Tuesday, October 18, 2022

The UK’s Political Turmoil

UK PM Liz Truss

 

One way of looking at what is happening to a country is to look at the Aries Ingress, ie when the Sun enters Aries and begins the astrological year. It is set for the capital city. For the UK this year, we see the North Node conjunct the Midheaven. Angular planets and Nodes in this kind of chart are always worth noting before anything else, for they are the places that are incarnating the most strongly.

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The North Node is the point of greatest growth and learning in the chart. Politically, the UK has had instability since the Aries Ingress (and before). It began with the ongoing pressure on Boris Johnson, who couldn’t keep his house in order. He left under an applying conjunction of Uranus to the North Node. Now we have the turmoil around Liz Truss, who is hanging on by a thread after only 6 weeks as Prime Minister.

I see it more widely as post-Brexit birth pangs. Look what happened to some of the eastern bloc countries, such as Russia and Albania, after communism collapsed. There was a descent into chaos before they found a new stability.

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The UK is in a period of rebirth after a long series of hard Pluto transits to the Sun, Moon and Angles of the 1801 chart. Those transits seemed to make Brexit inevitable, because what else was going to describe such a major change? They were the same transits, 90 degrees on, under which the UK entered the EEC (as it then was) in the 70s. Both constituted a major shift in national identity. But we are not fully out the other side of the current series of transits, even though they are technically over. It will take a while for the UK to find a new direction and a new place in the world, while Northern Ireland's and Scotland’s statuses in the union remain unclear. I reckon it won’t be until Pluto is firmly in the new sign of Aquarius in 2 years’ time that we will begin to feel we have arrived in a new settled place.


 

Leo Liz Truss was the choice of the party membership, not the MPs, and she boldly offered a radical programme, that turned out to be ill-thought through. Taurean Sunak, the other candidate – and the MPs choice – offered a more cautious programme. The UK is going through a Saturn opposition Saturn transit this year. All year we have had different kinds of irresponsibility from our 2 leaders, Johnson then Truss. Saturn will change direction next week, to make its final pass opposite natal Saturn.

It seems to me that the appointment of safe-pair-of-hands Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor is the harbinger of Saturn’s change of direction. Both leaders were ultimately chosen by the membership of the party, not the MPs. The Saturn transit suggests to me that the country as a whole will be in the mood for some stability. And, in a way, putting the grown-ups (Saturn) in charge. Truss and her previous Chancellor are both in their forties. Hunt is in his mid 50s.


 

As a Leo, Truss wants to be a bold leader. We don’t know her birth time, but she does also have Moon in Pisces in square to Neptune. I had been puzzling over this. It suggests compassion, which isn’t obvious with Truss, though maybe her Venus in Virgo (that forms a t-square with the Moon and Neptune) inhibits its expression. But now a meaning of her Moon is becoming clearer: Pisces can be a sign that loses everything. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, tried to bring in radical change and reshape a new coalition of states. But it slipped out of his grasp. He had unleashed something that was beyond his control.

That happened also to Liz Truss: the response of the markets to her budget plans has taken away her authority to be leader. It showed immaturity to present plans that did not also describe how they were going to be paid for. A basic issue of trust and competence immediately arose.

Another way of looking at charts is through the fixed stars on the Angles (the planets are the stars that move.) They don’t get used so much these days, and their meanings as a consequence remain quite raw and literal. They also have a more direct relationship to the sky than does horoscopic astrology. You can feel the power of astrology when you see these fixed stars at work in their literal way.


 

We don’t have the Angles for Liz Truss’ birth chart, as we do not know the time, but there is a chart for her premiership. 

The 2 main Angles are the MC and Asc. It is in itself a difficult chart, with retrograde Saturn square the Asc, and retrograde Uranus opposite the Asc. Again, the North Node makes an appearance, opposite the Asc. 

The Fixed Stars confirm the challenging nature of the chart. ½ a degree from the MC we find the Fixed Star Zosma, which Bernadette Brady calls "a lever for change." She continues:

"Zosma is the place on the back of the Nemean Lion where Hercules crushed  it. This myth is a symbol of the point in Greek and Roman mythology  where the feminine, or rather, where non-establishment concepts or  beliefs were extinguished. Zosma itself is not feminine but rather it belongs to those whom the establishment, either directly or indirectly, makes powerless."

 Liz Truss is a Leo. She has just had her political back broken, and she has lost nearly all her power. You see what I mean about the raw, literal descriptive power of Fixed Star astrology. It takes your breath away. It is what astrologers live for. Using horoscopic astrology, Pluto has recently gone Direct, as he approaches an opposition with Truss' Sun. This gives a similar message. She is being broken in order eventually to be renewed.

Zosma in the Costellation Leo

1½ degrees off the Asc, we find the Fixed Star Unukalhai:

"Unukalhai, in the Neck of the Serpent, shows its properties as a Martian force combined with Saturn and is often really dangerous and destructive." (Astrologyking.com)

That is how the financial markets saw what Liz Truss, through her Chancellor, was doing. Again, the raw power of Fixed Star astrology.

How long will Liz Truss last? The Tory party, unlike Labour, is serious about being in power, and is likely to replace its tattered leader sooner rather than later. So I would hazard that the process will begin in earnest week beginning 23rd October, when Saturn goes Direct. And just before the potentially ruthless, purgative Solar Eclipse at 2 degrees Scorpio on the 25th, about which Brady says: 


"This eclipse series is about being forceful and taking power. It has a manic flavour about it, with great force or strength manifesting in the relationship area. Individuals experiencing this Saros Series may experience sudden events, like falling in or out of love, or sudden sexual encounters. The individual may also exert a huge effort in some group activity."


This interpretation can apply as much to events going against the individual as in favour.

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