Neptune and Collective Mythologies

In a strange way, the world becomes what we collectively imagine it to be. You could say this is a definition of mythology. We have stories about ourselves, about the world and about the universe. Science, which provides the modern worldview, is no different. It has 2 big Creation Myths: the Big Bang (the Universe) and Evolution (Life). It also believes that its stories are not stories, unlike every other culture’s stories.

The assumptions behind the science story (at its worst) are that the universe is a material object ‘out there’ to be studied, that it is fully comprehensible by human reason alone and that it is inanimate and indifferent to us. Any other stories are the product of primitive minds. Huge, cold assumptions.

Jupiter is the planet of story-telling. But I think that Neptune, the planet of the Imagination, is the ocean out of which the stories are picked. Neptune is that place where consciousness and matter merge, where it becomes obvious that you cannot separate human consciousness and the universe that consciousness is always trying to understand and describe.

So our stories in a sense create the world, and it makes Neptune a very fundamental planet. We usually think of Neptune as fashion, as addiction, as creativity, as redemption, as a sense of connectedness. And all this is true. But underneath it all Neptune describes the sort of world in which all this takes place, the sort of world that the collective imagination has in fact created. It may be a beautiful, harmonious vision of the universe in which humanity and nature live in balance and flourish.

Or it may be a nightmare vision of master races and dominance of nature by divine edict. I think that in the West we probably have to go back to pre-Christian times to find a healthy collective mythology. We have forgotten what it is like.

Neptune was discovered in 1846, so its placement then tells us a lot about the world people imagined they lived in at the time. The Discovery chart (see below) has Neptune stationing conjunct Saturn in the 10th House at 26 Aquarius. So the Universe was becoming scientific (Aquarius), with man, rather than God, at the top of it. Aquarius supports humanity’s intellectual gifts, but is also prone to hubris. Prometheus was a very Aquarian figure. He brought all sorts of gifts to mankind, and Zeus told him not to bring Fire, but he did, and was punished for it. Prometheus had a disregard for Zeus as the embodiment of the laws of nature.

1846 was before Darwin’s book on the Origin of Species was published, but the idea of Evolution was already becoming known and gaining credibility in the academic world. So it was entering the collective imagination, and is well described by Neptune in Aquarius. Evolution is a scientific Creation Myth that puts Man at the pinnacle of Creation, continuing the sense of dominance over nature that was granted by the God of the Old Testament. Neptune’s close conjunction to Saturn in the 10th House reinforces this sense of dominance. Neptune stationing (standing still) is like him staring at us, saying you really need to look at this.

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In the last few years we have had the 1st Neptune Return, in the sense of Neptune reaching the place it was in when it was discovered. We have just had one full Neptune cycle of Science as our underlying collective mythology. So it is not surprising that the imbalances of that mythology are becoming clearer, that we are living in a time when we can no longer ignore the sense of dominance over nature that we have inherited from Christianity, and then had compounded by Science. We are collectively in the position of Prometheus with his liver being pecked out afresh every day.

A healthy mythology has stories about the consequences of humanity’s innate tendency to get above itself. Hubris and its consequences are fundamental to ancient Greek Mythology. You find it also in the Chippewa Cree stories in the figure of Wisahitsa, a figure of fun who is always getting tripped up by his own self-importance. But an understanding of hubris is not part of our modern mythology, which is full of pride at human achievement, at how clever we are.

The Big Bang is the other modern Creation Myth, and that began to gain acceptance in the 1960s, while Neptune was in Scorpio. That is the perfect sign for the Big Bang. Under Scorpio, or Pluto transits, seeds are planted that turn out to have tremendous power, and that is exactly what the Big Bang was. A singularity giving rise to the whole Universe. It is interesting that the Christian Era also began under Neptune in Scorpio, and that has the Creation Myth of God creating the world out of nothing.

The fact that Neptune was discovered under Aquarius suggests that the Myth we need to pay most attention to is the one behind the Big Bang and Evolution, which is the Myth of Science itself and its approach to knowledge, as well as its placement suggesting power and dominance. And it is first of all important to recognise that it is a Myth, in the sense of an underlying story that we have collectively created. This is hard to do, because it is so much presented to us as an undeniable reality. But any Myth worth its salt will have this quality of believability.

Years ago I read a short book called ‘The World is as You Dream It’ by John Perkins. It was based on his experiences with South American Indians, and the title is self-explanatory. Perkins was arguing for the need to re-dream western culture – that, if you like, a new mythology is needed. And I think the Neptune Return is also telling us this.

Neptune changes sign every 14 years or so, describing the ongoing shifts in the stories we tell ourselves about the world we are in. A mere change of sign doesn’t point to a fundamental change in mythology, you need to discover Neptune for that! For some of the significant changes, you probably also need to look at the Progressed Neptune chart, and the changes in direction of Prog Neptune, or the progressed new Moons, for example. In the early 1930s, Prog Neptune reached the position it was in when it was discovered, and there was also a Prog New Moon. And this was the time that Japan and Germany’s master race mythologies changed the world.

Neptune will change sign into Pisces on 3rd/4th April (depending on where you live). There is no reason to suppose it will re-dream the whole of western culture, but coming hard on the heels of the Neptune Return, and being in its own sign of Pisces, it may well be more notable than most.

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In the last 3 years we have seen both Pluto and Uranus change signs, and this has been quite dramatic. Within days of the 1st Pluto Ingress (entry into a sign) into Capricorn in January 2008, the Stock Market began to rock and the financial crisis got seriously underway. Pluto is a god of wealth, and so rules the economy. On Uranus’ last day in Pisces earlier this month, there was the biggest recorded earthquake in Japan followed by a tsunami. On his 1st day in Aries (his 2nd and final Ingress), there was an explosion at a Japanese nuclear plant affected by the earthquake.

The Ingresses are not always dramatic, but they remind you that these planets and their signs are real things, that the meaning of human affairs is to be found in the heavens.

The chart for Neptune’s Ingress into Pisces has six planets, including a New Moon, in Aries. This suggests to me that, while our basic mythology may not change, there will still be some big changes to the way we see the world. Neptune in Capricorn, which began in the mid-1980s, was an era in which money (Capricorn) became fashionable (Neptune). Neptune in Aquarius, which began in the late 1990s, began the Internet Age: Aquarius is computers and Neptune is the interconnectedness of the web. Neptune in Pisces. Who knows?

Events near the Ingress can be suggestive. A tsunami occurs in Japan, and the whole world feels involved. The major powers are acting in concert to help the people of Libya. Globalisation – the connectedness of Neptune – may move on a step from just business convenience, the globalisation of Neptune in Capricorn; and electronic friendships, the globalisation of Neptune in Aquarius. Humanity may begin to identify more with the world as a whole. There is a nuclear accident in Japan, no-one has died from it, but both Germany and China call a halt to their nuclear programmes. That halt may not last, but it shows how sensitive we have become collectively. Even China, which has an autocratic government that doesn’t have to pay too much attention to its people. If nuclear power takes a hit, and we all know that oil is ultimately limited, then that means we are starting to tell ourselves a different story about our relationship to the earth, that we are planning to move towards clean, renewable sources. Not only is that sensible for practical reasons, but it creates a new mythology in which we can no longer dominate in the way we have become used to. It means we can only take from the earth that which she can renew, which our ancestors – and anyone with half a brain – always knew. But it is not just knowledge, it re- creates a feeling relationship that has been forgotten. And when you have knowledge and feeling working as one, then you have a new imaginative relationship, you have a new mythology. So I think that Neptune in Pisces will bring this in to some extent, even in the USA (which is notable for not changing its nuclear policy and not wanting to curb its greenhouse gases.)

How Astrology Works

10 days ago I did an interview which was published at another blog, John Barleycorn Must Die. I was asked at one point how Astrology works, and my answer was that it works because the Universe has a mysterious way of becoming what we think it to be. The Scientific Universe is not ‘objective’; it is that people have thought of the Universe as a Scientific Reality, and it has become that. And the same with Astrology. That is why Astrology works. Matter and Consciousness are intimately connected.

But then you are left with the problem that sometimes what you think is Reality, is clearly not so. It is delusional. When do your thoughts shape reality, and when are you merely caught up in a fantasy?

I think the key idea here is the Imagination, the Mundus. According to William Blake, Imagination is Reality. The original idea of finding meaning in the heavens, of relating celestial and earthly events, would have been awe-inspiring. Astrology therefore has its roots in the Imagination, and to that extent is real. When that sense of wonder is lost, when your interpretation is not fresh and you are merely reciting standardised meanings, then you could say it has become a delusion, in the same way that formalised religion is often a delusion. And that doesn’t mean people won’t continue to pay you good money and think you’re a great astrologer!

And I would apply the same to Science. Think of the awe Copernicus must have felt when he discovered that God had created this elegant sun-centred solar system, and how divine Reason, that made this discovery, must have seemed.

You take the awe out of it, and put rats through mazes in a lab, and what you have instead is a coherent, but disenchanted, universe; it has a certain logic, but is also a case of the shadows passing Plato’s Cave, that the inhabitants mistake for Reality.

So Reality doesn't reside in a system of knowledge that can be argued about. It is instead something to be perceived when the Imagination is awake. And it has a force that carries people with it, because somewhere we know it to be true, it speaks to us. Astrology as a system can seem barking mad, it seems ridiculous from a certain perspective. So I'm not surprised when people try to dismiss it. But when you see heavenly and earthly events line up, it can touch something primordial and awe-inspiring; the chattering mind is swept aside because you know something real has happened.

If you want to make an argument for Astrology, then you need somehow to communicate that sense of awe if you want to get anywhere. 17 days ago, on the last day of Uranus' (sudden disruptive events) 7 year stay in Pisces, a tsunami (the ocean/Pisces) hit Japan. The next day, Uranus' 1st day in fiery Aries, a nuclear plant exploded in Japan as a result of the tsunami.

And it's the same with the Tarot. On the face of it, it seems ridiculous. But the symbols in it speak to us, and that makes the Tarot real. If the symbols speak to the reader, then what he/she says will be true. It's not something that can be proved; it has to be experienced.

It is interesting how what seems like common sense and what is actually real can be so at odds with one another. Scientific reality, with its string of practical successes, has come to seem like the standard by which all other forms of knowledge need to be judged. Astrology, from this point of view, seems like nonsense. And that is what the intelligent man-on-the-Clapham-Omnibus is likely to think. And yet, if your Imagination is awake, it likely to seem the other way round. It's probably always been like this, in one way or another. 700 years ago it was common sense that the God of the Old Testament existed and the Bible was true. People genuinely thought there was something wrong with you if you didn't think like this. In the West we are used to thinking in Absolute Truths.

Consensus reality is easy, because it is based on someone else telling you how things are, you have the security of everyone else thinking the same, and you don't have to work at it. And you are quite unconscious that this is what you are doing. And it is always the minority who question this reality, and who probably provided its imaginative basis in the first place, before it became literalised and prescriptive.

I once suggested to a Chippewa-Cree friend, who is a story teller, that surely his people are the same with their Creation Myths, they get absolutised. And he said no, they have a number of conflicting Creation Myths in their tradition, and that stops this happening. That is why I think there is something to be said for teaching Intelligent Design, as well as Evolution, in American schools. Not because I think Intelligent Design is true - I don't - but because it gives the children more than one story about how people came about. You have 2 opposing stories that have become fundamentalised here, but paradoxically you could create questioning and open-mindedness out of their conflict.

The Supermoon

A week ago there was a Supermoon, when the Full Moon is a lot closer to earth than usual. Thanks to Lynn for this link to 50 pictures of the Supermoon from around the world. Below are 2 of them.

Viña del Mar, Chile

Athens, Greece

Is Dharmaruci the Last Demigod?

A couple of friends in Chagford are running a blog called John Barleycorn Must Die. It accompanies the writing of a comic book of the same title, concerning "the end of the reign of the sky gods and the birth of humanity.

Since time immemorial, the sky gods, aided by earthly Fraternities, have impregnated mortal women, producing demigods who have influenced humanity in their favour. In the 17th century, Elizabeth Cromwell (Oliver Cromwell's mother) created a Sorority of mortal women to kill these demigods before they generate 'sky fall'.

A magician, John Barleycorn, is charged by a mysterious woman to expose the last demigod before he can bring about the enslavement of humanity..."

Last week the authors, Howard and Rex, flattered me into giving an interview and being photographed for the blog. No doubt John Barleycorn is already hunting me down. In the meantime, if you want to read the interview, go to Around the table with...Dharmaruci.

Wikipedia bans Astrology Friendly Editors

This was passed on to me by Palden Jenkins:
Wikipedia bans Astrology Friendly Editors
by Equinox Astrology on Tuesday, March 22, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/notes/equinox-astrology/wikipedia-bans-astrology-friendly-editors/10150119068308321

http://www.facebook.com/astrology

Edit War: Throughout this month what has been described as an "edit war" has been raging on Wikipedia over the Astrology page. This ultimate reference page describing astrology, has in the eyes of many who have studied astrology, been trashed by sceptical editors promoting their agenda for a number of years. The result has been a very wordy and inaccurate description of astrology. For example, the generally negatively biased description of astrology is supported by an experiment that never got published (Dean Time Twins) and another, Carlson (1985) in which a reappraisal by Professor Ertel (2009) has shown that the original conclusion was flawed and that the astrologer's performance was statistically significant.

20 Editors: I got involved two weeks ago when the debate was well underway. About 20 editors have been engaged in at times heated exchanges. There were about 10 hard-line sceptics, 3 helpful sceptics and 7 who were neutral or supportive of astrology. Almost all of the sceptical editors know very little about astrology.

The Ban Ruling: This evening a Wikipedia administrator banned six of the seven astrologically friendly editors from editing astrology pages! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN#Astrology_bannings The reason given is that they were SPA - single-purpose accounts. They had no record of editing outside their area of expertise. Apparently because I had edited areas outside astrology in the past, I have been allowed to remain as the single voice supporting astrology. However, I have been warned that as a 'professional astrologist (sic)', I have "a definite conflict of interest in this matter which may also prove ultimately incompatible with continued editing of the article". How can expertise in a complex field disqualify someone from defining their field of expertise?

The Debate: If you wish to see the debate, search for astrology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology in Wikipedia.

On the main page (which will remain frozen to editing for a month) go to the Discussion tab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Astrology.

Many important threads are closed down in blue boxes across the page - just click on show to see them.

Help: If you are interested in helping on this, please don't comment on the Wikipedia Talk page directly unless you have a track record of editing on Wikipedia outside astrology, you know your subject well and you have read and fully understand Wikipedia's rules. Ideally let me know first as it will not help astrology or Wikipedia if we have another edit war. Wikipedia may appear modern, original, progressive and democratic, but it is not - it has a huge and complex rule structure that is heavily weighted to support mainstream scientific viewpoint. So no matter what I or others say, the astrology page will continue to reflect this bias. If any of you have a good legal mind, it would be good to have support from someone who knows his or her way around these rules:

Verifiability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V
Neutral Point of View: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV
Identifying Reliable Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS
Fringe Theories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FRINGE
No Original Research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OR
What Wikipedia is not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Wikipedia_is_not
Consensus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CONSENSUS

The Case: The astrology oriented editors worked hard to present a very well argued case in a very civil manner. Several proposals to improve the page were put forward including that the sceptical tone should be reconsidered given recent developments within the field of astrology. As the merits of this case became more apparent, the sceptical argument increasingly fell back on the fact that it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, you have to follow the dictates of Wikipedia's rules which disadvantages astrology. You can't quote a study by a NASA scientist that shows a link between earthquakes and the sun/moon position as it doesn't mention astrology and to deduce that it supports astrology is called Original Research unless it is published.

Another editor claims that you cannot cite a test published in a journal that publishes ' fringe studies' like astrology. It's hard to imagine that the ban ruling is not a device to block reform, but we shall see if I too am banned for stating an inconvenient truth. Anyone involved in editing the page, sceptical or otherwise, is especially welcome to identify themselves here and to add their comment or to message me directly.

Tips: Wikipedia is the ultimate reference resource today and is used by policy makers and the Press for articles. If you want your book to be quoted on Wikipedia, don't self-publish - get an independent publisher or better still publish in a peer reviewed astrology (or related field) journal. Make sure you have a Wikipedia account and practice by editing any errors, bad links, poor spelling or grammar months before tackling anything remotely controversial. If you want to make contentious changes, always put your proposal on the Discussion page first and see the reaction. The more you edit, the better you get and you can have a chance to participate in helping and informing others.

~Robert Currey

The Charts for Neptune, Pluto and Chiron: Are they trying to tell us something?

First of all, a correction to my last piece. It seems that the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in Libya should be dated 1st Sept 1969, not 3rd Sept, as the worthy Book of World Horoscopes states. Fortunately, it makes little difference to my analysis, as it is only the Moon that shifts position, and it means that the May New Moon, rather than the April New Moon, is now the most significant one for the people (the Moon) of Libya.

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Technically, it means that instead of the MC of the April New Moon conjoining the Libyan natal Moon, we have the New Moon itself in May conjoining the Libyan natal Moon-Saturn. This is stronger, but it means the people will have to wait a bit longer to be in charge.

What I really wanted to do was to ramble a bit about the outer planets, so here goes. The outer planets have charts just like we do, for they were discovered at particular recorded moments. Of course, they existed before that (depending on your philosophical position – right now I’m in a mood to say they didn’t exist before that!) So the charts are as much about humanity’s relationship with these planets as they are about the planets themselves. And surely the Signs and Houses that Neptune and Pluto were in when they were discovered are of significance. It means that these planets have a particular meaning for us, as well as the more general meaning that Pluto has as Lord of the Underworld, and that Neptune, as god of the sea, also has.

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When Pluto was discovered in 1930, he was in Cancer and in the 12th House. We should also consider the Sun, because that is the body around which Pluto revolves. The Sun was in Aquarius, in Pluto’s House, the 8th. So we have messages here about the earth herself (Cancer), destruction (Pluto), this being hidden (8th/12th), as well as it being an issue for the collective in the widest sense (12th House). The Sun in Aquarius brings in Science and its darker side (8th House.)

The Plutonian Sun at 29 Aquarius is opposite Neptune in Virgo, as well as conjunct the Neptune of the Neptune chart, which is at 26 Aquarius. Neptune tells us what we find fascinating and glamorous and entrancing, and in these 2 cases it is in Aquarius as the scientific vision for the future, and in Virgo as the technology that follows in its wake.

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Neptune in the Neptune chart is conjunct Saturn and in the 10th house. It was discovered in 1846 as Science and the technology it resulted in was really getting into its stride. There is a huge amount of scientific ambition around Saturn in Aquarius in the 10th, and Neptune suggests both the imaginative engagement and the entrancement involved.
Pluto in the Neptune Chart is opposite the North Node, and Venus in technological Virgo disposits the Sun in Libra, which seeks balance.

So there are a number of important crossovers and repeated themes in these charts to do with the earth, its destruction, and entrancement with science and technology.

In addition, and this is quite remarkable, the 2 planets most associated with the natural world are the Moon and Ceres. The Moons of both charts conjoin (in Pluto's sign) and the Ceres of the 2 charts conjoin. If that isn't a pointer, I don't know what is! Pluto was discovered at the Lunar and Ceres Returns of the Neptune chart.

The basic 2 astrological signatures here, though, are Pluto in Cancer and Neptune in Aquarius, which can be seen as fascination with science followed by the destruction of nature (Neptune was discovered first.)

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If we take a composite of the 2 charts, we find Uranus (Science) in the ambitious 10th House in square to Cancer (the earth herself) on the Ascendant. Chiron conjoins the North Node, as it does in the chart of Pluto and in the chart for the first controlled nuclear reaction. This aspect warns of a damage that cannot be undone, an approach that is inherently out of balance. Chiron is also opposite scientifically ambitious Saturn in Aquarius. Ceres conjoins Pluto and the Moon (ruler of Cancer) is in Pluto’s sign, and inconjunct Uranus – again bringing together the themes of the earth, destruction and science.

In the last year or two, Neptune has for the first time reached the position in which it was discovered. And in about 5 years Pluto will for the first time reach a point of opposition to its natal position. So there is a reckoning happening; the environmental issue and its relation to our scientific genius is coming to a head.

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Chiron, an asteroid associated with both healing and wounding, was discovered on 1 Nov 1977, and was in the 4th House (Cancer's House) in Taurus (an earth-loving sign). As with Neptune, Pluto was Nodal, and also on the Midheaven, in the sign of Libra, of balance. Ceres and Sun-Uranus were in Pluto's sign, and the Moon was in its own sign of Cancer, square to Pluto and the Node. So again we have the themes of science, the earth and its destruction. Nodal Pluto on the MC square to the Cancerian Moon seems to me to point to an urgency in the situation.

At the same time, this chart seems to point to a resolution, a healing. Chiron is opposite an exalted Uranus (Science) in Scorpio, which with the Sun is in trine to the Moon and exalted Jupiter in Cancer. Sun-Uranus trine Moon-Jupiter suggests a basic harmony, a harmony between nature (the Moon) and Science (Uranus), but only after Science has undergone the dismemberment and transformation that Scorpio requires. Science tends to be heady, it can easily ignore the values of the natural world. Scorpio stands for the necessary re-balancing, but not in a 'nice' way. It is about getting real. Scorpio can be savage in its transformation and takes no prisoners. It suggests that there can indeed be a healing, a re-balancing, but only after we have thoroughly undone ourselves. So the Chiron chart is urgent yet optimistic, it says things can be sorted quite easily - but we have to enter the darkness first.

That said, I don't think that we have to view 'the darkness' as some extra horrid thing that we haven't encountered yet. We are already in it, if you look at the amount of natural destruction, and the consequences of that, that have happened already. And as I said earlier, we have just had the first Neptune Return and are about to have the first Pluto opposition. After that comes the first Chiron Return. So we are probably already in that Scorpionic crucible.

Will Gaddafi Be Toppled?

The Sun and Mars have been together in the sky since the beginning of the year, increasing the likelihood of protest (Mars) against leaders (Sun). For much of this time the conjunction took place in Aquarius, a sign associated with democracy. Put this together with the wider applying square from Uranus (revolution) to Pluto (power) and we have the uprisings against dictators that we have seen in the Middle East.

In late Feb, the Sun then Mars left Aquarius and entered Pisces. As I wrote on 22 Feb (when Gaddafi looked certain to be toppled imminently):

From 23rd Feb, however, the Sun and Mars will both be in Pisces. They will remain conjunct for another couple of weeks, so we can expect the protest (Mars) against leaders (Sun) to continue, but with a different flavour. It may be, for example, that the ideological basis (Aquarius) becomes less clear, and the remarkable restraint that the armies have shown will break down (Pisces can be a lot messier, even savage, and lacking in boundaries.) We have perhaps seen the start of this in the recent deaths of hundreds of protesters in both Bahrain and Libya.

What followed, of course, was the successful fightback by Gaddafi and, over the last day, the imposition by the western powers of a no-fly zone in Libya to stop attacks against civilians, as they put it. In reality, what we have is a civil war, and the West wants Gaddafi to lose for all sorts of reasons. As with Iraq, it’s no use toppling a dictator just because he’s a bad guy – which Gaddafi is – unless you can be fairly confident that’s what comes after will, in the long-term, be an improvement. With Iraq, it was a disaster in the short-term, it seems like an improvement just now, but in the long-term you have 3 tribes – the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds – all wanting power, but with the Shias in a clear majority and able to dominate the other two. Who knows where that will lead. With Libya, it seems unclear what the opposition is made up of, but hopefully (unlike with Iraq) the West has done its homework before backing the anti-Gaddafi forces.

There seem to be 2 main possibilities for charts for Libya under Gaddafi. Both are for 3 Sept 1969, when the coup took place. One is for 6.30am, when Gaddafi announced the new regime. The other is for 4.30am, the time that according to Gaddafi was when ‘we made our arrests and occupied the radio station and other strategic points.’

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(Skip the next paragraph if you don’t like your astrology too technical!)

The 4.30 chart seems to work better. The Sun (leader) in Virgo, ruling the Leo Ascendant, gives that odd mixture of autocrat (Leo) who claims to be serving the people (Virgo) and therefore does not have a title. The Asc is the way a country expresses itself, and Leo here suggests that Gaddafi IS the country. The government itself is the MC and has retrograde Saturn conjoining it, in square to the ruler of the MC, Venus: this suggests oppression. The leader himself is drawn in through the Sun being the dispositor (ruler of the sign) of Venus in Leo. With the MC ruler, Venus, also hidden away in the 12th, ‘outside of society’, you could draw the conclusion that the leader and the government are the same thing. The Sun is square to the Moon (the people) which suggests that the country is not in fact ruled by the people and that they feel oppressed by the leader.

The uprising in Libya began quietly on 14 Feb with Facebook calls for peaceful demonstration against Gaddafi, and this turned into actual demonstrations over the next few days.

The preceding New Moon, which often indicates the start of events, was on 3rd Feb. It has a Sun-Moon-Mars conjunction in democratic Aquarius, close to the Descendant of the Libya chart. Being Angular, it was very powerful for Libya. And being opposite the Leo Ascendant, it was also opposing its autocratic ruler. Such a powerful New Moon – which has Mars on its side – suggests to me that that the anti-Gaddafi forces will ultimately be successful.

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Not only is the New Moon Chart remarkable, so is the current Solar Return Chart for Libya (the Solar Return is the moment the Sun returns to its natal position, your true birthday, and it gives a chart for the next year):

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There is Uranus-Jupiter straddling the MC and opposite Saturn. Revolution (Uranus) versus the establishment (Saturn), intensified and given fire and self-belief by Jupiter in Aries. The MC at the very end of Pisces, the very end of the Zodiac cycle, could not be stronger in suggesting the end of a form of government (MC) for Libya.

So I have no doubt that Gaddafi will be gone during the course of this Solar Return. It is just a matter of when.

The New Moon on 3rd April is in Aries in the Libyan 9th House of the law. With the UN now backing the rebels, it suggests the beginnings of a legal legitimacy for the rebels within the country. Aries is new beginnings, as is a New Moon, so New Moon in Aries really does begin new things.

Remarkably (again!), the New Moon MC is exactly conjunct the Libyan Moon (the people), uniting the people and the government. Meanwhile Pluto, the planet of raw power, will be standing still, about to change direction, and trining the natal Saturn-MC. So this suggests an easy (trine) shift of power.

The following New Moon, on 3rd May, has a Sun-Moon conjunction at 12 Taurus, in the 10th House of government and conjunct the natal Saturn-MC.

So the timeline seems to be that during April the rebels will acquire increasing legitimacy, and during May will move on to form a new government.

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.

Is William Hague Losing His Mojo?

For those of you who read yesterday’s post on the Japanese Nuclear Explosion, it turned out that I had the wrong time for the explosion. So I have, to a small degree, re-written it. But the chart remains very significant. See http://astrotabletalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/japanese-nuclear-explosion.html

William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, is under attack for incompetence in his handling of the Libya crisis. I’d wondered that myself. There were delays in evacuating British nationals, and then the SAS were sent in to help the rebels – the only trouble was, the rebels did not know who they were and arrested them! People are also wondering if his heart is in the job – as it is being put, where is his Mojo?

William Hague is not quite fifty, yet he seems to have been around forever – since, as a 16 year-old, and shortly before Margaret Thatcher came to power, he wowed the Tory Conference with a prescient speech on rolling back the frontiers of the state. He was a Minister in the mid-nineties, and then leader of the Tory party from 1997 to 2001. While remaining an MP, his interests led him elsewhere for 4 years until 2005, when David Cameron was elected leader of the party and offered him the post of Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Politically, Hague hasn’t really anywhere to go, unless he wants to become a high-level time-server and survivor like Jack Straw. And he is an Aries. Aries needs new directions and new challenges. Also, while he has always proved a very effective debater and speaker, he doesn’t seem to have much of a track record as someone who gets things done. To me, Libya seems to be an example of this.

So is he losing his Mojo? Mojo is Mars, your drive to get what you want. It is also the Sun, the main masculine principle in the chart. The question isn’t so much whether Hague is losing it, but rather if it is going elsewhere.

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Hague has Sun at 5 degrees of Mars-ruled Aries, square to Mars itself at 11 Cancer. This is ambiguous. On the one hand, a Sun-Mars square, particularly with the Sun in Aries, can be very motivated and driven. On the other hand, a square can also suggest difficulties, while Mars can find it problematic to function in Cancer. Mars doesn’t feel very sure of itself in this sign, and men with this placement often seem to be always having to prove themselves by being extra manly! It’s difficult because Mars is having to be both sensitive and warrior-like, and they are often opposites.

So there is an ongoing thing with Hague about what motivates him. Especially with Moon also in Cancer. He wants to help others, and he wants to have the family that he so far hasn’t been able to have. It can be hard in politics to find much room for that sort of sensitivity, which he clearly exhibited in his ‘time off’ through becoming a writer and teaching himself the piano.

The quick answer is that yes, William Hague’s Mojo is headed elsewhere. Pluto is squaring his Mars-ruled Sun all year, and will then gradually move on to oppose his Mars. So a profound change in his motivation is occurring, an empowerment, which could in theory mean up the political ladder, but in practice that is not going to happen. So I think he is off. Maybe now, maybe not for a year or two. But he is off. I suspect sooner rather than later, because Neptune is finishing a conjunction to his Ascendant. And because you can’t dither when you’re in power, only when you’re in opposition.

When you get 2 major transits at the same time – Neptune-Asc and Pluto-Sun – people go through a change that is not just a new phase but often more like a completely new life. I think that is what is happening to Hague, though he may not know it yet.

Michael Portillo, who was also once the Rising Star of the Tory Party, underwent a similar change at a similar age. Just like Hague, it was Pluto hard-aspecting his Sun and Mars that did it. Portillo’s Sun and Mars are further apart – 12 degrees – than Hague, so it was a protracted process. Having stood for leader at one point, he is now not even a member of the Party.

Portillo has Sun at 5 Gemini and Mars at 17 Gemini. In 1997, with Pluto opposing his Sun, he lost his seat in Parliament. He returned to Parliament at a bye-election in 1999. But he was already changing from the driven right-winger he had been, having admitted to having had homosexual experiences, which his colleague Norman Tebbitt (‘the Rottweiler’) called ‘deviant’. He stood in the leadership election in 2001, but lost. It was felt that his heart was not fully in it. Then 2 years later in 2003, as Pluto opposed his Mars, he announced that he would be retiring from politics at the next election.

As I said, Hague’s Sun and Mars are closer together – a 6 degree square – so I do not expect to see the 6 year process that we saw with Portillo. Also, he is an Aries, not a Gemini, so he will want to get on with it rather than weigh it up over a long period.

The Japanese Nuclear Explosion

The chart for the 1st controlled nuclear reaction, on 2 Dec 1942, has the Sun at 10 Sagittarius opposite a Saturn-Uranus conjunction at 9 and 2 Gemini. 8 to 10 degrees of Sagittarius-Gemini has proved very sensitive to transits over the years, and has since become known as the NUCLEAR AXIS.

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The astrology is impressive: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn) to create the energy which powers the Sun. OK, the Sun runs on fusion not fission, but it’s still from the heart of the atom. The chart for Hiroshima, the first aggressive use of nuclear power, has Mars at 11 Gemini - conjunct the nuclear axis. And conjunct Uranus. Astrology really does work!

This morning there was a huge explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant as a result of yesterday’s earthquake, the biggest recorded in Japan. And Uranus entered Aries last night.

In an earlier edition of this post, I put the time of the explosion as 16:50. It was a fantastic chart, but unfortunately it turns out to have been 15:36!

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As you can see, the Moon at 13 Gemini conjoins the Nuclear Axis, and Mars at 13 Pisces (symbolising the explosion) squares both the Moon and the Nuclear Axis. The MC-IC of this chart (the line from top to bottom) conjoins the Asc-Desc (the line from left to right) of the Nuclear Chart. And the Asc-Desc of the Explosion Chart has the same signs as the MC-IC of the Nuclear Chart. That is significant symmetry. And here's a bit of a whopper: the Nuclear Mars at 21 Scorpio is opposite the MC of the explosion chart to within less than half a degree. Scorpio is secretive, so the explosion may well have been nastier than we think.

So there is a lot of synastry here, making it is a very significant nuclear event. Officials are denying there will be a nuclear meltdown at the plant, just as they were denying there was much of a problem before the explosion. With the nuclear axis signified on the chart, as well as the other synastry, and with explosive Uranus having just changed sign into Aries of all places, further unfoldment seems likely. Since writing this, fears have arisen of a second explosion at the reactor. Astrologically, a meltdown cannot be ruled out. Again because the nuclear axis has been activated, the event is likely to have a major effect on nuclear policy. E.g. not putting nuclear power stations in an earthquake zone!

The other 2 major nuclear accidents were 3 Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the USSR.

3 Mile Island (where a reactor went into meltdown) has the MC-IC at 5 Gemini-Sag, close enough in my book to be on the nuclear axis. And there was a New Moon in Aries, resonant of the Uranus Ingress into Aries theme of the Japanese explosion.

Chernobyl, where there was both a contaminating explosion as well as a meltdown, has the MC-IC axis at 10 Virgo-Pisces, exactly square the nuclear axis; along the nuclear axis itself lies Chiron in Gemini opposite Saturn in Sagittarius. Chiron decribes the long-term damage to people and the natural world caused by Chernobyl and any other such leakages.

We do not seem to be looking at another Chernobyl here, because the aspects to the nuclear axis are not as strong. Maybe not even a meltdown. But because of Japan's history, any nuclear incident has heightened significance. Chiron is conjunct the Desc on the Explosion Chart, so as with Chernobyl, we are probably looking at a degree of environmental contamination.

The wider symbolism of the times is the square from Uranus to Pluto, which will be within one degree in June, and became ‘in-sign’ as Uranus entered Aries. A hard aspect between 2 outer planets always indicates a time of profound change, a shift from one era to another. Uranus-Pluto well describes the earthquake that preceded the explosion: a sudden disruption (Uranus) from the depths (Pluto). Of course, you will always get earthquakes, but it seems more than coincidental that Japan should get the most powerful it has recorded as Uranus is being empowered by Pluto.

The symbolism and timing of events around Uranus has been extraordinary. First, with Uranus in its last day in Pisces, the ocean, you get a major earthquake out at sea followed by a Tsunami. The next day, with Uranus on its first day in the fire sign of Aries, you get a nuclear explosion as a result of that earthquake. I don’t usually pay that much notice to the exact movements of the outer planets. I look to the inner planets for that. But Ingresses – when a planet first enters a sign – seem to be something else. When Pluto, a planet associated with the economy, entered Capricorn back in early 2008, almost to the day the stock market began to lurch, as a prelude to the financial crisis that followed.

Of course, the signs are, in a sense, nonsense. They were artificially constructed as 30 degrees each millennia ago, and have since slipped away by 23 degrees. But the fact that they work shows that reality involves a mysterious collusion between mind and matter. It shows that the outer world is much more a product of consciousness than one is led to believe. It is not the hard, ‘objective’ scientific world that we moderns believe it to be: scientific reality is just one more instance of the world seeming to conform to our presumptions about it. Neptune, the dissolver of boundaries, is the planet that describes this mysterious and fluid relationship between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’. Reality is a hologram.

In April Neptune will enter Pisces. Pisces is the sign Neptune rules, and one wouldn’t associate either the sign or the planet with sudden dramas and bold new actions. But look at the Ingress chart:

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Six planets, including a New Moon, in Aries. The transit of Neptune through Pisces is likely to involve dramatic changes in our underlying mythologies (which shape everything else). And a dramatic new phase in the history of our use of oil. Neptune rules oil, and the first oil strike occurred under Neptune in Pisces.

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The first oil strike also has Neptune in the 2nd house of wealth, showing how oil has become entwined with the world economy. And Pluto (wealth) in Taurus (wealth) on the Taurus IC (the depths of the earth). As Neptune moves into Pisces, so we are likely to see the first phase of our use of oil begin to come to an end.

Neptune and Pisces are associated with lack of boundaries, and that certainly describes the unbridled way we have used this resource, as if it were limitless (Neptune), when it is not. In 12 years time Neptune will reach 26 Pisces, its position at the 1st oil strike. So that is the timescale of change we are looking at.

All 3 outer planets are changing sign within a few years of each other: Pluto from 2008-9, Uranus from 2010-11 and Neptune from 2011-12. These are the 3 collective planets, so they show the world moving from one era to another. If you add into the equation an outer planet hard aspect in the form of Uranus square Pluto, then you have a double message of change, of a new era.

This is the wider context in which the Japanese nuclear explosion has occurred. A very significant chart occurring in an era of major change. For the Japanese, the earthquake and the explosion have occurred as Uranus was squaring both the the Moon and the Asc of the Japanese chart. At present, all Uranus transits occur in the wake of a Pluto transit in the preceding few years. Pluto brings deep structural change, and Uranus brings sudden disruptive events that bring that deeper change to life: something that has been brewing beneath the surface for a long time becomes apparent. Japan has been stagnating economically for many years, and China is suddenly in its face as an economic and military threat after Japan’s many years as the world number 2 economy, under the military protection of the USA. Japan is due for change, and the events of the last 2 days could be a catalyst for that.