Uranus-Pluto Part 8 of 8: The Arab Spring and the Downsizing of the UK

So we’ll look at a couple of charts from the Arab Spring. I won’t be doing the sort of extensive analysis that I did for the US Chart. I just want to show the activity of Uranus-Pluto. And then we’ll look at the UK and Scotland.

The Arab Spring seems to be a revolt against secular dictators, something had obviously been brewing for years. But we don’t know what the final outcome will be. Islamist theocracy, Uranus-Pluto in its repressive form of ‘this is the only way’, could be the outcome in many cases. That doesn’t make democracy necessarily the non-repressive option. Americans, for example, see their style of democracy as the only way and are quite prepared to impose it on other countries. (With natal Sun conjunct Jupiter, which rules the Ascendant, the US easily inclines towards fundamentalism in its beliefs.)

First of all, Libya.

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This is the chart for its independence, and its recent revolution occurred under Uranus square Sun – the overthrow of the leader, which is classic. The Pluto conjunct Sun transit was over, suggesting that a feeling of revolt had been growing for some years. That is the way Pluto transits work sometimes: something grows unseen and then eventually pushes through into life, and it’s only when you look back that you can see the process.

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This is the Chart for the Gaddafi regime, and the obvious transit is the Uranus opposition, the mid-life crisis. Uranus rules the Descendant, foreign partners, so there is the foreign intervention in its mid-life crisis.

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Syria is still having its attempted revolution, and we don’t know which way it’s going to go for now. The rebels are not receiving the same help from the west that the Libyans did. This year Uranus and Pluto are hard-aspecting the Syrian Sun, the leader, and they will go on to hard-aspect the Angles over the next couple of years. So it is a very difficult process that is going to continue. But it's hard to see how in the longer-term the present leadership can survive when you've got such a demand for change from the outer planets.
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Time for the UK. The usual UK Chart is the 1801 Chart, the Union of Britain and Ireland. And as you can see, we are going through a Uranus opposition. A country has a Uranus opposition every 84 years or so, and the last one was around 1927-28, when we also, interestingly, had a coalition government.

It’s as though under a Uranus opposition you can’t decide who you are any more, all these possibilities are there, but you no longer have a foundation from which to decide. Particularly when Uranus is so prominent in the chart, being conjunct the Ascendant and square the Sun and MC. It is what makes us the awkward squad in Europe, and Uranus in the sense of a splitting off suggests the UK as island nation. It also gives us our inventiveness.

This year and next year are particularly pokey. The Uranus –Pluto transit will this year almost, but not quite, square the Sun and MC, but will exactly hard aspect the Ascendant.

So it’s a huge period in terms of who we think we are. And there are 2 tanks in the garden: Scotland and Europe. Scotland is holding a referendum on independence in 2 years. And Europe is drawing ever closer together, leaving the UK potentially adrift on the outside, lacking power within Europe.

The UK may well be downsizing in the next few years due to the splitting action of Uranus. It’s like the very last vestiges of Empire going. And we may decide to consider ourselves European in a way that we haven’t so far. And the English may also reclaim being English in a way they haven’t for a long time.

And it’s about Pluto sitting right on the bottom of the chart, conjunct the IC and Sun. The last time this occurred was before this chart came into existence, in 1767. And that was a time when conflict was building with the American colonies, resulting in the Declaration of Independence 9 years later. So there’s a theme of Empire there.

Pluto at the bottom of the chart is saying the foundations are no longer adequate. Pluto kind of says that anyway, even without Capricorn and the IC. Britain has been in this weird situation for a long time now, thinking of itself as one of the major powers, feeling it has a duty to go in there where there is trouble in the world – with the say-so of the US of course - and having a seat on the UN Security Council. But the Empire and wealth are no longer there to justify that attitude, and haven’t been since WWII really.

So I think this transit could be very good for us, it could bring us down to earth, it could mark the English knowing who they are again not just after the kind of misfit of the post-Empire years, but in a way after the inflation of having an Empire in the first place. It’s an inflation that has been there for several hundred years. When a country gets successful, when it gets to be top dog as the British were, you can forget who you are. And Pluto can bring you back there, back to your foundations.

I think this Pluto transit will be doing the same for America too as China snaps at its heels. Not to the same extent as Britain, not by a long way, because America will be top dog for a long time yet. But it’s the beginning of that process of in a way coming back to itself. Pluto brings humility and the self-knowledge that can come with that.

So, something about Scottish Independence.

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Nick Campion has a speculative chart for Scotland, which is the 842 Aries Ingress. It works well in terms of transits. Over the last few years Uranus and Pluto have been hard aspecting the Sun as their leader, Alex Salmond, has promoted the idea of independence.

He is taking it to the people, the Moon, in 2014, and look at that Moon, 7 degrees Aries conjunct Uranus at 13 Aries. The Aries-Uranus symbolism suggests a people for whom independence is vital, and that is being hugely activated by Uranus-Pluto over the next couple of years.

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In considering Scottish Independence, the UK 1707 chart would seem to be the one to work with, because that is the chart for the union of England and Scotland. In 2014, Pluto and Uranus will be hard aspecting the ascendant, and Saturn will be crossing the Midheaven. The ascendant is how we give expression to ourselves, and an easy interpretation of that is to say by splitting, by dividing, Uranus.

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The referendum will be in the autumn of 2014. On the 4th of October that year, the progressed Ascendant moves into Sagittarius. So a major new beginning, a freedom in a sense. Freedom for the Scots, and in a way freedom for the UK from having to be this falsely imperial nation. And a new sense of what gives meaning (Sagittarius) for both countries. Prog Sun exactly square prog Moon: what the people, the Moon, want, and what the government wants are at odds. And then the fiery Grand Trine between the Moon, Pluto and Venus, suggesting some new vision that will unfold very naturally. And the Progressed Chart Ruler, Jupiter, conjunct the Prog Midheaven, adding to the sense of expansion.

The idea of division, of split, also applies to the UK 1801 Chart, not just because of the square from Uranus to the Sun and MC in 2012/14, but because Uranus goes on to exactly square the UK 1801 Moon, the people, at 19 Cancer in 2015. So something big will be happening, and putting all the factors together, it looks very like independence for Scotland.