THE MADNESSES OF NEPTUNE and THE SATURN-NEPTUNE CONJUNCTION

THE MADNESSES OF NEPTUNE: NET-ZERO and TRANSGENDER

I am bringing my own views in here quite strongly, so you could say I am declaring an interest :)

The astrologer Liz Greene has suggested Dionysus as a more appropriate figure than Neptune as the ruler of Pisces. Dionysus was driven mad by Zeus's jealous wife Hera. If you reject him, as did King Pentheus, you are liable to be torn to pieces by the train of Maenads who follow him.

Pluto abducts you, and Neptune possesses you. As Neptune comes to the end of his own sign of Pisces, so is the western world possessed by collective madnesses: net-zero carbon and transgender ideology. As well, more broadly, by 'wokeness': the authoritarian, sentimentalised over-protectiveness and over-prioritisation of minorities.

Instead of saying yes, we will need eventually to replace oil with nuclear, and we can adapt to, and probably even benefit from (which we have a genius for) climate change, we are cutting our own throats by attempting in short order to get rid of what has become our lifeblood, fossil fuels, and calling anyone who questions this narrative a 'climate-denier'.

It could be enormously damaging, particularly for the poor and the developing world: indeed, mythologically one could read net-zero as the sacrifice (another Neptunian theme) of the poor and the 3rd world to assuage the guilt of white liberals for their sins against pristine mother nature. There is a hatred of human impact behind net-zero that feels like a leftover from Christianity. It is also, you could argue, the Far Left's version of the Far Right's Gotterdammerung. No politician currently dares stand up to this narrative, though one can discern their private doubts.

As for 'transgender', instead of saying yes, we need to allow men to be more feminine and vice-versa, to even live as the opposite gender if they wish, we are collectively in the grip of a corrupt medical fantasy that says that men can BECOME women and vice versa. Again, no politician dare stand up to to this fantasy, nor directly oppose the resulting mutilation of teenagers, which does not bear thinking about. Even wanting to protect women from predatory 'transwomen' will get you labelled a 'transphobe'.

Transgender surgery, particularly on teenagers, is a Pluto in Aquarius theme. In attempting to help humanity through science, Aquarius can become inhuman: this is the shadow/Pluto side. It is something I find dreadful.

The pushback from questioning either of these madnesses is currently vicious. You can lose your job, your reputation and your friends. I hope it doesn't cost me my Facebook account!

The Chinese and Russians must be scratching their heads and wondering what has happened to the West.

 

(We are, of course, still experiencing the economic consequences of the madness that was Covid, when most of the world shut down over a relatively minor disease. It was like a herd of horses bolting, that could not stop once they had started.)

My hope is that as Neptune enters a new sign - Aries - in a couple of years, and is joined by Saturn, we will start to wake up from these nightmares.

 

 

THE UPCOMING SATURN-NEPTUNE CONJUNCTION

The further a planet is away from the Sun, the greater its transformational power. Pluto holds pride of place in the transformation stakes. On average. But because his orbit is elliptical, he is sometimes the same distance from the Sun as Neptune. As he has been for some decades now. So they have arguably been packing the same punch during that period.

If we look back to the last Saturn-Neptune conjunction, in 1989, we see that it took place 4 days after the Berlin Wall came down, precipitating the end of the Cold War. That event was every bit as powerful as a Saturn-Pluto conjunction – the last of which, in 2020, occurred at the start of the Covid panic. This idea could be tested historically, if someone fancies some mundane research.

Saturn gives the outer planets the ability to manifest. He acts as a bridge, and we see their pure power. The terror of the Saturn-Pluto opposition at the time of 9/11. The bursting of the communist dream (Neptune) in 1989 and the awakening to economic realities (Saturn). The Berlin Wall was built in 1961, and it came down on its Saturn Return. Saturn is walls, you couldn’t make it up.

So we need to be talking about the upcoming conjunction of Saturn and Neptune at the beginning of Aries in 25/26, just as much as if it was Saturn-Pluto. 

 

Politically, you could say we have been living in the post-Cold War World since the last conjunction, and its outcome has been a new polarisation with Russia.

The last time Neptune entered Aries was in 1861, as the US Civil war began. Just as we have a ‘culture war’, so too did the US have one over slavery, that precipitated that war, an Aries showdown, which the North eventually won.

Just as Saturn-Pluto ushered in a new world 3 years ago, so too are we likely to see another new world in 2026, and possibly the year before, when the conjunction will be almost exact. What astrology teaches you is how just unpredictable the future is. Who could have guessed Covid, or the prolonged conflict over Ukraine?

But what we do know as astrologers is that something big is on the way. And probably a new start in some way, because it will be the start of Aries. There are tensions starting to boil: nuclear-armed Russia’s ongoing humiliation over Ukraine; the culture wars over transgender, historical slavery etc and left-wing authoritarianism generally (as in ‘woke’); and perhaps the biggest one of all, net-zero carbon, which I don’t think the average voter is going to stand for once what it entails starts to impact on their lives: that may leave room for a new and pragmatic political vision, based on the material abundance that we actually have. Saturn-Neptune at the start of Aries speaks strongly of a new dream. But that may require wreckage as well.

On a personal level, if you have anything in your chart at the beginning of the cardinal signs, then that aspect of your life will be affected in a big way. You will be possessed, maddened and ultimately re-ensouled :) You will begin to seriously notice it towards the end of 2024, as Neptune and Saturn go Direct and start to move towards their almost-conjunction of 2025.

SATURN-PLUTO AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction of January 2020 took place at 23 Capricorn, a degree away from the Russian Saturn at 24 Capricorn. When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 Feb this year, Mars was at 22 Capricorn. This links that war to the central astrological event of our time.

The chart I am using for Russia is for 12 June 1990 (time approximate), when the Russian parliament declared the sovereignty of the Russian Republic within the USSR (From Nick Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes.).

Note the unaspected Sun and Saturn. The leader, and the structures of authority, are not connected either to each other or to the people. That is quite something. It’s almost an indictment for a country to have a chart like that. By definition the chart reflects the circumstances of the country’s birth, in this case when communism was collapsing and the USSR was breaking up. It was a seizure of sovereignty, led by Boris Yeltsin, without, it seemed, much forethought as to what came next. Russia gradually descended into chaos under Yeltsin.

Born 1 Feb 1931, Yeltsin had the Saturn-Uranus hard aspect that often characterises crisis leaders. Saturn is the status quo, Uranus is its disruption, and the hard aspect offers its resolution under a new paradigm. But that doesn’t mean they are good ‘peacetime’ leaders. Boris Johnson, who has the opposition, is a case in point: he performs well when there is a crisis like Brexit or Covid or the Ukraine war, but outside of that he creates needless trouble for himself. Churchill also had Saturn-Uranus in hard aspect, and the same kind of temperament.

So the lack of structure, combined with Yeltsin’s temperament, left a hole for an authoritarian leader to step in – which is what Russia is used to anyway, from the Tsars onwards. It was a return to type.

Saturn in Capricorn in the 4^th House shows a desire for the traditional (Capricorn) homeland (4^th House), which includes a number of its bordering countries, including Ukraine. The Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 (which was also the modern Russia’s 1^st Saturn Return) activated this unaspected Saturn in a big way. The invasion of Ukraine has probably been brewing since that time, and then catalysed when Mars hit that point.

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We do not have a birth time for Putin (7th Oct 1952), but this year Neptune will be within a degree of squaring his foreign-adventuring Mars at 26 Sagittarius. That is not a good time for him to start a war. It might be a good time for psychonautic adventures, Neptune likes that. But in this world, Neptune is liable to swamp you down. Just as happened to the US when it invaded Iraq in the run-up to a Saturn-Neptune opposition, and found itself bogged down in the succeeding years.

Russia itself has Neptune hard-aspecting its Angles this year and next (the chart is approximate, but it is probably not far off.) So while Putin will be personally floundering through the amount he has staked on his Mars, Russia herself will be floundering. This could go on for some years, because Putin will not be easy to depose. In 4 years, however, Pluto will conjoin the Russian Moon (the people) in the revolutionary sign of Aquarius. Watch this space!

It is interesting that the EU has the same Angles, a few degrees on, as Russia, so the EU is about to undergo the Neptune transit that Russia is currently undergoing. It ties together the destiny of these two superpowers (one military, the other economic.)

The EU has had a foretaste of its own Neptune maddening (Pluto abducts and dismembers; Neptune maddens and drowns) via Brexit, this event that made no sense to many people. It seemed mad at the time, but astrologically it foreshadows, or has catalysed, a wider unravelling, and possibly an eventual coming together in a new way, within the EU. The old paradigm, symbolised by Jacques Delors and his heady drive towards European integration, is already dying. Europe has lost its Mojo, but nothing has yet come in to replace it.

Whatever does replace it will be partly shaped by what is happening now. Provoked by Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, Europe and NATO are coming together as they haven’t for a long time. Pluto will begin to hard aspect the fixed Angles of NATO in a couple of years, suggesting perhaps a re-empowerment in the face of renewed Russian aggression.

The Angles in a personal chart are our main points of connection to life, they ground the cosmic drama of the planets in their signs. And the same with a country. So when Pluto or Neptune, the big transformers, hard aspect all the Angles within a short time, you get a profound change in many aspects of the life of the person or the country. And we will see this with Russia, the EU and NATO in the coming years. What is happening now with Ukraine, and Brexit before that, are just the start.

But back to the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, the emerging significance of which is the main theme of this article. The last time this conjunction occurred in Capricorn was in 1518, 3 months after Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door in Wittenberg and began the Protestant Revolution, which challenged the pan-European power of the day, the Catholic Church. In this sign of Capricorn and under this conjunction, governing structures either gain in power, or lose power, in a major way.

The Ukraine War Mars and its connection to the Saturn-Pluto conjunction tells us that it is a very significant war, that will play a large part in reshaping the governing structures, and balances of power, across Europe and into Russia.

A month in, and it is clear the war is not going Russia’s way in the way she wanted it to. Russia may yet prevail, but she is getting bogged down (Neptune on her Angles), and has become a pariah state in the process. Her international standing has plummeted. The war was intended to be a display of Russian power, but it has had the opposite result. She may gain a bit of territory in the process, but the cost will be huge.

So we are seeing a diminished Russia, and an enhanced USA/Europe as part of the Saturn-Pluto power restructuring. It is NATO, rather than the EU, that is the unifying body, bridging as it does the USA, the EU, the UK and other European countries, including three that were formerly within the USSR.

I don’t think Russia can survive in its present form, due to the strength of its transits: Neptune has just finished squaring the Sun (the leader, who has just made a bad move), then on to the Angles, then Pluto conjunct Moon.

We could maybe say that the Saturn-Pluto conjunction will come to be seen as the end of the second Cold War that has come about between Russia and the West, with Russia the loser again. The Saturn Return, which she had in 2019/20, is a time to ‘grow-up’, in this case as a nation. A time to grow up from being a gangster state with almost arbitrary rule, trying to steal power by encroaching on its neighbours, to one that is governed by law and prepared to earn, rather than attempting to steal, its power in the world.

It is easy to forget that we live in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity. We forget this because it is not news. Neither peace nor prosperity are news, whereas localised wars and poverty are news. This is the context in which we need to see the Ukraine War. It is merely local, albeit of huge political significance.

The fact of this prolonged peace on a world scale says to me that we are getting something right. As does the prosperity. There are considerable grounds for optimism about the future of humanity, climate alarmists and the XR death-cult notwithstanding. Peace can only come about when countries co-operate. We have been co-operating to a sufficient degree for a long time now to prevent major wars. The Ukraine crisis is seeing a heightened co-operation by most of the major powers, and a diminution of the power that does not want peace, Russia.

So what I am saying is that the international power restructuring that is Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn may well be towards increased peace and co-operation.

The pandemic preceding the Ukraine War, which began almost with the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, was also an international, indeed a worldwide, event. It was felt to be a world problem, and was dealt with in similar ways across the globe. Our interconnectedness was palpable, as new variants of the virus started in one country and spread rapidly across the world. Within a sort time, vaccines were available to most of humanity, again an international effort.

So you could say that Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn has been creating another level of globalisation, just as Pluto (wealth) in Sagittarius (foreign parts) described the economic globalisation that gathered pace in that period, in which our economic fortunes became ever more closely tied together.

Russia’s behaviour is showing the West what it is not prepared to tolerate. We have been ruthless in imposing economic sanctions to a level never seen before, paralysing Russia’s economy (as disruptor Uranus crosses and disempowers her 8^th House Venus, ruler of her 2^nd House of wealth, and opposite 2^nd House Pluto.) Russia may have to default, she is being brought economically to her knees. Yet she is militarily a superpower.

Putin can only remain in power while there is sufficient collective will for him to do so. Leaders inevitably reflect the desires of a large section of the population. But national pride can only take you so far. The people also need food on their plates, and they hunger for the standard of living seen in their near neighbours. It was bankruptcy that brought down the communist Russian empire, it may be the same for the gangster state that is modern Russia. It may be a slow Neptunian collapse, but there is nevertheless a new world order when a superpower collapses.

Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn then, may signify the new world order brought about by the slow collapse of Russia, along with the closer international political and humanitarian ties that Russia’s war and Covid respectively are engendering.

And – not mentioned so far – the reining in of the multinationals, who gained enormously in power during the Pluto in Sag economic globalisation, such that they became in many ways answerable to no country, and often paid little or no tax. That has begun to change under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn: the bringing of proper governmental oversight to the wild west of the big tech industries. That process too has been its own globalisation, as many countries signed up to an agreement forcing the corporations to pay 15% tax. Yeah, only 15%. But it is a significant start.

Inequality soared as Pluto entered Capricorn under the 2009 economic crisis. Inequality soared again under the Covid economic crisis. Capricorn is a sign of hierarchy, and this has so far been an unfortunate outcome (bringing in a non-astrological value judgement) of Pluto’s transit through this sign. Admittedly, much of the increase in wealth is just on paper, it is asset inflation brought about by quantitative easing: house prices have gone up, and if you have a large house in London, your wealth will have gone up by what seems a lot. But you still own just one large house, which you live in. However, there remain real issues.

Hierarchy is inevitable, as realistic Capricorn, which values competence, recognises. But too much creates civil unrest. Humans do not like unfairness, and will not tolerate it beyond a certain point, even if they have enough food on the table. Whether our Saturn-Pluto era will see an addressing of this issue, or a hardening of it, remains to be seen.

The Ukraine and Uranus-Pluto

“Never believe anything until it is officially denied.” (John Pilger). Well the US has officially denied that events in the Ukraine amount to a battle between East and West. And as we all know, it is exactly that. Should the Ukraine be allied with Russia or the EU? The country is divided over the issue, and there is a sizeable ethnic Russian population that wants to stay with Russia. The outcome is not yet clear.

Astrologically, it is the latest in a series of Uranus-Pluto crises that have been afflicting the world. The 2 planets are moving towards another exact square (in April, the 5^th of 7) and the Ukrainian crisis has peaked, which often seems to be the way of it with these Uranus-Pluto transits: a month or two before the exact aspect happens, all hell breaks loose.

And the reason the world has its eyes on the country is precisely because it embodies the struggle between East and West, the remains of the Cold War, as Russia – like the UK before it – gradually loses influence to a level proportionate to its population and economic strength. But that is also why the US is saying that there is no battle, because in a sense there is none, Russia has already lost.

The Cold War officially ended in the second half of 1990, with Uranus and Neptune between 7 and 13 Capricorn (their conjunction was the main significator of those events), but the fact that Pluto is now transiting these points suggest that we are indeed seeing a revisitation of those times, maybe a clearing up of unfinished business.

Under Uranus-Pluto, underlying weaknesses or tensions that may have been brewing for years come to the surface and are fought out. Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, reveals the issues that have been cooking beneath the surface. Uranus the sky god facilitates their eruption and brings polarisation, radicalism and new solutions.

Under the current transit, the structures of power (Pluto in Capricorn) are challenged by the fresh vision, the new beginnings of Uranus in Aries. Politically, it’s not usually very pleasant. Sometimes, where there is great potential within the current forms, Uranus-Pluto can represent not a dissolution but an empowerment, dramatic growth, as we have seen with China.

I don’t think you need to see the chart of Ukraine to be pretty certain that Uranus-Pluto is transiting it in a major way. It’s one of those times where you think if this isn’t what is happening, then astrology doesn’t work!

Unlike the chart for an individual, the chart for a country is rarely a simple matter. At what moment was the country ‘born’? And which incarnation, which new constitution or newly regained independence shall we use? The Ukraine never seems to have had much in the way of a continuous independent existence, so the charts dating back to the break-up of the USSR seem as good as any.

And for that event, in Nick Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes, we find 2 charts. One for Ukraine’s declaration of independence on 24 Aug 1991, and one for a referendum confirming independence on 1 Dec 1991, at which point, we are told, with foreign recognition in place, it began to function ‘as a genuinely independent sovereign state’.

The first seems more of a legal, governmental decision/aspiration, the latter one that included all aspects of the newly-born state, and crucially the people.

If we use the USA as a precedent, then we find 2 parallel charts (as well as others). There was the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776, but 2 days before that Congress had already voted and agreed on the matter, so which day, let alone time, do we go with?

Popular practice has gone with the 4^th of July, when both legal and popular agreement had been addressed (though not decided on in a referendum).

Maybe there is a parallel with a human birth here: should the birth chart be for the moment the baby has begun to emerge from its mother (the proclamation of independence), or when it has left its mother (legal independence) or when it has begun to breathe (a functioning state?)

Maybe it depends what aspect of the country you are looking at, but I’m inclined to go with the final chart for a reading of the general state of the country, when legal and popular issues have been addressed, and foreign recognition is in place.

Anyway, here are the 2 charts:

I don’t know the national character of the Ukrainians, so I don’t know which chart describes them best, but one thing we do know is that they are a divided people, and both charts clearly express this: in the first chart, we see Uranus Rising, and in the second chart we see Uranus conjunct the North Node and square the MC. Uranus is at 10 Cap in both cases, and so currently subject to the Uranus-Pluto square.

With the division within the country so stark and so ethnic, a split is possible. It is difficult enough as an individual to feel at ease with yourself and society if you have a prominent Uranus, let alone if you are a large collective. 

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The UK (1801) has Uranus Rising square to the Sun, and I think that gives rise to contradictions within the country – such as the democratic impulse (Uranus) vs the strong class system and love of tradition and royalty (Sun in Capricorn) – and maybe that has a creative aspect, which is Uranus at its best. But it also suggests instability, and whether or not Scotland votes to become independent this year, devolution or even separation of parts of the UK has always been an issue, with Eire (gone), Northern Ireland (bound to go eventually), Wales and Scotland.

The current Solar Return Chart for the earlier chart for the Ukraine is very descriptive:

It doesn’t get much stronger than this, and maybe therefore the earlier birth chart is the one to go with for now, despite what I said earlier, until a possible re-birth of the country. Angular Neptune and Pluto, Uranus square the Asc, showing the powerful forces of struggle, protest and dissolution that both the government (Angular Sun opp Neptune) and people (Moon conj Uranus and square Pluto) are going through. It’s quite a remarkable chart.

Regardless of which is the best chart to use, the Aries Ingress chart for 2014 (in 3 weeks time) set for Kiev has Uranus, Pluto and Jupiter on the Angles. The October Libra Ingress (after which the current troubles began) had Neptune and Pluto on the Angles. So the revolution and unrest look set to continue for some time yet. Uranus in the upcoming Aries chart points to the issue of the country perhaps splitting.

The Ukraine is just one country having a crisis, but it is critical geo-politically, and so describes bigger themes within the Uranus-Pluto transit that the world is going through.

Since Uranus and Pluto began to approach each other back in about 2008 – the orb is a wide one with these long changes, these phase shifts, that the world goes through – we have had crisis after crisis, as any astrologer could have predicted, though their natures and the timings would not have been so easy to predict. All we know is the shape and rough timings of these big changes. (Which is just as well, because even with that sort of knowledge, astrological forecasting can be a hindrance to actually living through change.)

We have had the biggest financial crisis since the 30s, as the underlying weaknesses of ideologically driven ‘free market’ economics and in particular financial deregulation showed themselves (though we don’t seem to have learned much from it); there has been the Arab Spring, begun as a long overdue series of popular rebellions against western-leaning dictators, and which has turned into a death struggle between secularism and Islamism; the underlying weakness of the Euro - the attempt to achieve fiscal union without political union - led to a series of crises that have gone quiet for now, but remain

essentially unresolved; meanwhile the greatest economic expansion the world has ever seen, the modern rise of China, has continued apace and is gradually shifting the balance of world power. That said, China has itself built up huge internal debts as it attempted to tackle the world economic slowdown through government spending, and it may yet have its own crisis as Uranus-Pluto continues to run its course.

Meanwhile the US political crisis, a struggle that has been going on since the end of the Cold War, in which the right wing of the Republican party seems prepared to bring the country to its knees rather than let the Democrats govern, has ways to go, particularly as Pluto makes its exact oppositions to the US Sun this year and next.

Uranus and Pluto still have 3 exact crossings to make between now and March next year, and they will remain within orb for some time after that. The new shape of the world has yet to become clear, a shape that will remain until the next time 2 outer planets make a hard aspect, which will be Uranus square to Neptune in about 25 years’ time.

Uranus-Pluto Update

The square between Uranus and Pluto is the big transit that the world is going through right now. We only have these challenging angles between 2 outer planets every 20 or 30 years: the last one was the  Uranus-Neptune conjunction in the early 90s, when the Cold War ended. The world always goes through a phase shift under such transits.

The world, of course, is always changing. But change has a habit of being gradual, and then tipping over relatively rapidly into a whole new phase. We can see this in our personal lives, and we can see it in the world. And the rapid, pivotal periods generally correspond to hard outer planet transits.

All you know from these transits is the shape of the change, the principles underlying it, and the broad time period. You don’t know at what point major events will occur. Often they occur in the very early stages, like the 2008 financial crisis, when Uranus and Pluto still had 4 years to go before they would make an exact square. However, the inner planets often give clues as to timing. In 2008, Saturn was opposing Uranus, creating instability (Uranus) in the financial system (Saturn.) Five years later, we have Saturn and Pluto in mutual reception (each in the sign the other rules, a bit like a conjunction) and the West seems to be pulling out of the Great Recession. An empowerment (Pluto) of the foundations (Saturn), with both planets having a financial meaning.

Saturn is the planet that facilitates the expression of the outer planets, which are invisible to us, but not to Saturn, who is far out enough to see them.

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The next square between Uranus and Pluto is on 1^st November, and is the 4^th of 7 over a 3 year period. So we are approaching the mid-point. In last week’s piece I said that economically it appears to be over bar the shouting, with the crossings to come being a working through of the changes that have already happened.

But I think that was not quite trusting the astrology, because surely the central crossing of this inherently crisis-ridden transit will have some kind of peak to it, some kind of crisis which we will see in the run-up to it (which is when events tend to occur)? And sure enough, over the last week there have been political crises, with financial implications, in Italy and the US, both of which were inevitable.

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s conviction for fraud (about time) is threatening the stability of the government. Italy has a huge debt which has drifted onto the Eurozone back-burner, it is the elephant under the carpet. The smaller economies like Greece and Ireland and maybe even Spain were always bailable-outable, after an appropriate show of reluctance by the rest of the Eurozone. But not so Italy. The debt seems just about manageable if there is political stability. The next few weeks, in the run-up to the Uranus-Pluto square, are critical. (Since writing this, the political crisis seems to be over - for now. The government has survived a no-confidence vote.)

The next few weeks are also a bit nerve-wracking for the USA, due to political deadlock over the budget. The US has been here many times before, with government services being shut down due to a lack of funding. Beyond that, the US will soon have to raise its debt ceiling in order to pay its bills, and if there is not Congressional agreement before then, Obama will have to raise the debt ceiling on his own, like Clinton before him, and then fight his right to do so in the courts.

The cause of the deadlock is that the Republicans (who control the House of Representatives) won’t agree to the budget unless the funding for Obamacare is stripped. This is, of course, profoundly undemocratic, because Obamacare has been passed into law, so the Republicans are using the budget to try and neuter a law they don’t like. On the other hand, it’s how Congress works, and the Republicans see it as a moral issue, an unfair law.

And the US has been there before as well. Like in 1977, when the Senate wanted Medicare funds to be available for abortions where rape or incest had been involved, but the House didn’t. It was Democrat vs Democrat this time. It’s not all just nasty Republicans.

And then as now, there was a hard transit from Pluto to the US Sun at 14 Cancer. One outcome of this earlier transit was that from 1980, government workers were not paid during shutdowns. The US Sun is in the sign of Cancer, and it is square to natal Saturn, so the US looking after its own people, caring for them, is an ongoing issue which has been raised under both the last Pluto transits. Abortion can be argued from both sides, it is very complex – religion apart, is your priority the mother or the unborn baby? Is there right and wrong here? Is it about a governmental duty of care (the Cancerian Sun) or is it about the people's ‘rights’ (the American Aquarian Moon)?

Uranus-Pluto may be mid-way through its series of squares, but both planets have yet to aspect the US Sun at 14 Cancer. Pluto won’t exactly oppose until 2015. So there are ways to go. The transit is partly to do with the claims of business (Saturn) vs the needs of the people (Sun in Cancer). But it is also to do with power and government in the US, and the dysfunctionality that arises under the present system, when due to partisan politics, the government of the world’s most powerful country cannot even set a budget, one of its most basic duties. 

And there is a particular dysfunctionality that has been around since Clinton, which is the right wing of the republican party, the Tea party as it has become known. They were neo-cons before that. Under Clinton they did their best to undermine the President, convulsing the US in the very trivial Lewinsky affair and making the country look ridiculous.

So the present transit to the US Sun may be a time when this dysfunctionality is addressed. With the present shutdown, it seems that most people are blaming the Republicans. The next couple of years may see increasing attempts by the right to stop Obama governing, and consequently a popular turning away from what the right is trying to do.