel so strongly about the Tibetan cause.

The Chinese occupation has been very bad, but not all bad, even though the Tibetans are now treated as second class citizens in their own country. Recently, for example, I read about a young Tibetan woman who had been married in the traditional way: against her will and at 12 hours notice, to a young man of the local shaman’s choosing. She was bitterly upset, because it closed down so many opportunities that modern life, through the Chinese occupation, had brought about. Over the next few years she was also married to some of the brothers of her husband, in the old tradition that ensured that farmland did not get subdivided between too many heirs as it passed down the generations

Below is the Dalai Lama’s chart, which I am putting up purely because it is delightful and unusual. Sun-Asc in Cancer in a watery Grand Trine with Saturn and Jupiter, making a kite through the Moon-Neptune conjunction in Virgo. There is a huge amount of watery harmony in this chart, the man is no emotional retard, he is the King of Cups. Saturn in the 9th is a religious leader. But then Moon opposite Saturn: he was required to be grown-up from a very young age. Even as a child he was revered, and the chart is saying this would not have been easy for him. There would have been a lot of expectations (Saturn) placed on him instead of the unconditional love that a child needs. Moon conjunct Neptune points to a capacity in himself for unconditional love, but it also suggests a certain loss (Neptune) of his childhood (Moon) due to the expectations (Saturn) placed on him. Being the King of Cups, however, he seems to have come out of it OK: Moon opposite Saturn even describes this Tarot card.

The other challenge is Mars in Libra square to both Sun and Pluto. The Dalai Lama has clearly found the middle way, the higher resolution of what you would normally find with these aspects: either a difficulty in asserting yourself and in knowing what you want, or an aggressive and violent temperament. He has used the dynamism in these aspects to find the highest expression of Mars: the capacity to steadily assert yourself and take action, but with an understanding that violent opposition will not achieve any end worth having. His non-violent stance isn’t just a religious principle or an emasculated aspiration. It is real, and the square aspects suggest it is something he has had to find and develop for himself.

Tibet has such a long history that it’s not really possible to establish a chart for it. But its modern aspirations could be said to have begun at the first uprising against the Chinese on 10 March 1959, somewhere between 6.30 and 7am. (Source: Nicholas Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes). The present protests began on the anniversary, 10th March.

What is immediately apparent about this chart is Sun conjunct Moon in Pisces and, like the Dalai Lama, Sun square to Mars. Pisces is at the opposite end of the Zodiac to Aries. Aries loves to take action and to oppose, even blindly. Pisces as the 12th sign is the old soul of the Zodiac, and perfectly describes the emphasis on non-violence that the Tibetans have had in their opposition (Sun square Mars) to Chinese rule. But it is also the sign of suffering and victimisation which the Tibetans have had to undergo. Pisces is not a good sign for beginnings, as we have seen with the Iraq War, which started with the Sun at 29 Pisces.

So this chart does not make me very hopeful that the Tibetans will ever be able to do very much about their situation. It is an excellent chart for them continuing to be an inspiration to the world for their (relatively) non-violent stance. There are now more Chinese living in Tibet than Tibetans, and it has become their homeland, you can’t just kick them out. The most the indigenous Tibetans can hope for is that they will one day not be treated so much as second class citizens. It’s hard to know if the current protests will help their situation, or whether it will just make their overlords clamp down even more. Meanwhile, I for one will continue to cheer them on.

Uranus is currently passing over the Tibetan Sun-Moon conjunction, and will be doing so for another couple of years. So the present phase of protests is likely to continue for a while yet. And as it's Uranus, you don’t know what’s likely to happen. It could be about more freedom for the Tibetans, or it could be about the other face of Uranus, a reactionary backlash by the Chinese.

New Moon in Aries

Today there is a New Moon in Aries. A New Moon is the beginning of a cycle, and Aries is both a fire sign and the first sign of the Zodiac. So a New Moon in Aries is an exceptionally good time for new beginnings.

Yesterday afternoon, as the New Moon was approaching, we lit a fire for an informal sweat lodge. An hour and a half later a friend who was tending the fire walked into the house and said, “I don’t know how to say this, but the sweat lodge is on fire!” We went out, and the lodge was an inferno. A spark had drifted through the open door unnoticed, smouldered through the blankets, and once it reached the outer canvas it roared into life. Strangely, the hose-pipe wouldn’t work (though later we found a ‘rational’ explanation for this. Phew!)

It was a strange event. My Native American friend, who was with us, had never seen anything like it in decades of sweat lodges. And everything had felt so idyllic and harmonious, up there in the Mendip Hills in the sunshine. We had begun the fire ceremonially, and I take the view that anything unusual that happens in ceremonial time means something significant.

The chart for the inferno had Sun conjunct Moon in Aries in the 8th House, in a t-square with Mars and Jupiter. A very powerful chart. As far as I’m concerned, if that fire didn’t mean something, then astrology doesn’t work! Transformative (8th House) fire (Aries) that will destroy the old and bring new beginnings (New Moon in Aries).

What it might mean specifically I don’t want to know or talk about, it’s like talking about the plot of a novel you haven’t yet written: you take away the energy and creative potential. But it certainly means something!