Uranus-Pluto and the EU

We’ve had the 2^nd of 7 exact squares between Uranus and Pluto in the last few days. There have been Uranus-Pluto type events associated with it: the militarised stand-off between China and Japan over some disputed islands, the violent protests against the USA across the world over an anti-Islamic film. These events are not necessarily game-changers in themselves, though they point to deeper issues. But they are the sort of events you’d expect around the exact square, the froth that reminds us that Uranus and Pluto are particularly active right now.

Uranus square Pluto is like a change in a deep ocean current occurring over some years, and the events that express that change can occur at any time. But particularly, I’ve noticed, in the weeks leading up to an exact aspect. This seems to happen with any major planetary alignment. And in the case of Uranus-Pluto, the major event of this 2^nd square occurred a few weeks ago when the EU put in place measures to protect members like Spain and Italy from excessive borrowing costs. In my opinion, at any rate. The interpretation of planets is as much an opinion as anything else is. There is not a clearly defined 'meaning’ out there that astrologers are able to divine.

The EU debt crisis has been keeping the whole world in recession this year. Or at least, not growing economically as it might. It’s easy to assume that’s a bad thing because the feelgood factor isn’t there. But if you can afford a recession – and the food still seems to be on the plates in the West – it maybe gets us to stop and think about what is important, our values. 

The Ingress Chart for Pluto's entry into Capricorn in Jan 2008 has quite a close Pluto-Venus conjunction. Venus is our values, suggesting that sort of mulling over, a re-consideration. The protests over the excesses of the financial sector would seem to be part of that. As would Jupiter's (excess) conjunction to Venus and Pluto.

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Greece is still a basket-case and we don’t know what will happen to her. But the EU could not afford to let Spain or Italy go under, they were too big to fail. And as I wrote about a month ago, before the EU made its move, when a crisis has been subjected to two squares from Uranus-Pluto, something has to give, you can’t just keep holding on, these planets of fate are beyond our puny grip.

I did tend to think, however, that it was going to go the other way. As an astrologer, you can know something decisive is going to happen around a particular period. But then you have to make a call with your merely human judgement!

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The crucial issue has been German backing, in the face of popular opposition, to helping out debt-laden EU members. And Angela Merkel seems to have manoeuvred that. It’s probably what she’ll be remembered for. I’ve always thought she had the makings of a great leader, and I think now she is doing that. It will take a while to finally sort this crisis, but Europe seems to have made the decision to stick together. 

The price of that, of course, is a surrender of sovereignty to central financial institutions, Brussels effectively having more say over the running of individual economies to prevent a re-run of this crisis. That is what nobody is saying. If anything, the politicians are saying the opposite. Spain’s leader recently said that if the country is bailed out, it will not allow any conditions to be made over how it runs its economy. Etc etc. Necessary froth and posturing. As John Pilger said, “Don’t believe anything until it is officially denied.” Expect lots more of this over the next year, as each country asserts its independence while quietly handing over more power to Brussels.

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The EU (or EEC as it was) and the Euro were both inaugurated on the 1^st of January, in 1958 and 1999 respectively. So they both have the Sun around 10 degrees of Capricorn. Pluto reached 9.5 degrees of Capricorn this year, and Uranus reached 8.5 Aries. So the EU and the Euro are both under intense pressure to reformulate their inner goals. This is what Uranus-Pluto does to a person’s Sun as well. Particularly with Pluto, you get these crises, where the old you no longer works but you hang on for as long as you can, trying to make it work, secretly knowing the game is up and longing for it to be up, and then finally you give way and allow the new a bit of space, and then the new gradually takes over.

And that is what has happened with the EU. The crucial step of allowing the new in, putting in proper backing for Spain and Italy, has finally occurred. The first actual crossing by Uranus-Pluto of the EU’s Sun will be next year, but the main observable events in these crises can easily occur beforehand. Or not. You never quite know.

But the fact we have not yet had an exact aspect shows how much working through there is to do. It’s a huge seed that has been planted, with huge implications.

Both the EU and the Euro have Angles at the end of the mutable signs, classically a good time for endings, for fallings apart, rather than for beginnings. Hence this mega-crisis. Who knows, the EU may still disintegrate. What it really needs is a re-launch without those mutable Angles. Maybe the treaties required to enact the new financial order will be far-reaching enough to amount to that. As long as they don't re-launch at one minute past midnight on 1st Jan on a 29 Virgo year. Some years are 29 Virgo at that time, some are 0 Libra, which would be much better: a new (0 degrees) partnership (Libra).

What will happen to Greece? The only way for Greece to stay in the EU is for much of her debts to be written off, much more than have been written off already. The issue was kicked into the medium grass last month when a report was commissioned, due sometime in the next couple of weeks. There is the issue of ‘moral hazard’: if her debts are largely written off and she carries on as a member of the EU, then other countries will feel, and Greece herself will feel, that it doesn’t matter if you live beyond your means, because you’ll get rescued.

I think Angela Merkel’s instincts are to keep Greece in – mother Merkel, with Sun in Cancer, but conjunct Uranus, reflecting the division in the country of her childhood, East Germany, and the division threatening her ‘country’, the EU, now.

But Greece may have to be sacrificed to show that the EU is serious about spending controls. On the other hand, investors may then feel that Spain or Italy could be chucked out, bringing the crisis back all over again.

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Look at the Greek chart for Dec 13^th this year: Uranus will be stationing almost exactly opposite natal Moon-Pluto. Expect an autumn of instability for Greece. And then continuing pain over the next few years as Uranus-Pluto heads on to hard aspect her Saturn-Ascendant at 11-13 Cancer. Uranus can be about splits, sudden departures, and it is perfectly possible, astrologically at any rate, that Greece will suddenly leave the Euro this autumn. The Moon in a chart is the people, so if Greece leaves it may be due to pressure from the people on its government, which is doing its best, according to its mandate, to stay within the Eurozone. The leader is the Sun which, at 1 Leo, will be experiencing a square from Saturn this autumn: pressure to succeed in the face of adverse events, maybe even failure to succeed.