Friday, June 30, 2017

SATURN AND THE STOCK MARKET


Saturn is currently going backwards at the end of Sagittarius. When a planet is going backwards (retrograde) it’s good to be thoughtful, and get things sorted for when the planet goes forwards again.

The most well-known retrograde phenomenon is Mercury, which happens 3 times a year for 3 weeks at a time. It’s when things notoriously go wrong, particularly Mercurial things like travel arrangements or vehicles or phones or paperwork. And it can create a sense that the planets work in a fated way. But I think it’s more like underlying problems get revealed, and if we pay attention to that, then we can move forward again once the planet does. And if we aren’t thoughtful in that kind of way, it will just seem like things are determined to go wrong.

I think there IS a fated element that astrology reveals, in the sense that it is, say, next month not this month that it is time to address certain things. But there is also free will and neither contradicts the other, even though they seem to. It is one of those apparent contradictions that is good to live with, it makes our mind more flexible, more subtle, less inclined to need everything pinned down.

On a collective level, thoughtfulness is an unusual quality. So collectively, we usually have to learn things – if we do – the hard way. And I think we are seeing this with Saturn in Sagittarius and the stock market. Sagittarius is a sign that likes to expand, but if it does so under Saturn retrograde in that sign, it points to inflation, a bubble, rather than genuine expansion, based on underlying realities. At the same time, we have also had a square between Jupiter and Pluto, and this leads to the same kind of problem.


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A report was issued by one of the big financial bodies a few days ago, pointing out that we had not dealt with the underlying debt problems that the financial crash of 2008/9 revealed. Western countries are just as indebted now as they were at that time, and the response has been to keep interest rates very low, so that debts can be serviced, rather than corporations and individuals going bust. But it doesn’t address the underlying problem. Since then, this problem has spread to the East. China now has high levels of debt as well.

DOW JONES 2012-17
This problem of debt, combined with Saturn’s final days in Sagittarius, and the end of the Jupiter-Pluto square, points to a correction to the stock market, which has had a long bull run. In late August, Saturn will start to move forward into Capricorn, and there is no stronger signature for a reality check than this. Saturn, the planet of proportionality and rectitude and responsibility, in its own sign of Capricorn.

It will also point to the final economic outcome of the Uranus-Pluto square, which began at the time of the 2009 crash, revealing the problems, problems which as I say we have still not dealt with, only delayed.

As Saturn enters Capricorn, it will begin to move towards a conjunction with Pluto in that sign in 2½ years time. Not long. So the stock market check that is soon to begin will not be temporary, it will be ushering in a major restructuring over the next few years. In the UK, people are understandably fed up with austerity. But we have been living beyond our means ever since the last Labour government failed to control the banks, and was forced to bail them out at huge cost. Other governments also failed in their job. But that doesn’t excuse our government, and the Chancellor in the years leading up to it, Gordon Brown.

So there will be a new economic order on its way as Saturn enters Capricorn and moves to conjoin Pluto. Austerity is not yet over. The stock market will go down, and there may be a recession. These things often happen in a panicky way. But overall I think it will be more of a significant correction than a crash, because that is the nature of Saturn and Capricorn. And the bubble is not huge: the Dow Jones is only about 25% higher than it was in the bubble of 1999.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

BRITAIN IN THE MELTING POT


If this were 150 years ago, and the UK was a wealthy patient visiting a doctor, she would probably be told she was having a nervous breakdown, and sent to Switzerland for a rest cure.

As an astrologer 150 years later, I’d say that the UK is near the end of a series of Pluto transits, during which much has been revealed, but it also means she doesn’t know who she is or what she wants anymore. Hence the political paralysis. Maybe in some cases the rest cure would give the time and space for the job to complete. But in this case, I think things need to be lived and worked through.

UK Chart 1801
The 2 main character traits in the UK chart are Capricorn (Sun and IC) and Cancer (Moon and MC). They are opposite signs, and as such provide a healthy tension within the national psyche that pushes us towards unity.

These 2 traits came out as opposites in the EU referendum: The Capricorns wanted to claim back our boundaries, to forge our own independent place in the world again. The Cancers valued the feeling of connectedness to Europe, one big tribe, and cared about all the people from mainland Europe who had made their homes here.

And these 2 traits had become polarised, frequently holding each other in contempt. The Capricorns, as we know, prevailed. But in last week’s general election, it was the turn of the Cancers, those who wish for a fairer country for all. They didn’t exactly prevail – the Tories remain the largest party – but they did well enough to destroy the Tory majority in Parliament.


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So there are these 2 great themes, personified as Brexit and Corbyn. Neither can easily move forward: Brexit because there is no clear government with which to negotiate it; and the fairer society, because they don’t have enough seats.

Jeremy Corbyn
So we are getting a better sense of who we now are, but we aren’t ready to act on it, the alchemy is not complete. Hence the stalemate. Hence what appears like a nervous breakdown, but which is what I call a Pluto Underworld journey, during which the outer direction is usually not very clear.

Pluto very nearly opposed the UK Moon this year, but won’t do so exactly until 2018. And this will be as Saturn hard aspects our Sun, Moon and Angles over the next 2 years.

So I think the difficult process of Brexit will be the anvil on which we hammer ourselves into a new shape. It is Saturn, there is work to do. The Brexit we forge will reflect the type of country we want to be.

And the great thing about the combination of a hung Parliament and Corbyn is that I think we will be able to work through a Brexit deal with which a clear majority are happy. Corbyn is a reasonable man. He will not oppose the Tories for its own sake. I think he is the man who will make the minority government feasible and Brexit possible. With Mercury and Venus at 15-17 Gemini, he will continue to inspire people over the next few years as Neptune squares these 2 planets.

Uranus-Eris has been at work here. The sudden, shock event that changes everything. I could see from the election chart that the Tories were going to have to listen a lot more to Corbyn’s Labour party and what they stood for. Logically, that could only have meant a reduced majority, but I failed to see that.

It’s been a bit of a zombie apocalypse. A year ago, Corbyn seemed like the walking dead as leader of his party. Now it is Theresa May, but it is hard to see her recovering.

A week ago I wrote that Boris would get his chance to be leader in 4 or 5 years time, when the astrology favoured him. He does have a chance of another kind now, one which he would be advised not to take. Uranus is starting to oppose his natal Moon in Scorpio, and this in turn rules his MC, his career point. He could suddenly find himself PM, but it would be unlikely to last more than 2 to 3 years, and would be characterised by instability, that being the nature of Uranus. And it would spoil for him the much more promising chance he has in 5 years time. Not that I personally want Boris as PM.

Boris
I’d hazard a guess at Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary. Against her is the very slim majority by which she hung onto her Parliamentary seat. For her (we do not have a birth time) is her North Node at 19 Cancer, conjunct the UK Moon. We are collectively at a moment of destiny, and that would be a propitious placement for her to have as leader. Along with Moon in late Sagittarius, being activated by Neptune in the coming years.

Amber Rudd
One way or the other, I think the Tories will elect a new leader in late August/early September, as Saturn (planet of leadership) starts to move forward again. Between now and then they will be sorting it out, which is what retrograde Saturn is good for.

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

The UK Election: it's Neptune vs Pluto



It’s a big election we have in the UK on the 8th June. It may not appear very exciting. It may appear just to be a choice between a right-wing bureaucrat (May) and an inspired but dated lefty (Corbyn).

The astrology, however, says otherwise. First of all, we are coming to the end of a period where Pluto has hard-aspected the Sun, Moon and Angles of the UK chart. The last time we had these transits was 1974-80, the period during which we joined the EU and old Labour failed – Britain became ‘the sick man of Europe’ – and the outcome was a swing to the right in the form of Thatcherism.

The present series of Pluto transits began in 2010/11, as the free-market capitalism of Thatcher failed, and the years of austerity began. Parliament has been either a coalition or small majorities – suggesting that the country itself does not know who it is anymore, as you’d expect as a major transit begins to kick in.

UK Chart 1801
We made a decisive step in terms of re-defining who we are last year when we voted to leave the EU. But even then it was a slender majority. And that re-definition is going to gather pace over the next year or two as Pluto opposes the UK Moon. It’s like we sleepwalked into the EU 40 years ago under the last Pluto transits, many of us not realising that we were committing ourselves to a political, as well as economic, union. Pluto can do that – he sneaks something in, and then you realise many years down the line that you’re not happy with it. But it wakes you up, gets you to think harder about who you are.

So by transit we are in the middle of this massive re-definition of ourselves, centering around Brexit. An issue which has, strangely enough, taken a back seat during the campaigning.

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So let’s look at the chart for the election. Specifically, the charts for the opening and closing of polls on the 8th of June. Astrologers seem to use both charts nowadays, and I’m not sure there is consensus on the different meanings of the 2 charts. So for now I’ll just use both.

Polls open 8 June 2017
And what is striking about the chart for the opening of the polls is that Neptune and Pluto are both on Angles. This is huge. It says that this election is about much more than a contest between a robot and an unelectable socialist.

During the campaign, the issues talked about have been much more around eg the Health Service, care of the elderly, education, jobs, fairness and housing than about Brexit. Brexit is there in the background, looming, but people have been much more concerned with the issues in their everyday lives.

I think that Neptune and Pluto point to 2 different themes: Neptune, typically, is socialism, it wants a fairer society. This is what Corbyn stands for, and he is doing a lot better in the polls than many people thought. He has also proved a better campaigner than the faux-Presidential Theresa May.

And then there is Pluto in Capricorn, opposite the Cancer Asc. This is the theme of Brexit and security and immigration controls. This is the conservatives.

So both these themes are pulling strongly. And because they are outer planets, it is saying that this election is in the hands of the gods. There is some kind of destiny unfolding that is beyond people’s narrow personal desires, and people will be drawn to vote for that wider thing, without even knowing they are doing it.

Brexit is saying we want control of our laws and borders (Pluto). But the popularity of Corbyn is also saying that we want a fairer society (Neptune). And there is no reason they need to be contradictory. Contrary to how it is sometimes painted, the people who voted Brexit weren’t just ignorant right wingers. In fact, the decisive, surprise vote was by people who were unemployed, left on the sidelines without prospects by the forces of globalisation. People who one would typically expect to vote Labour.

So the election chart is saying that there are these 2 great themes at work in the country. The way I imagine it will work out is that the Tories will be the next government, but with a smaller majority than they had hoped for. And that will be because people also want a fairer society, and May will have to listen to that, just as Cameron felt he had to listen to the voice of the UKIP voters after the last election, and call a referendum.

Polls Close 8 June 2017
The chart for the close of polls has Saturn and Mars running along the Asc/Desc. So this says to me that the conservatives (Saturn) will win and that the recent ‘terrorist’ attacks (Mars) will play a part, as well as the need to be effective in the Brexit negotiations (Mars/Desc).

So I think May will get a sufficient majority to carry out the Brexit negotiations successfully, without being too beholden to the right wing of her party, who want a ‘hard’ Brexit. At the same time, the size of the vote for a left wing Labour party will mean that she has to listen to that also.