New Year Forecast and a Bit of a Political Wander

(The Divided Self: **You can find me on Facebook under Dharmar uci**)

On 30 Dec Mercury will go Direct, and the day before that Mars will move from an applying to a separating square to Saturn. For Northern Europe, Mercury retrograde is functioning quite spectacularly, with half the airports shut down at one of the busiest times of the year. But that will be over come the New Year, and life will be smoother.

Mars square Saturn is potentially inhibiting to action, but also potentially dynamic, particularly as Mars in Capricorn and Saturn in Libra are both exalted, meaning they can function at their best in those signs if we know how to use them.

So if we put the disruptive effects of Mercury Retrograde together with the inhibiting potential of Mars square Saturn, then for many the New Year should be a lot more smooth and free-flowing than things are right now.

The 2 big events of the New Year, however, occur on the 4th of January: a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Pisces, and a New Moon in Capricorn. They will set the tone for the rest of the month – or even the year, if we take January as a new start. The overall message of this could be “Pay attention to your dreams, particularly as they apply to the area of job and vocation.”

Jupiter has been conjoining Uranus since June, and this is the final conjunction, so there may be a sense of giving form to an impulse, a dream, that has been brewing since then. With Uranus involved, be prepared to be unconventional. With Jupiter involved, do not limit yourself as to what you think is possible.

This New Moon-Jupiter-Uranus combination will be particularly potent if you are either a Cardinal or Mutable sign. If you are Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn then the emphasis will be on initiative and action, and you will need to make sure you are being true to whatever dream, whatever deeper impulse, is guiding you. If you are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces, then the emphasis will be on dreams/imagination, and you will need to ensure you do something with it.

We have just witnessed a Total Lunar Eclipse a few hours off the Winter Solstice (when the Sun moves into Capricorn). So quite a pokey combination, though with the eclipse occurring at the end of 2 mutable signs (Gemini/Sag), perhaps not that pokey, especially as it is also a lunar rather than a solar eclipse. If you think about it, solar eclipses are much more impressive, much more of an interruption of the natural order of things.

If you look in your Ephemeris – what I call my bus timetable – you’ll see that Eclipses do not occur at the exact New Moon or Full Moon point. They are generally a few minutes off. Last week I was shown a chart for the recent eclipse, and Mars was one minute off the UK Sun. But that was set for the eclipse as Full Moon. The actual eclipse was a few minutes later, when Mars was EXACTLY conjunct the UK Sun at 10.10 Capricorn.

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The UK natal Sun is also within a degree of the IC (like a lot of countries, having been ‘born’ at midnight), making that point even more significant. And the Eclipse itself was particularly significant for the UK, as set for London it was within a degree of the Asc/Desc Axis.

I think one meaning for the UK for this Eclipse/Mars combination is rebellion against the government’s policies. We have already seen this in recent weeks with the student protests – sometimes violent – against the rises in tuition fees. The bigger picture here is the Uranus-Pluto square, with Uranus just beginning its run-in to its first close square to Pluto: Uranus-Pluto is classically rebellion against authority.

The UK government is carrying out a series of major spending cuts. It is a Tory thing – in coalition with the LibDems – and it is bound to bring back shades of the previous, nasty Tory government under Thatcher. I don’t think David Cameron is like that. There is none of the hard, sneering attitude towards the unemployed and the creation of the enemy within that you had under Thatcher. Cameron is also less Presidential than Thatcher or Blair. You have to be if you’re running a coalition. George Osborne, the Chancellor, unfortunately does have a bit of a sneer about him.

It is interesting that David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher have such similar astrology, in that they have the same Sun and Moon, in Libra and Leo respectively. Their Moons, conjunct Jupiter and Neptune respectively, both have the potential for inflation, for a sense of entitlement.

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Yet their instincts are very different, even opposite. Cameron represents a return to Cabinet government after the Presidential style begun by Thatcher and continued by her admirer and opponent Tony Blair (Thatcher was one of the first people to be invited to number 10 after Blair gained power.) Cameron tried hard to be fair in his round of spending cuts, and you didn’t feel he was trying to set up an enemy to rally people. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sometimes get it wrong, like the slightly bizarre policy over child benefits. But it wasn’t an oppositional move.

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Cameron and Thatcher are different types of Libran. Cameron, I think, is the classic Libran iron fist in the velvet glove, whereas Thatcher was an iron fist in an iron glove. Libra is oriented towards the Other, and that can be in an inclusive or an oppositional sense, and there is the difference between the two. We shall have to see how the Moons are different over time. The Moon is a more hidden part of the chart.

The big astrological difference between the two is the Rising sign. Cameron is on the Virgo/Libra cusp. Thatcher has Saturn Rising in Scorpio, which is potentially pretty nasty. It gave her the fight-to-the-death quality which was arguably necessary for the times, and the ability to transform (Scorpio) society (Saturn). It doesn’t of course have to manifest like this, but when it does, it is unlikely to be very compassionate.

One reader pointed out to me that Barack Obama’s Progressed Sun recently (end of August) entered Libra. The Sun describes your inner goals, who it is that you are becoming. It is a dynamic principle. The natal position describes the overall goal, and the Progressed position describes the territory you are passing through to get there.

Obama’s Prog Sun is at 0.19 Libra and the US MC is at 1.03 Libra. The MC is the US’s place in the world and its goals in the world. It is part of Obama’s path right now to be leading (Sun) America’s place in the world. This identification will intensify over the next 3 months as the US Prog Moon moves in to conjoin the US MC and the Obama Prog Sun. It’s all very tight and significant.

Obama was starting to look like a lame duck after the (inevitable) losses in the mid-term elections in November. The last few weeks have seen a remarkable comeback as he has achieved several legislative victories despite Congress swinging against him. This, I think, is the true test of Obama as President. It’s easy when you’ve got Congress behind you. If you can get your legislation through by working with the opposition, then you really can lead. And being able to work like this is Libran, just like Libran David Cameron in the UK is having to work like this.

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Although the Neptunian worship under which Obama was elected has fallen away, the fact remains that there is still a big destiny/karma thing going on: Obama’s South Node closely conjoins the US Moon, and the US North Node conjoins (5 degrees) Obama’s Sun. This is big. This man is ‘meant’ to be there. (There are other Astro indicators as well e.g. US Pluto conjunct Obama’s Saturn-Jupiter.) I think part of the reason he attracted the religious devotion was that people sensed this, but turned him into a Redeemer, which nobody ever can be.

Obama will be the President who leads the US through at least the 1st 2 crossings in 2012 of the Uranus-Pluto square, the big change into which we are all headed. My personal opinion, based purely on the astrology, has always been that he will win a second term and lead the US through the whole Uranus-Pluto transit, in particular the period in which it aspects the US Sun at 13 Cancer. This doesn’t mean I’m in favour of him or not in favour of him. Or that he will do a good job or a bad job. Or that he’ll be popular or unpopular. It’s just that his destiny and the US destiny are intricately intertwined for a while. Gandalf talks in this sort of way, doesn’t he?