ISRAEL and IRAN

Whatever you think of the way Israel is dealing with the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, the snake's head that they need to remove is the regime in Iran, which is funding both Hamas and Hezbollah. All these entities want to exterminate the Jewish race, as the Oct 7th 2023 attack, which provoked the war, showed very clearly. 

On 22nd Oct, Mars will cross the Israeli MC. I expect the retaliation against the Iranian missile attack to occur shortly before that date, to maximise its effect on the US election, so as to favour Trump. Mars will cross the Israeli 10th House Leo Moon in late November, shortly before going retrograde. We can expect maximum military activity from Israel until then, followed by a re-grouping, as Israel's Leonine pre-eminence in the region sinks in.

 

THE STRANGE ASTROLOGY OF THE US ELECTION

It is strange that neither US Presidential candidate has much in the way of major transits to lend power to the coming Presidency. Just a bit of Uranus. Meanwhile in 2025/26 the US Sibly chart will have Saturn and Neptune conjunct the IC, followed by a Uranus Return opposite the Asc. I don't know what it means, but it's very big. It's as though whoever wins will not be President for long, and something else, for better or for worse, will happen that will usher in a new era. Astrologically, Harris is just about the better bet to win, IMO.

 

In 1860/61 there were, remarkably, the same 2 transits from Neptune and Uranus to the Sibly Chart. They ushered in the Civil War and the end of slavery. This time Saturn is involved too. It makes me think 'nervous breakdown', as the country's political polarisation intensifies.

 

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Prediction: the most significant event for humanity under the coming Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries, will be Elon's Starship landing on Mars.

 

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Over time Saturn lends us substance, and at the same time leads us to doubt it.

 

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The limitations of material existence are, from Saturn's point of view, to be worked with, to create a vessel for the spirit. From Chiron's point of view, those limitations are to be accepted as inherent, and as a prompt to turn our gaze to the outer planets.

 

Chiron is the crack in the earth, through which the oil riches pour upwards from the depths. Saturn is the rig at the surface that makes something of them.

 

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SATURN-NEPTUNE AND THE 'I' WORD

I think the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the start of Aries in 25/26 will have everything to do with an uprising, probably quite ugly, against the uncontrolled immigration in both the US and Europe. Protest (Aries) against porous (Neptune) borders (Saturn). This is supported by the fact that it is politically impossible to talk about. If you try to talk about it, you get dismissed as 'far-right', a now meaningless term.The issue we cannot even mention in the UK is Muslims and any problems there might be with that section of the population. When something cannot be talked about, trouble is on its way. 

 

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction will be bang on the IC for the US Sibly chart, the homeland symbolism being perfect for this issue. It's why I think Harris will probably win. If Trump wins, he will defuse the issue by continuing with the wall. The astrology does not look like it will be defused. Saturn and Neptune will not be far behind in starting to hard aspect the Sun, Moon and Angles of the UK chart.

 

 NATURE, NURTURE & KARMA

There's Nature, there's Nurture and there's Karma. Karma is the most powerful factor in who we are. Astrology, through it's concept of the Nodes, understands this. Indeed, the 'evolutionary' astrologers centre their chart interpretation around the Nodes. They are probably right to do so, but wrong to call themselves 'evolutionary', for the soul is not 'going' anywhere. Indigenous people think cyclically, and astrology thinks cyclically, whereas the idea of evolution is linear and hierarchical, a product of the mind alienated from nature.

With its insight, through the Nodes, that who we are is essentially a profound mystery, astrology is the best antidote to modern psychotherapy, which reduces the individual to an effect of her childhood. And to science, psychotherapy's watchful elder brother, which reduces the individual to an effect of DNA and environment.

We are cause, not effect, driven to live out the rich patterning of the North Node.

 

 

 

 

ISRAEL, THE NUCLEAR CHART and IRAN'S MID-LIFE CRISIS

Scorpio is the sign presiding over the current Middle East conflict, suggesting a side to it that is hidden. An obvious place to look is Iran. I am thinking of an unspoken nuclear threat from Israel.

Some technicalities. Natally: Iran's Moon in Gemini is on the 'nuclear axis', as it is known, of the chart for the 1st nuclear chain reaction. Its Uranus at 20 Scorpio is 1/2 a degree off the nuclear Mars. 

 

By transit: The lunar eclipse of 28th Oct was on Iran's Chiron/MC. The New Moon of 13th November has Sun, Moon and Mars all on Iran's Uranus/the nuclear Mars, and on the MC too in Tel Aviv, while the MC in Tehran will be on the nuclear axis. All opposite transiting Uranus, giving Iran a Uranus opposition, a mid-life crisis, in which this New Moon will be a key point.

We know that Iran is implicated in this conflict. Trump warned Biden some time ago not to unfreeze $6bn of Iranian funds, because they would use it for terrorism. I know a lot of people cannot accept that Trump can be right about anything, but that is their own wilful blindness. We are seeing the results of Biden ignoring Trump's advice right now.

This Scorpionic war is about survival for Israel, Mars in Scorpio being defensive rather than offensive. The bogeyman behind the war, Iran, denies Israel's right to exist. I don't think Israel would hesitate to use nuclear weapons to take out Iran's deep underground nuclear facilities if it felt there was an imminent likelihood of them having nuclear weapons.

I am not concerned that there will be major escalation of this conflict. What can anyone in the region do against Israel backed by the US? Iran would be obliterated, and knows it, and the astrology suggests a nuclear dimension to that awareness.

There is another chart for Iran, the symbolic founding of the Islamic republic, based on when Khomeini returned from exile on Feb 1 1979. It similarly has a Uranus opposition, but here Uranus rules the Aquarian Sun, enlarging its scope. And in the next few years, Neptune will hard-aspect all its Angles.

So even though there are gruelling Scorpionic times to go through in the short-term, I am hopeful that it will lead to long-term change in Iran, as its Aquarian religious fundamentalism is shaken by Uranus, and its incarnation through the Angles is dissolved by Neptune.

After that, maybe, the Abraham accords, which began under Trump as a way of normalising Israel's relations with the Arab world, can be revived. They were low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked, and Biden ignored them, because they were Trump's achievement. By enabling this war, which was always going to be hopeless for Hamas, Iran has achieved the wider objective of halting, for now, any possible return to these accords.

 

 

SATURN GOES DIRECT

 

Saturn will go Direct on Sat 4th Nov, after 5 months in retreat. You can probably feel it already. It is time to begin incarnating those nebulous Saturn in Pisces dreams, step by steady step, for that is Saturn's way. You don't have to know the goal, just the next step. Things are starting to become concrete, you know where you stand, what you want. Trust (Pisces) in whatever is or is not (Saturn).

 

 

THE ASTROLOGICAL TASK OF OUR AGE 

The chart below is for the day that Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published. It tells us something important about the theory of Evolution, for the Sun was in Sagittarius: namely that this theory is a belief (Sag) rather than a fact (Gemini). The Sun is opposite Uranus in Gemini, showing the ground-breaking nature of the theory, but also the presence of a trickster in the form of reason. 

 

The word 'fact' is nowadays used to give authority to scientific beliefs, in the same way that 'God' or 'the Bible' was used as authority for religious beliefs in the middle ages. But what is the world apart from our collection of beliefs and interpretations about it, as created by the brain, itself an artefact of our perception? As astrologers, we use sky stories, and they work. That is good enough for us. And it should be enough for science that science works. 

 

The bigger astrological theme around this state of affairs is the 490 year Neptune-Pluto cycle, the presiding influence, the context for all other astrological considerations. The last conjunction, in 1891, was in Gemini, as was the one before it. So we live in a Gemini Age: an age of facts. It is hard, by definition, for us to see collectively the shadow of that, which is the opposite sign of Sagittarius. 

 

Have you noticed how upset and angry people can get if you question eg the climate crisis narrative? It shows that they feel their belief system to be under attack. This does not make them right or wrong about climate. It is that it has become a belief that tells them who they are, that I am pointing out. It is the Sagittarius shadow of their Gemini scientific facts. 

 

Returning to the theme of Evolution, it has to be said that it is a good story and a useful story. But its mechanism is a mathematical impossibility. It is like the monkey at the typewriter producing Shakespeare. Life has such a complexity at the cellular level that it could not have happened in the time available. (Watch mathematician David Berlinski on this) So around the story of Evolution remains the bigger mystery of life and its origins. 

 

There is nothing wrong with beliefs. We need them. The point is to be conscious of them, to choose them. Don't treat them as ultimate statements about the universe. Then you will have Sag and Gemini in balance: you will have accomplished the astrological task of our age. 

 

The collective can't help but have beliefs that are to an extent rigid. Our job is not to buy into that, but dance around them. As astrologers, our task is Uranian: to be the skilful trickster who can open up other, softer and more whole ways of seeing, without provoking a reaction.

 

 

URANUS-PLUTO and ENVIRONMENTALISM

The Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo of the 1960s is as good a place as any, astrologically, to trace the beginnings of modern environmentalism. There is the deep feminine, as found in the cycles of the natural world, Virgo as nature goddess: she gives us the power to live, and that is Pluto. It is Virgoan nature, which is seen as pristine, fragile and in need of our protection, rather than nature red in tooth and claw, which is more like Scorpio.

Then there is the counter-cultural rebellion aspect, which is Uranus, that often brings its own anti-authority, anti-technology, anti-capitalist and even anti-humanity undercurrents, that has little to do with environmentalism, but uses it.

And there is the hair-shirt aspect of Virgo, which understands sufficiency and the inner joy to be found in moderation, but can go too far in her renunciation of the world: we see this at its most extreme in the reckless 'Just Stop Oil' attitude. The shadow of Virgo is compassionate Pisces, which would not be denying western levels of prosperity to Africa, by restricting their use of oil, as has been the case for many years now.

The apocalyptic thinking around the environment is very Uranus-Pluto also: a disaster (Uranus) that threatens our survival (Pluto).

The environmental movement is a complex thing; it is like a religion in many ways, and I think a lot of it can be unpacked using this 1960s conjunction.