Pictures of Earth

For a great slide show of earth from space, follow this link

GAIL Trimble, the University Challenge juggernaut, is to be burnt as a witch, it was confirmed last night.

The classics post-graduate student will be tied to a stake in the centre of Oxford this weekend after a baying mob of torch-wielding peasants denounced her as the 'whore-strumpet of Lucifer'.

Oxford professor Julian Cook said: "Her profoundly unfeminine trait of recalling large numbers of random facts is clear evidence of bewitchliness.

"And then there's all that raw, seething lust. Extremely distracting when one is trying to read Dan Brown in the original Greek."

Trimble has terrified millions of innocent people across the country with her ability to answer Jeremy Paxman before he has even finished asking the question.

And her fiery, witch-like temperament was revealed last week when she was overheard telling a frightened team mate, 'it's Thomas Aquinas, you unbearable shitwit'.

Emma Bradford, a terrified sales manager from Leeds, said: "How could any woman who is not the carnal chew-toy of Beelzebub know so many different things?

"Is she Satan's harlot? Or is she just a 26 year-old post-graduate with nothing better to do than sit around all day reading encyclopaedias and having tea and crumpets? Either way I think we should burn her."

Thomas Logan, bursar of Corpus Christi College, where Trimble has been swanning around for the last eight years, added: "I've heard tell that on a full moon she'll suck the brains right out of your nose and then recite the perdiodic table backwards in Aramaic while dancing naked in a circle with a murder of gigantic, two-headed crows.

"And she's also a bit smug."

Actually the above isn't true. It's from the Daily Mash. But Gail Trimble makes a wonderful change from Jade Goody, whose fame is based on being stupid. It was a fantastic final the other night. Corpus Christi looked like they were going to lose until the last 10 minutes, when Gail Trimble suddenly found her winning streak and they shot well ahead. I've watched her over a few rounds, and I've never seen anything like it.

ME

This year I have the following exact transits:

Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter all conjunct Sun and sextile Saturn

Pluto trine Pluto, sextile Jupiter

Uranus square Saturn

Saturn square Moon and square Saturn

North Node hard aspecting Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Neptune, North Node and Uranus.

And the following within 3½ degrees or less: Pluto conjunct Mars, sextile Node and Neptune; Saturn conjunct ASC; Uranus square Moon.

So it’s a big year for me astrologically, and I’m feeling like I’m inside a pressure cooker, as you might expect! Tomorrow’s New Moon at 6.35 Pisces is within a few minutes of squaring my MC-IC. There are various troublesome events coming to a head that are providing the pressure, and I don’t know the outcome, but it feels very transformative. Tomorrow’s New Moon is on the one hand a dynamic trigger, but being in Pisces it’s also telling me to keep my hands off and trust.

If anyone wants to comment either by email or in the comments section, please do so! My birth details are on my profile.

While on the one hand I’m feeling quite a lot of stress from it all, the work I do for people has gained in power and effectiveness. This isn’t just the readings, for I’ve also dragged my bear off the back-burner and done some pretty good work, not just for people but also for a horse. The way I work is very physical, it’s like I shapeshift and I get taken over and it can be a bit scary for people, but there is a raw power to it that really moves stuff along and puts missing bits back, even though I couldn’t necessarily say what.

I’ve also started doing astrology readings for horses and their owners. I didn’t plan it, it’s just started happening, but astrology and synastry seem to work just as well for horses as they do for people, though usually you don’t have a birth time.

I haven’t felt inclined to blog much over the last few weeks as the planets have drawn me into myself. I’ve been making a sweat lodge of my own design in the garden. Sweat lodges are a lot of work, and I wanted it very small, so that the fire, wood and stones would be less of a big deal. I also wanted it to be DIY, so I could put it up and take it down quickly, and store it when I wasn’t using it. And I wanted it to be a bit more comfortable than the usual frame, where you are always getting bits of wood sticking into your back.

In the end I made a hexagonal lodge using five metre-square pieces of plywood (plus door), which I have unconventionally painted the colours I use for the directions: yellow, black, red and white. I tie the plywood squares onto permanent posts, put a frame of sticks on the roof, then chuck blankets and a tarpaulin over that. The stone pit is off to one side next to the door, so there is more room: this is what they do in informal Native American ‘family’ lodges.

So far it’s looking like it’s going to work OK. We’re having our first lodge on Thursday, and I’m looking forward to getting fried. Or melted. The idea is that the heat ‘melts’ you out of your rational mind and into somewhere more heartfelt.

We also have a much bigger permanent lodge in the garden that we built – or had built – 4 years ago. It’s 11 ft wide internally and takes about 20 people, but it’s a lot of work to use. It’s an earthlodge, with turf growing on the outside and adobe walls on the inside. Its basic frame (which isn’t visible) is made of steel reinforcing rods, with chicken wire to hang the adobe on. Outside the frame, and below the turf, is a waterproof membrane, because otherwise the inside would be permanently damp and mouldy. Covering the turf is more chicken wire, to stop the neighbours’ cats clawing it all up when they sun themselves on the roof.

A Native American friend tells me that on the reservation they do whatever works. So they will, for example, put a load of paraffin on the fire to get it going. But they couldn’t do that over in Europe because people would regard that as inauthentic!

I’ve been reading Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights over the last few days. It has absorbed me in a way that I haven’t been for a long time. It’s sort of a kid’s book, but also not really. It’s based in a universe similar to ours where everyone has a daemon, or animal familiar. The children’s daemons (pronounced demon) are continually shapeshifting, but by the time you are adult the daemon assumes a permanent form. The central theme is a secret plot by an all-controlling church to permanently separate children from their daemons for their own good, and the foiling of that plot by a motley group including a gifted street urchin, a bunch of gypsies (or ‘gyptians’) and armoured bears.

They’ve made a film of it, The Golden Compass, which I started with and which is well worth seeing. The book is the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy. The film did well in the UK but bombed in the US, throwing into doubt the plan to film all 3 books.

I enjoy the classic novels by the usual crowd – George Eliot, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, the Brontes – as well as a lot of more modern novelists. But it seems to me that the best fantasy novels, and perhaps some sci-fi as well, are able to touch a mythological level that belongs to the earliest type of story-telling.

Starlings

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I saw this photo on the front of the local paper this evening. It's a picture of starlings in the shape of a hawk, preparing to roost, taken near Taunton, Somerset. Our area is well-known for its spectacular evening displays of starlings.

ONLY IN THE VATICAN...

“Men and women sin in different ways,” concludes Msgr Wojciech Giertych, theologian to the papal household, writing in the Vatican newspaper. The most common sin for women is pride, and for men it is lust.

The report is based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.

I don’t doubt there may be some psychological truth lurking in this observation, but it gets confused by the notion firstly that pride and lust are 'sins', and further that they are 'deadly', and therefore have dire consequences if you die without having confessed them. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

The idea of eternal damnation is an appalling one. How can a human being actually get their heads round this possibility? Torture that goes on and on FOR EVER.

With this sort of context, the confessions on which the study was based have to be taken as made under duress, and therefore unreliable.

Anyway, I can’t see anything wrong with lust or pride, taken in moderation. It’s normal and healthy to feel attracted to others (lust), and to enjoy feeling attractive (pride). If they become the basis of who you think you are, then that’s another matter. But it doesn’t damn you, and anyway you can’t force people to change, as the Catholic Church seems to try to do.

Catholicism isn’t the only religion that tries to terrorise people into behaving as it wants them to, though if we were to have a real war on terror, I think Catholic Doctrine would be a good place to start. Tibetan Buddhism also does this. You get these extraordinarily detailed and lengthy descriptions of the different types of hell, which are extremely difficult to escape from, in some of the Scriptures. And after you die, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you eventually become so terrified by the white light of reality that you flee into another body. For any of you out there who still idealise Tibetan Buddhism, remember it is an organised religion that can be just as heavy-handed as the Catholics.

So don’t die, it’s not good for you!


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Incidentally, the modern Vatican gained its independence on 7 June 1929 at 11am in Rome. With Venus in Taurus and Mars in Leo, you would have thought it would be women who stand accused of sensuality/lust, and the men who stand accused of pride. With an intercepted Sun-Moon in Gemini, and nothing to speak of in water, the Vatican is not short on ideas, but not too good at connecting them to actual human beings.

Pluto in Capricorn: religious extremism as political reality

In the economic world, Pluto’s move into Capricorn is proving to be a corrective to Pluto in Sagittarius: the financial excesses of recent years have led to a dramatic contraction in the world economy, and a re-think about how the money-men should conduct themselves.

In the religious world, however, particularly that of conservative Islam, Pluto’s move into Capricorn does not seem to be providing a corrective to the excesses of recent years. Rather, fundamentalist Islam seems in some places to be slowly establishing itself as a political norm, which is also a meaning of Pluto in Capricorn.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been making big gains, which is why the US is sending more troops. The war in Afghanistan was announced by President Bush on 7 Oct 2001 at 5pm. Like the chart for the invasion of Iraq, the Saturn-Pluto opposition is lined up along the MC-IC, just as it was lined up along the US Asc-Desc on 9/11, linking all 3 events together. A 'personal' event (ASC) unfolded into 2 very public ones on the world stage (MC).

The Afghan invasion chart has a close Sun-Mars-Jupiter Cardinal t-square, and I think it is plausible to say that the war will be decided one way or another around 2016/17 when Pluto transits this t-square. I think Mars can be a good starting point when looking at the charts for wars.


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In Pakistan, parts of its borders with Afghanistan have been effectively ruled by the Taliban and Al Qaeda for some time now. This is why from time to time we read about American missile strikes on these areas. An unintended consequence of these strikes, according to some analysts, has been to drive the Taliban base camps further into Pakistan.

A new development on Monday was the Pakistan government ceding control to the Taliban of the Swat Valley, which is only 100 miles from Karachi. This seems to me to be of huge significance, because it is not just a semi-autonomous tribal area. Pakistan has a weak government, and a President with a history of corruption. It is under a lot of internal pressure from militant Islam.


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Pakistan is at the end of a Neptune opposition to its Sun, which describes the dissolution process it has been through over the last 18 months as Musharraf, its military ruler who was just about holding it all together, ceded power to a democratically elected but ineffectual government. The natal Sun is in a wide conjunction to Saturn-Pluto, all of which square Angular Jupiter in Scorpio. So there is a natural tendency in the country to head towards not just the military rule which has characterised most of its existence, but also rule by religious extremists (Jupiter in Scorpio), a destiny it has not yet fulfilled, but may well do so in coming years.

So what was seen as religious extremism under Pluto in Sag may become political reality under Pluto in Capricorn, not just in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan, but also in Iran through its development of nuclear weapons, a process the West now seems unable to stop. In going for the wrong target, which was Iraq, George Bush weakened his standing to such an extent that he was not able to go after the right target, which was Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

As for Iraq, it would seem to me that the long-term result will have been to replace oppression of Shias by Sunnis, with oppression of Sunnis by Shias. Iraq will become a natural ally of its neighbour Iran, which is also Shia, a branch of Islam which is in the minority in the Muslim world, but which will gain in standing due to Iran’s ascendancy and its alliance with Iraq.


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The US handed over power to a new Iraqi government at 9.26am on 28 June 2004. The Sun-Moon-angular Uranus Grand Trine suggests to me a natural instability and fragility which is unlikely to last much beyond the departure of US troops. Obama intends this departure to be soon, and the major transits of Pluto to the Sun and Neptune to the MC over the next couple of years reflect this major shift that seems likely to happen. Pluto will also be conjoining the Mars of the Iraq War chart around the same time, bringing the war to a close. There is no reason to suppose that militant Islam will not also make advances in Iraq as the US presence recedes.

Details are emerging of an even bigger fraud than Bernard Madoff’s record-breaking $50bn Ponzi scheme. Senior US military officials in Iraq made off (pun intended) with an even bigger sum that was scheduled for post-war reconstruction in Iraq. All good Pluto in Sagittarius stuff: Grand (Sag) theft (Pluto).

This latest Iraq fiasco also shows the difference between George Bush and Barack Obama. The latter, for all his rhetorical abilities, is a practical man. Bush has rhetorical abilities, but is not a practical man. Bush’s only earth planet is Mars in Virgo. Sometimes a lack of an element means you lack it, full stop. And sometimes there is a compensating stress on it, like the therapist who has no Water, or Einstein and his famous lack of Air.

In Bush’s case, it meant a lack. Having both Mars and Saturn unaspected probably didn’t help. But you can never tell from a chart until you’ve talked to the individual involved. It probably also has to do with creativity, whether the person wants to change, to become whole, or whether they want to take the easy way out, to remain a partial being, to follow the tracks laid down for them by others. This is not a crime, it’s quite normal, people like this are often quite unconscious that there are other options.

For Bush it meant he could stay comfortably in the ‘puer aeternus’ realm, the perpetual boy who does not want to sully his ‘vision’ with mundane, practical, earthly considerations. I am not saying this for political reasons. I am not saying I agree or disagree with the invasion of Iraq. I’m just saying the Bush administration could easily have made a much better job of it if they had been more practically minded and less ideologically driven.

Obama does not have an emphasis on earth, but what he does have is very nice: Mars in Virgo trine to Saturn in its natural sign of Capricorn. (Also Pluto in Virgo, but that is not a personal planet.) It is natural for him to be practical, to make sure his policies are successfully implemented. He is more likely to be concerned with what works – Pluto in Capricorn – than with ideals – Pluto in Sag. This has nothing to do with whether I agree with his policies. I am just saying he is more likely to successfully implement them, whatever they are. And we can see this already with his attention to detail and accountability in his economic bailout plan, which is such a long way from the shambolic, decadent approach to spending in post-war Iraq.

Lee Redmond loses her Fingernails

Lee Redmond, the woman with the world’s longest fingernails, has lost them in a car crash. She began growing them in 1979, so this has been their Saturn Return. It has certainly been a Saturnian task – all that time and patience and bother and attention to detail (Saturn in Virgo.) Saturn also rules fingernails (as well as bones, teeth and skin – our underlying, or overlaying structure.)

On the day of the crash, 11 Feb, Saturn was still pretty much exactly opposite Uranus, and being activated by the Moon in Virgo. So there was the sudden event that has upset Lee Redmond’s world. And the nature of that event was described by Mars-Jupiter in Aquarius: the violent destruction (Mars) of something big/excessive (Jupiter) and unconventional (Aquarius).


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Unfortunately I have not been able to find Lee Redmond’s birth time. But with this being the Saturn Return of her fingernails, and with Mars-Jupiter being conjunct the North Node, it sounds like it was time for those fingernails to go. The nails had become the foundation (Saturn) of her life, and it seems like something somewhere had decided there were other possibilities for her!

Saturn-Uranus Dramas

Saturn and Uranus completed their second opposition 6 days ago, and won’t cross again until September. I was about to say that the heightened pace of events, often unexpected and surprising, was going to ease off when Bang! – we hear that a Russian satellite and an American satellite collided at high speed, in the first instance of its kind. Admittedly, though, it took place on Tuesday, so maybe events will now slow down.

If anything is symbolic, this satellite collision has to be. The chart I use for Russia has Mars at 21.44 Virgo, tightly square the US Sibly Mars at 21.23 Gemini. Saturn-Uranus was closely aspecting these 2 Mars, showing that yes, the symbolism is real. It was the US that got hurt, however, as the Russian satellite was defunct. In recent times, Russia has been expanding its influence in its backyard, at American expense. This is likely to continue. Maybe this is what the collision symbolises. Or maybe there's going to be some other incident. The collision also occurred the day after a lunar eclipse, heightening its significance.

You could say it was the first clash between countries in space. Star Wars is the popular symbol for this. (It was also what Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative came to be called.) The film was released on 25 May 1977, under a Saturn-Uranus square. Is Darth Vader Saturn or Uranus?

Saturn is the bridge between the outer and inner planets, and being concerned with concrete events and achievements, he enables the outer planet energies to manifest. So we have had lots of Uranus in the last week or two, as well as incidents describing the heightened opposition between the 2 principles – old and new – that the 2 planets embody.

We have had the worst bush fires in Australian history and a surprising and hopeful turn of events in Zimbabwe as the opposition leader has become Prime Minister under Mugabe as President (for Yorkshire people reading this, his name is E Ba Gum backwards. Paul Merton cracked this one on TV, but I’d thought of it years before. I’d also thought of the term trisexual that Ali G used, but his meaning was better.)

In Zimbabwe's chart, Prog Sun is now 1½ degrees off opposing natal Uranus. I'm not sure what orbs to use with progressions - traditionally it is one degree - so this opposition, which reflects instability (Uranus) around the leader (Sun) seems to be getting quite wide. So maybe the end is in sight.


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Then we’ve had Iceland electing the world’s first openly gay leader, and Iran launching its first satellite, indicative of future missile capability. A few weeks back we had a plane ditching in the Hudson river, saving everyone on board, and the Pope rehabilitating a Holocaust denier bishop. There’s also been a nail-biting election in Israel at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tension.

In the UK we have had spectacular drama as some of the heads of the failed banks were hauled in front of a Commons Committee to account for themselves. They were all deeply sorry for what had happened, and took full responsibility, but would not accept any 'personal culpability'! Who are these people, WHAT are they? It turned out that another one, Sir James Crosby, had been appointed by Gordon Brown to be a financial regulator. It also turned out that Crosby, while head of a major bank, had fired a whistleblower who had warned them they were being reckless. Crosby has now had to resign as a financial regulator, and Gordon Brown has egg on his face. But it does to my mind again call Brown's judgement on financial matters into question.

Banks are Saturn, or ought to be, and Uranus tumbled them all. So this latest drama is another stage in the unfolding of the Saturn-Uranus opposition. This opposition won't be over till July next year, and will stay in orb until autumn 2011. So here is a prediction: the world banking system will not stabilise until then. It will stay very rocky for at least another 18 months, and will not fully emerge, sobered and re-capitalised, for another 2 and 1/2 years.

Overshadowing everything, in a way, has been Obama’s struggle to get his vast spending package through Congress. This has been a Titanic clash between Saturn (responsible Democrats) and Uranus (ideologically driven Republicans), or between Saturn in Virgo (prudent Republicans) and Uranus in Pisces (reforming Democrats who have compassion for the unemployed, but without proper boundaries to their spending). It depends on your politics how you see this, but it’s almost like the future of the world has hung on the outcome of this Congressional battle. Do we maybe slide into the deepest recession since the thirties, or even worse than that, or do we give ourselves a chance through a massive fiscal stimulus?

Anyway, it looks like Obama’s got it through, which to my mind has been his first real test as President. Anyone can say they want to shut down Guantanamo Bay or talk to the Iranians, but getting huge spending through Congress, relying on some Republican support, is something else. Obama’s Mars, his ability to get what he wants, is at 22.35 Virgo, caught in the pincers of Saturn and Uranus, between the claims of prudence and the need to reform. He has strongly emphasised the need for accountability in the spending, which is Saturn, but he is clearly also attempting to set the US on a new path, which is Uranus. Obama has just had a Jupiter Return, and Jupiter is about to oppose his Sun, so he is willing to take risks, and his strategy is hugely risky: not just politically, in maybe falling at the first hurdle with Congress, but it is also economically risky, in that it might not work very well, and may just saddle the US government with huge debts. But in a way he’s had no choice, and he seems to have got his way.

This man has real cojones, unlike the implants of the previous incumbent!

Visual Astrology Newsletter

The February Visual Astrology Newsletter is out, but only if you subscribe (it's free). It will soon appear here, but in the meantime here is Bernadette Brady's contribution.

In this issue:
When Planets Gather - a exploration of when planets gather before the rising sun.

Chesley Sullenberger: Miracle on the Hudson.

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Notes: Many readers have asked us about the second swearing in of Barack Obama (January 2009, Washington 7.35 pm and without a bible) and how this would change his stars.

The Helical rising and setting stars for Washington would not have changed but some fixed star parans to faster moving planets, like Mercury, would alter. However, according to the US constitution, Obama become the president at 12 noon on 20 January, 2009, so this new swearing-in chart or stars would not override those of 20 January.

Nevertheless, it does give a tantalizing concept of a presidency which has been given two fates. Traditionally in mythology one of these fates is for glory and immortality and the other is for a boring or quiet life where nothing is achieved. Two other president were also sworn in twice: Chester A. Arthur (1881- 85) and Calvin Coolidge (1923- 29). In those instances both men were vice-presidents and needed to be sworn in quickly on the death of the then president. So Obama's double swearing in is unique, and therefore according to mythology, he has a choice.

When Planets Gather
Bernadette Brady M.A.

Any gathering of planets is a significant astrological event. However, in visual astrology there are different types of gatherings and different ways of understanding them. One of the most noteworthy planetary gatherings are those that occur in the sign ahead of the sun, for these planets will rise in the predawn light like a string of jewels in the night sky which act as heralds for the rising sun. Hephaistio of Thebes, in the Apotelesmatics Book I, saw such planets as “spear bearers” for the sun [1] while Ptolemy thought that they formed part of what he called a doryphory of the sun [2].


Mercury Attic Red Figure ca 500 - 450 BC

Both authors considered that planets which rose before the sun greatly enhanced the sun in the natal chart as they acted as heralds and advisors for the king (sun). In Hellenistic astrology one of the markers of great success or fame in an individual’s life was if natal charts contained a cluster of planets rising before the sun. It is possible that this Hellenistic astrological technique is, in fact, a fragment of visual astrology, for the experience of seeing planets slowly drawing together, then finally meeting at a place in the sky such that they rise just before the dawn is still a wonder to behold.

Ptolemy delineated a doryphory in the natal chart by considering not only the nature of the planets but also the order in which they rose before the sun. We can take a similar approach with visual astrology and observe not only the planets themselves but also their sequence of events, which planet reached the other and whether they crossed above or below the other planet. For in visual astrology the planets are involved in a narrative, a storyline, and this storyline can potentially be reflected in the events in the world.

Later this month (February 2009) such a gathering will occur. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and the Moon will align in the stars of Capricorn and the zodiac sign of Aquarius, while the sun is in the stars of Pisces. This event will be a sign of empowerment in the natal chart for any children born at this time. However, it will also be a sky story seeking reflection in the everyday world.

Such groupings of planets which rise before the sun are not rare but it is interesting to look back on the last time that such a gathering occurred in the stars of Capricorn .

1962, the battle between Mars and Saturn and the Cuban Missile Crisis

In February 1962 all seven visible planets were in the sign of Aquarius (stars of Capricorn) but initially Saturn and Mars were the only two planets which rose before the Sun (see figure below).

Mars appeared to travel slowly towards Saturn during January 1962, finally joining with it in early February.

In visual astrology Mars is Nergal and in this position is close to the sun. However, if you were watching a succession of sunrises in late January and early February 1962 you would have seen Nergal (Mars) rising before the sun, gaining a little higher in its position in the sky each successive dawn before being lost in the daylight.

As Nergal was climbing in the sky the king (Saturn) then appeared ahead of the sun. You would have also noticed Saturn, (the king) beginning to rise before the dawn light and as he emerged before the sun, Mars moved to join him. Then on 4 February 1962, as these two characters met in the sky, the Moon god, Sin, joined them giving power to their union.

If we look at this horoscopically in the chart to the left, we see only a static picture. However, if we had looked at the sky over the course of a few weeks, we would have seen the moving narrative of a rising Mars racing ahead of the dawn light and then moving steadily to join with Saturn.

According to Nabu-ahhe-eriba, the Assyrian astronomy-astrologer priest of around 660 B.C.E. such a combination meant:

— Mars will reach Saturn.

If a planet and Mars confront each other
and stand there: attack of the enemy. [3]

1962 was a difficult year for the world. In the winter of 1961-62 snow had fallen in San Francisco and the then President, John F Kennedy, has completed his first year in office. By 18 January, 1962m nuclear testing had commenced in the Nevada desert, the nuclear arms race was moving towards its height and the Cold War was heating up. Feeling uneasy about the revolutionary Cuban government under Fidel Castro, Kennedy ordered that Eisenhower's plan to invade Cuba go ahead. This invasion is now known as the Bay of Pigs, where the invading force of US-trained Cuban anti-Castro troops were captured by the Cubans in just 48 hours. Within six months of this failed invasion the US spy planes photographed a Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile site under construction in Cuba. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba and the world held its breath as , in November 1962, it moved into what is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world hovered on the edge of nuclear war.

This, according to visual astrology, was the unfolding of the joining of the King to the warrior lord, Nergal amongst the stars of Capricorn. These stars are always associated with a powerful civilising god Ea, wanting to organize and educated his people – the establishment. This was not a stand-off between two small nations. This joining of two planets was symbolic of a stand-off between the the world's super powers, USA and the USSR.

2009, the Messenger saves the day

This February, with another alignment in this part of the sky, the players are different, enacting a different sky story. Figures 1, 2 and 3 below show the unfolding story between Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and the Moon. Mars, travelling rapidly, is seen to rise before the Sun but then, over the period of a week, is seen to rush towards the newly-emerging Jupiter, the Crown Prince. As Mars (Nergal) appears to urge the newly-emergent prince to take action, the messenger and scribe Mercury arrives. The scribe who is also the counsellor will whisper in the Crown Prince's ear, advising against the hostilities of Nergal. As all three parties confer, the Moon god Sin glides through, empowering them to take action. However, whilst the Moon moves through the conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Mercury, it moves across Jupiter and Mercury but over the top of Mars (for the northern hemisphere).

Figure1 - Dawn 12 February 2009 - Jupiter and Mars rise before the sun, while Mercury is well in front of them.

Figure 2 - Dawn 17 February 2009 - Jupiter and Mars are now higher in the sky at dawn, and they have come together while Mercury draws closer to them both.

Figure 3- Dawn 23 February 2009 - Jupiter and Mars are now meet by Mercury and the balsamic Moon.

This suggests that the warrior-like advice from Mars to Jupiter is over-ridden by the wisdom or message from Mercury. This is a very different sky narrative to the one of 1962. Then it was the dogs of war being given free reign with the king. Now these dogs of war, which seek to persuade the new Crown Prince, are not left to their own devices but rather are over-ruled by wisdom, by talking or by a revealing piece of news.

In this period of history the tension is no longer between the USA and USSR with Cuba acting as the stage. It is between the Middle East and the West with the stage being the tension between Israel and Palestine.

It would seem that this sky narrative is suggesting a possible escalation of this tension between Israel and the Palestinians but, and the but is most important, the aggression of Nergal is over-ruled. Cool heads do eventually prevail and the Crown Prince - whether this is the new Israeli Prime Minster (to be elected this week) or possibly even the new US President Obama - steps in and steers the parties onto a path that eventually leads to resolution. This planetary gathering does not show us an end to the tensions but it strongly suggests of the beginning of the end.

As always with these newsletters, as we observe the sky to learn more about visual astrology, it is a case of watch, wait and see - but I do believe that if the powers involved do actually decide to have a summit over the next few months, then there is a very real chance that some good will come of it.

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[1] Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatics Book I. Trans Robert Schmidt, Ed Robert Hand. Golden Hind Press, Berkeley Springs, 1994. pg. 35.
[2] Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Trans J.M. Ashmand, Foulsham, London. 1917 pg 114.
[3] Hunger, Herman. (1992). Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki University Press. pg. 29.

Lynda Hill on Monday's Lunar Eclipse

When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.
W. Clement Stone

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

If you love something, you set it free. With homing pigeons, that is absolutely the seminal step you take. One day, you watch them take off and disappear. Almost all of the time they come back. For a child, that is a pretty magical thing. It makes you a better person. Jim Jenner

February's full Moon is a lunar eclipse. Falling on February 9, it's influence is likely to be felt for several months to come. This is a very powerful eclipse in that Chiron, the Wounded Healer and the archetype of the stories we tell ourselves, is smack on the Sun on this lunar eclipse, which means that Chiron is exactly opposite the Moon. Neptune, just a few degrees on, is firmly in the mix, as well. The lunar and solar lights, representative of female and male energies, are tuning up for a healing and the messages we tell ourselves and others are the focal point of this eclipse, especially as the Sabian Symbol for the eclipse is Leo 22: A Carrier Pigeon Fulfilling its Mission.


The karmic condition of this eclipse is an interesting degree and maps the energy in the build-up as it's the degree that the Moon is on for a few hours immediately before exactitude. The Sabian Symbol is Leo 21: Intoxicated Chickens Dizzily Flap Their Wings Trying to Fly. This is a curious image and one that gives a warning not to let things get out of control, not to get into alcohol and drugs or get carried away at the expense of being able to move forward, get things done or finding a sense of inner (or outer) peace. The 'Chickens' in this Symbol have let a foreign element into their lives; they've taken on too much, trying to do too much, especially attempting those things outside of their abilities, talents or possibilities. However, there is something in this degree that deserves recognition - they are endeavoring to go beyond their boundaries, to reach for something above or beyond them. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, it's just that being 'intoxicated' can lessen one's real influence or abilities, however, reaching for what's just beyond one's grasp can be a great thing, leading to a realization that one is not so 'earth-bound' or limited. The trick is to find equilibrium in amongst the enthusiasm and drive to reach beyond. Intoxication can be great, especially when it comes from music or love or a feeling of transcendence. Sometimes we need this emotion; we long for a sense of escape or ecstasy. Other times it can lead us astray, somewhat like a chicken that's just lost it's head.

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A Wander Round the Economic Crisis

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”. That, at any rate, was what the economist JK Galbraith once said. His point being that economists are terrible at prediction. How many economists predicted the current downturn say 3 years ago? I don’t remember reading any such predictions, though obviously as the sub-prime crisis developed into the credit crunch and then into collapsing banks, more and more people could see a downturn coming.

I don’t think that many astrologers would have predicted the ferocity of the current downturn, but I think any half-way literate astrologer would have predicted some sort of recession or correction as Pluto entered Capricorn. That in itself doesn’t give us a privileged understanding. It just means there is a magic box that we know how to work.

I think where astrology can deepen our understanding is that it sometimes forces us to look again at what is happening. Why should there be a recession in 3 years time when the economy seems to be booming? Our magic box tells us it’s coming, so what factors are happening right now that people are not looking at? Whether it is people or world events, you get a very creative and interesting situation when the apparent story is one thing, and the astrology says another thing.

Anyway, one politician who is honest enough to say he doesn’t know what is going on economically is Gordon Brown. There’s no road map to economic recovery, he said. I don’t think any of us know where this thing is going. Collectively we have had this axe above our heads for some months now, as politicians make dire warnings about how bad things are going to get. People seem to be carrying on as before, there still seems to be plenty to eat and plenty of fuel for our cars etc, and there isn’t mass unemployment, even though it’s up a bit and some people are losing their homes.

But there’s still this big shadow over us. We know this thing is deepening, and we don’t know how far it’s going to go. There are parallels with the 1930s, in terms of both events and astrology. But there are now other factors as well which change the situation: not just increased globalisation, but the environmental issue and looming shortages of fuel and commodities.

Economists differ on how long this recession is going to last – some say one year, some say 2 years and so on. What astrology tells us is that it’s not like that: Uranus is about to start squaring Pluto, and that means we are not going back to the same old world in a year or two, with a few safeguards in place to keep the banks under control. It is not like the 1930s Uranus-Pluto square either, because that was the closing square of a cycle. The coming configuration is the opening square of the cycle that began in the 60s. So something very new, seeded in the 1960s, is going to be coming about. A lot of the ideas that seemed revolutionary then – the environmental movement, the reactions against modern materialism and American imperialism, equality for women and for black people – will be coming to fruition. The election of Obama as the first black President is an early sign of things to come under this square, as is his promise to develop non-fossil fuel energy sources.

So it won’t just be a matter of getting the economy back on keel. A load of other things will have to be factored in as well that can no longer be ignored.

Though we can’t know where it’s all headed, the chart for the Ingress of Pluto into Capricorn last year keeps me optimistic. It’s particularly the stellium of Venus, Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn trine to Saturn that I like. The Saturn/Capricorn emphasis speaks of hard work and limitations, but also achievement. Venus in Cap speaks of a proportionate attitude to money, and Jupiter the belief we can do it, the optimism that if we keep at it we will get there.


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So I think we’ll get there OK. It may take 10 years, who knows, and we may go through a deep recession, but this thing is going somewhere that will be ultimately OK and very solid.

For now, the politicians are just having to do their best to stop the slide into recession/depression, while at the same time acknowledging the limitations to their knowledge of where the crisis is headed. In both the US and the UK you have the more right-wing politicians saying the governments need to cut taxes and government spending and sit this thing out. And the more left-wing politicians – who happen to be in power and calling the shots in both countries – are both saying no, you need to pour in borrowed government money to stimulate the economy out of recession.

I don’t know who is right, and if there even is a ‘right’ answer. The Republican/Tory approach seems to me to be a bit heartless, as it is likely to lead to mass unemployment. The US took many years to leave behind the 1930s Depression, and it was government spending in World War II that ultimately sorted it.

So it seems to me that historically, Obama’s approach of increased spending is the one most likely to work. And within that his emphasis on e.g. infrastructure re-building is in tune with Pluto in Capricorn and its emphasis on solid foundations; and, as I said, his plans to create alternative energy sources is in tune with Uranus-Pluto.

Barack Obama is now reaching a critical point in his Presidency in his attempts to get his economic package through the Senate. He got it through the House of Representatives, but that was easy because he has a considerable majority. No Republicans voted for the package. In the Senate his majority is slimmer and he needs some Republican support. Whether he gets any will be a sign not just of how bloody-minded the Republicans are feeling, but more importantly it will be a sign of Obama’s stature as a President.

Lots of politicians can give good speeches, and anyone can have good ideas for the country. It’s getting your measures passed and then implemented that is the hard bit. You have to be able to get the other side – or at least some of them – to go along with you. This requires considerable leadership skills, because why should someone who doesn’t agree with you go along with you?

On election day in November, Saturn was exactly opposite Uranus, making the first of 5 crossings over a 2 year period. So this series of oppositions is going to be very significant for the early part of Obama’s Presidency. It is interesting that the second exact opposition, on 5th Feb, is occurring as Obama faces this crucial test of his leadership abilities. An opposition is about opposition, but out of that you can get a coming together.

This Saturn-Uranus aspect is happening very literally in US politics. It is the conservative wing (Saturn) versus the progressive wing (Uranus), it is Republicans versus Democrats. The opposition is now exact, and the Republicans are not playing ball at all. Not a single vote from them in the House. This scenario was always possible due to the exactness of the Opposition in the election chart. Whoever got elected was going to have to deal with an unusually partisan Congress. The next few days, therefore, may well give us a measure of the calibre of the US’s new President.

Meanwhile Europe is screaming ‘protectionism’ at America because of Obama’s proposal only to allow American steel to be used for rebuilding its infrastructure. It can be hard to get an intelligent discussion around this issue because ‘protectionism’ has become an automatic sin. Just as you weren’t supposed to even think about regulating the markets - and look where that got us – so too are we not supposed to even think about protectionist measures, by which I mean a country favouring its home-produced goods over those from foreign countries. It’s just another ideology that reached its peak in our recent age of ideology, Pluto in Sagittarius. We are now in ‘what works’ Capricorn. So these dogmas are now having to be re-examined to see if they are practical.

Capricorn is about boundaries, so a return to more protectionism would be a natural interpretation for Pluto’s new sign. Just as the dogma of deregulation was a myth, so too is the dogma of free trade a myth. There was always loads of regulation in the financial markets, there just wasn’t enough of it. Similarly there has always been loads of protectionism. Europe and the USA are always having spats over it. And I think there can be a lot of good things about protectionism, particularly if you are an emerging market. How can your industries develop if you are flooded with goods from countries that already know how to make what you are trying to make, and can therefore probably do it cheaper? This dogma has crippled many developing countries. The US itself was fiercely protectionist when it was starting to grow its own economy, and rightly so.

The only argument I can see for free trade is if you are worshipping that other dogma, ‘growth’, in which the world economy and individual economies always have to keep growing, and there is no such thing as contraction or readjustment, only ‘negative growth’! If an economy is producing enough wealth for everyone’s needs, then why do you need to keep growing it? And yes, if wealthy countries between them have low trade barriers, they will overall produce more wealth. But now is not the time for this. Now is the time to take measures to keep people working, and to emphasise basic, rather than luxury industries. I think it also about self-reliance, another Capricornian virtue. It’s undermining to a country’s confidence if it becomes too reliant on others producing its goods. And it also produces an alienation from the means of production and from the products themselves.

I’m not arguing for absolute protectionism, far from it. Trade between countries has its own important place. I just think a shift in that direction is necessary for now, just like the banks need a few more rules.

Saturn-Uranus Hots Up

Saturn will make its second of 5 exact oppositions to Uranus on 5th Feb. So we are likely to be seeing an intensification of revolutionary impulses, of breaks with the past. The 1st Opposition took place on election day in the US, and of course the first black President was elected.

Barack Obama socked it to the Wall Street bankers a couple of days ago for taking huge bonuses at a time when the banks are barely surviving, and when the government is having to bail them out. He called it “the height of irresponsibility.” This is a huge break with the recent past, which I found welcome.

Iceland has just appointed Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir to be Prime Minister. She is the first openly gay head of government anywhere in the world. This is classic Saturn-Uranus, and indeed Ms Sigurðardóttir was born under a Saturn-Uranus conjunction, on 4th October 1942. With Sun in political Libra and trine to both Saturn and Uranus, she doesn’t have to try to be a radical, and people find her easy to accept.

With Venus at 29 Virgo/0 Libra, she has undergone a powerful surge in popularity over the last year as the Icelandic government has tottered and as Pluto has squared her Venus. With Uranus coming up to oppose her Venus, she will have an interesting, and perhaps rocky ride ahead.

We have also seen strikes and protests in the last few days in the UK, in France, and even in Russia. Again, this is Uranus (protest) against the government (Saturn).

In the UK, it turns out that some peers have been accepting cash to get laws changed. Now there is serious talk of reforming (Uranus) the House of Lords (Saturn).