The Japan Crisis

The crisis in Japan seems to go on and on. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless and without basic supplies, the dead are uncounted, and the nuclear crisis lurches from contained and controllable to uncontained and uncontrollable and back again almost by the hour. I thought I’d use a bit of astrology to see if I can predict when this phase will end. And I think the answer is not fully until 3rd April, the New Moon in Aries. But it will stop getting worse after the Full Moon on 20th March.

You can use New and Full Moons to time events. New Moons are new beginnings; Full Moons are when events reach fruition.

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The Japanese earthquake occurred on 11 March, and the New Moon before that (set for Tokyo) was on 5th March, with Neptune, Chiron and Mars all close to the Ascendant. So it was always going to potentially be a period where violence and destruction (Mars) and dissolution (Neptune) coming from the sea (Pisces) could occur. It seems clear from this chart that the recent events in Japan are tied in to the Moon cycle.

The situation could easily get worse before it gets better, because the Full Moon (of 19/20 March) does not occur for another 2 or 3 days. Which sounds about right with the nuclear situation. By now they’ve probably run out of new reactors which could go wrong, and we’ll have to see what happens with the present reactors – and particularly, it seems, with the rods that were being stored in water, and which are now dry and getting hotter all the time, and which no-one can get near because of the radiation being released. They are trying to chuck water at the rods from a distance, which may have a temporary cooling effect, but they need to be permanently immersed to sort the problem of radiation and meltdown.

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The Full Moon will be a very significant one. It occurs at 29 Pisces/Virgo, the degree of Uranus at the time of the earthquake. And square the nodal axis at 28 Sag/Gemini. But Uranus will still be conjunct the Sun (and opposite the Moon). So the situation will nevertheless remain unsettled and unpredictable. And Sun-Uranus is in the 2nd House of wealth and resources, while the Moon is in the 8th House, Pluto’s House. So basic supplies for the people are likely to remain a problem.

I think the most we can say is that while the situation will remain unpredictable after the Full Moon in 2 days time, it will probably stop getting worse. Events will have fully unfolded (Full Moon). Added to this, Uranus makes its final exact square to Ascendant on the Japanese chart on 21st March, just after the Full Moon, so that is another indicator of events starting to settle after that. But with Uranus still applying to that Ascendant, anything could happen over the next few days.

It will be at the next New Moon, on 3rd April, that Japan will be able to regain the initiative, to gain control of what is happening and to make a new start. This New Moon is in Aries, it is not conjunct Uranus, and it is opposite Saturn on the MC. So it is a very powerful chart for a new start (Aries) and for rebuilding (Saturn). When events occur under Pisces, as they have been doing, they can easily be out of your control (the US began the Iraq War with the Sun in Pisces, and look how that span out of control.) When events occur in Aries, the 1st sign of the zodiac, new beginnings are favoured.

This New Moon chart admittedly has a Mars-Uranus conjunction in Aries, square to Pluto. But it is not angular, reducing its power. However it could indicate e.g. some aftershocks from the earthquake.

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So there it is. With the original earthquake having occurred with Sun conjunct Uranus in Pisces in the 8th House (set for Tokyo), and with fixed Angles, protracted suffering was always a possibility. As you might expect, there seems to be a strong association between Japanese earthquakes and Uranus: the biggest earthquake before this one, near Kobe in 1996, had Sun conjunct Uranus. And the biggest one before that, in 1923, had Sun opposite Uranus.