THE EU, ISRAEL and MORE

THE EU: ECONOMIC RENEWAL and POLITICAL SLOW DEATH?

 In 2024 Neptune will begin a series of 5 hard aspects to the Angles of the EU (1958) chart. At the same time, Pluto will begin a series of 5 squares to the EU (1993) chart. Big change is on the way, though it is likely to be slow, as is the way with large institutions.

The 1958 chart is the for EEC, whose emphasis was economic: this is expressed in 8^th House Moon in Taurus: the shared (8^th) wealth (Taurus) of its member countries (Moon).

The 1993 chart arose out of the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which began the process of political union.

An ex-EU President expressed the view some years ago that the EU had lost its mojo. Many of us can probably remember the heady years of Jacques Delors, driving through change, a time of soaring ambition.

The EEC Angles have shown themselves to be sensitive to transits: Pluto’s hard-aspecting of them in 2008 triggered the Greek debt crisis the following year, the EU’s first major crisis. So the coming transit from Neptune could involve crises along the way. They are likely to start from without (Neptune on the Desc). The 2008 Pluto transit was on the IC, and it was very much an internal financial stability crisis.

Germany, the driver of the EU, has been drifting. Its Green energy policy has backfired, due to its naïve reliance on Russian gas, and it has been forced to use coal again. It may be the end of its liberal “let’s be nice to Russia” and “let’s allow in as many refugees as want to come era.” Most significantly, its business base is being undercut by China. Neptune on the Desc of the EEC chart next year could therefore signify the imposition of trade barriers with China, to a level comparable to the US. Germany has Pluto coming up to conjoin its Desc/NNode in the next few years, which has a similar message.

So economic renewal, with a protectionist flavour, is a likely outcome of the Neptune transit to the EEC chart. The transit will conclude in Jan 2026 with a Saturn-Neptune conjunction at 1 Aries, a new vision. There may be drift until then, but this conjunction unmistakeably speaks of action, perhaps driven by events. Much as the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 caused huge event-driven change, as Covid spread. The outer planets on their own can be an inner alchemy, change-in-waiting, but Saturn forces outcomes.

What of the political union? What stands out for me in this chart in the unaspected Sun in Scorpio in the 4^th. The leadership is hidden, it does not communicate itself. This is observable. Which of us has ever known much about the leaders? The goals too are hidden: we all know about ‘ever-closer union’, but what that means has never been made explicit. Perhaps the most visible result of this inability to connect has been Brexit. The EU really needs to learn from that if it wants to thrive as a political union. Why should people want their respective countries to cede more and more power to a body they have little personal connection with, and does not say what its ultimate goals are? It is not how democracy works. And rightly so.

The sign of Scorpio, along with the unaspectedness of the Sun, suggests an arrogant hanging onto power for its own sake.

Pluto first squares the EU MC (the governing bodies), and then moves on to square the EU Sun (the leadership itself and its goals) in about 4 years time. I think the current power base will come apart, driven by the democratic urge of Pluto in Aquarius. Who knows how the EU will reshape itself? Political union has always seemed somewhat improbable to me, given how culturally different the member countries are. Look at the US and its very similar states, which only united by a whisker in 1776. Certainly the free trade area will be maintained, because that is a win for everybody. The forward drive to political union has been gone for some years now. It seems unlikely to be revived. A slow death is in that case perfectly possible, even likely. If you're not going forwards, you are going backwards. Maybe even the Euro, which benefits Germany at the expense of the less prosperous members, will also go. 

All of which could well lead to an application from the UK to rejoin 😊 Neptune will start hard-aspecting the UK Sun and Angles in just a few years: I reckon there could be political rumblings around this from 2026 onwards, driven by a Labour government.

 

VENUS IN VIRGO

Venus has recently entered Virgo. In traditional astrology it's not so good, she is in her fall. But if you know how to work these things - and it can take a bit of self-knowledge to do so - there is bounty to be had. In this case, it is the inner joy to be found when we stop reaching after sense pleasures. It is not a negative, anything but. The joy has the form of a nature goddess. Or, if you like, a renaissance virgin mary. Venus' love here is for both nature and the divine.

 

 

ISRAEL'S TRANSITING PLUTO

Pluto is stationing, at the end of a period in which it has hard-aspected all of Israel's Angles. Mars has been in an applying square to Pluto as the country has come under attack. In recent years, the country has become a regional superpower, both militarily and economically, due to the free-market reforms of its leader Netanyahu. The Pluto transits to all 4 Angles tell us that the country is being slowly re-born in fundamental ways. We can therefore expect a far-reaching military response against the Palestinians, that does not allow for a return to the previous status quo. 

 

Mars is currently transiting Israel's first house: not a judicious time to attack her. Watch Israel go from strength to strength in the coming years as Pluto goes on to oppose natal Moon, Pluto and Saturn. This is not to support or condemn Israel: it is simply an attempt at Realastrology.

 

 

THE TIME OF THE SUPERHERO

Mars will shortly enter Scorpio. With this placement natally, you may be like Clark Kent: you bimble around, seemingly unmotivated in your day-to-day life. And then a life or death situation arises, a dog falls in the river, and you are the one who dives in to save it. 

 

Mars will be in Scorpio until late November. It is a time to put yourself in harm's way, or rescue others from harm's way.

 

 

INITIATION

Outer planet transits are initiations. It is time for something new to be born, which belongs not to us, but to the universe. We are not alone, we are not autonomous, and nothing is personal. We live our lives in solidarity with the greater reality, with all-that-is. Neptune will drown and madden you, Pluto will abduct and dismember you. And it can go on for years.

Afterwards you will feel thankful through gritted teeth, for you would never have wished all that on yourself. But it's not about what we want. It's about what we have to do. That gives meaning, though not necessarily happiness. It is meaning we get out of bed for.

 

 

BUILDING THE EGREGORE

Astrology has ancient egregore, the power that builds over time from collective use. It is the power of tradition. That is why astrology works even formalistically, when you just follow the rules of interpretation. You are benefitting from the egregore. You contribute to the egregore when you use the rules imaginatively, when you work them so that meaning appears to you from within.

 

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Aquarius is the archetype of the noble human. They may chunter on in a detached, rational way, but don't be misled: there is a deep soulfulness behind it. It is the water they bear.

 

 

DON'T TAKE ASTROLOGY LITERALLY

Astrology began with the primordial instinct that we are part of heaven and earth, which can show us who we are and how to live. Don't take astrology literally. Dance lightly around its extensive formal knowledge. Learn as much of it as you need, but don't think that makes you an astrologer. The work comes in digging for concrete meaning within the symbols. That is the creative part, that changes you and enchants the universe for your client. 

 

 

Don't take anything literally, even the world itself. Dance around that too. It is real, and yet mind-created. Your precious self also, that you will fight tooth and claw to preserve. That isn't literal either, and in hanging loose to that, you open yourself to the universe. And that is what astrology is there to teach us.

 

 

PLUTO TRANSIT

We betray ourselves. Somewhere we know we are ignoring a voice, and eventually it destroys us: and then slowly we learn to listen, and we will never not listen again. It is the voice that matters most, the inner guide that will never let us down. We become like the Ancient Mariner.

 

THE ELEMENT OF AIR

The Air signs are the only ones that do not have animal symbols. Two of them have humans - Gemini and Aquarius - while Libra has a thing: a pair of scales. What this most strongly suggests is that in the Air signs we move away from animal instinct and gain the ability to reflect. And that is both a strength and a weakness. The perfect example of the latter is the disenchanted universe that modern science has created, in which matter is dead. Early humans knew this was not the case, because the animal in them, which has direct knowledge, told them so.

 

Air gives us the ability to be at our most diabolical, and our most deeply human, in a way that animals cannot be. Air gives the ability to stand back and weigh up moral as well practical choices. People find it incredibly difficult to step back from their beliefs and examine them, as any argument shows. But that ability is also what makes us most distinctively human. 

 

Honesty and humility are the moral qualities we need when using Air to gain wisdom. Typically, we misuse that Element in order to to rationalise, to justify what it is we want to believe and to do. And we don't even know we're doing it most of the time.

 

The Elements go in a cycle: Fire, Earth, Air and Water, which repeats 3 times as we circle the zodiac. Fire is the first spark of life, the new vision, that is then embodied, incarnated in Earth. Then in Air we cast our eye at the world around us and consider it. That perspective then needs integrating with the animal, so everything dissolves back into Water, out of which a new being, carrying the wisdom of the previous cycle, can be born.