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.

 

 

Saturn-Pluto: Iran, the bushfires, Brexit and US-China relations

Quite a lot of people seem to have had the sense of major events in the offing, and this was before the current Iran thing. Any major event around now, because of its proximity to the Saturn-Pluto conjunction on Sunday, needs to be seen as indicative of the nature of this new cycle. 

The conjunction is coming not long after a lunar eclipse (on 10 Jan) which Bernadette Brady describes as "The sudden ending of associations or a relationship...there is a large emotional component, as Pluto is involved, and a sense of traumatic transformation."

IRAN

So the rewriting of the West's relationship to Iran could easily be in the offing. Iran has Uranus conjoining it's MC this year. Revolution. And the Saturn-Pluto conjunction is square to its natal Pluto, the final outcome of a long transit of Pluto to its Sun then to natal Pluto. The West could precipitate regime change in a way that works better than it did in Iraq, because Iran is not made up of 3 warring nations, and there is plenty of popular feeling against the current regime. It is the only way that might stop them attempting to build nuclear weapons, and this would be a significant outcome.

With the conjunction being in Capricorn, the re-setting of boundaries of all kinds seems likely, beginning at the top with the relationship between China and the US - in which Trump, to his credit, has already mitigated some of the unfairness in their trading relationship.

The Australian fires are also perhaps indicative that climate might move seriously onto the agenda, particularly if an era of co-operation between the US and China opens up in the aftermath of a major trade agreement. China is the worst polluter, but also in some ways the leader in alternative energy.

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Brexit is also a significant international event, and I think it points to a gradual revolution within the EU, the world's biggest economic bloc, that will set limits on its aspirations towards political union. This will be as Neptune hard-aspects the Angles of the EU chart in a few years time. And the lesson of Brexit for the world may be that you cannot produce genuine co-operation - which is much needed - by impinging on national sovereignty. It may turn out to have been timely.

What Donald Trump teaches us about Men and Women

You gotta watch Mars if you are watching Donald Trump. He has Mars Rising at 26 Leo, so it is fundamental to how he expresses himself. Combatively.

In April 2017, 3 months after his inauguration, and with Mars crossing his MC in Taurus and squaring his natal Mars, the US dropped 'the mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan. I'm sure there were good strategic reasons for the bomb, but it was also the Donald showing us what a man he is. I am more cautious these days about making character and motive assessments about politicians, because I don't know them personally. It is often so facile when people make these sorts of judgements, in ways they would not dream of doing about anyone else. But in this case I trust the astrology to tell me that there was something in it personally for Trump.

And again, I trust the astrology when I see that Mars was at the very end of Scorpio on 2nd Jan when the US took out the seniormost Iranian general. It was Scorpionic in that General Soleimani was a hugely symbolic figure for the Iranians, so the assassination struck at the heart of their power, and was designed to do so. But Mars was again square to Trump's natal Mars and conjunct his IC, so there was something personal in it for him too. Soleimani's Mars is at 26 Taurus, square to Donald's and conjunct Donald's MC. There was something personal in it for Soleimani too. He was a warrior who got killed as transiting Mars opposed his natal Mars. When else?

Trump was an extremely combative businessman before he became President. And I think it is worth remembering that the business world is essentially a warrior culture. That is where all our warriors go in peace time. Their uniform is the business suit and a tie that, heartlessly, cuts them off at the neck. OK, that might be stretching it, but we astrologers think symbolically, so why not. And when you think symbolically, you are thinking in stories, and treating them as real. And that is something we have forgotten, we think it is 'facts' that are real.

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Native American cultures recognised the tendency towards imbalance in men's warrior nature, and that is one reason they had the sweatlodges: to melt the warrior men out of their wills and their heads and their one-sided Mars' and into their hearts. What Trump needs is a sweatlodge everyday. Along with all the psychopathic CEOs. Warrior energy is necessary, and you naturally find more of it in men, and always have done. That is why most CEOs are men, and always will be. 

Anyone who thinks gender behaviour is just a social construct obviously never grew up in a farmyard like I did, where the differences are obvious. This 'just a social construct' view shows our alienation from the natural world. It is an ideology that is serving some other agenda.

So with Trump we have an opportunity to understand Mars without Venus. He has Venus on his arm in the form of Melania, who looks increasingly like a CGI. So he is in a way impressive, just like the US itself is impressive for building skyscrapers and putting a man on the moon. He is a lion who has built an empire. But it is also heartless and destructive. Trump, with his one-sided Mars, embodies the imbalance in our modern world. And the US elected such a person their President. 

I think it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Mars energy IS important, it IS impressive, it is natural to admire it. But it needs the Venus energy of women alongside it to ensure that all the things that Mars wants to do - and he is good at doing things - are done in the right way. That is what Venus does, and what women, I think, are often better at than men. Not all women and men, obviously. But I think as innate general characteristics it does hold true. Mars gets things done, Venus ensures they are done in the right way. Let men and women honour that in each other. Then we will have a balanced world. And let the Martian women and Venusian men also have their honoured place.

The problem with the world is NOT Mars. Mars is not 'toxic' - that view is just gender warfare. The problem is Mars without Venus.

And really we each need to find both Mars and Venus within ourselves. Gender is a provisional state, but we can't help starting out as partial beings wanting the other gender to do for us whatever we are missing. That is the main part of romance. It is not so much social conditioning as the human condition. 

But in midlife you see men encountering their Venus and women encountering their Mars. I see it all the time in astrological readings. So then the other gender can become an inspiration instead of a need. It is a huge process. And, in my opinion, it is where the transgender thing can be missing the point and missing an opportunity: the point, as Jan Morris said, is to become both, or even neither, not one or the other.

The Nuclear Axis

The ‘nuclear axis’ is due for another shake-up. The chart below is based on the first man-made sustained nuclear reaction, which took place in Chicago in 1942. What is immediately noticeable is the Saturn-Uranus conjunction: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn). These 2 planets are opposite the Sun, and 8 to 10 degrees of Gemini-Sag has become known as the nuclear axis. It has proved very sensitive to transits. When Hiroshima took place 3 years later, for example, Mars was at 9 Gemini. I first wrote about this in one of my earliest blogs in 2006.


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The early 60s, when Pluto in Virgo squared this axis, was at the height of MAD, or Mutual Assured Destruction, which involved the advent of ballistic missile submarines that ensured a 'second strike capability'.

In the early to mid seventies, Neptune in Sagittarius crossed this axis, and this was the time of the SALT I & II talks, which for the first time limited the nuclear arsenals of the USA and the USSR.

In the late nineties, Pluto in Sagittarius crossed this axis, and this was the time when India and Pakistan came out as nuclear powers, beginning a new era of proliferation.

Next year, Neptune will enter Pisces, squaring by sign the nuclear axis. It will be 7 degrees off, but that is close enough for a hard aspect from Pluto or Neptune to be operative, as it was in the early seventies when Neptune entered Sagittarius.

So far, it seems, the hard Pluto transits have been about proliferation and stand-offs, whereas the one hard Neptune transit we have had has been about containment and reduction of the nuclear threat.

So we are about to enter another Neptune period, and it seems to me that it is again going to be about containment, after a period of proliferation that has drawn in North Korea as well as India and Pakistan, and in which attempts are being made to stop Iran joining the club.

The issue of nuclear arms does, paradoxically, seem to be one that can draw the major powers together. What I’d expect to see over the next 10 years, as Neptune does his work, is for Iran to be stopped from developing nuclear weapons, and for India and Pakistan to be drawn in more formally into agreements on limiting nuclear weapons. As for North Korea, the ‘zombie state’, and the ‘special case’ of Israel, it is hard to say.

If we take the Solar Returns for the Nuclear Chart, the year 2012 looks very interesting, with a Pluto-Venus conjunction on the ASC, trine to Jupiter on the IC. So in 2 years time I think we could see some real progress on containing nuclear weapons.


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The Fixed Stars around the birth of nuclear energy are a bit spooky. In particular, Algol was closely conjunct the ASC. Traditionally, this was the most evil star of all. I don't know what the more modern psychological interpretation is, but Brady gives it the meaning of female passion and intensity. I think I'll stick with the traditional meaning, because nuclear energy is about the most ill-omened event ever to have occurred.

The star Regulus is conjunct the Chiron-Node conjunction in Leo. Nuclear energy is something that once done cannot be undone, and it is very tied up with our destiny and where human curiosity and reason can lead us, and how it can be our undoing. Regulus is one of the Royal Stars and is in the constellation Leo. Brady's meaning is success if revenge is avoided, which sounds about right: success if nuclear energy is only used for peaceful purposes.

Pluto in Capricorn: religious extremism as political reality

In the economic world, Pluto’s move into Capricorn is proving to be a corrective to Pluto in Sagittarius: the financial excesses of recent years have led to a dramatic contraction in the world economy, and a re-think about how the money-men should conduct themselves.

In the religious world, however, particularly that of conservative Islam, Pluto’s move into Capricorn does not seem to be providing a corrective to the excesses of recent years. Rather, fundamentalist Islam seems in some places to be slowly establishing itself as a political norm, which is also a meaning of Pluto in Capricorn.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been making big gains, which is why the US is sending more troops. The war in Afghanistan was announced by President Bush on 7 Oct 2001 at 5pm. Like the chart for the invasion of Iraq, the Saturn-Pluto opposition is lined up along the MC-IC, just as it was lined up along the US Asc-Desc on 9/11, linking all 3 events together. A 'personal' event (ASC) unfolded into 2 very public ones on the world stage (MC).

The Afghan invasion chart has a close Sun-Mars-Jupiter Cardinal t-square, and I think it is plausible to say that the war will be decided one way or another around 2016/17 when Pluto transits this t-square. I think Mars can be a good starting point when looking at the charts for wars.


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In Pakistan, parts of its borders with Afghanistan have been effectively ruled by the Taliban and Al Qaeda for some time now. This is why from time to time we read about American missile strikes on these areas. An unintended consequence of these strikes, according to some analysts, has been to drive the Taliban base camps further into Pakistan.

A new development on Monday was the Pakistan government ceding control to the Taliban of the Swat Valley, which is only 100 miles from Karachi. This seems to me to be of huge significance, because it is not just a semi-autonomous tribal area. Pakistan has a weak government, and a President with a history of corruption. It is under a lot of internal pressure from militant Islam.


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Pakistan is at the end of a Neptune opposition to its Sun, which describes the dissolution process it has been through over the last 18 months as Musharraf, its military ruler who was just about holding it all together, ceded power to a democratically elected but ineffectual government. The natal Sun is in a wide conjunction to Saturn-Pluto, all of which square Angular Jupiter in Scorpio. So there is a natural tendency in the country to head towards not just the military rule which has characterised most of its existence, but also rule by religious extremists (Jupiter in Scorpio), a destiny it has not yet fulfilled, but may well do so in coming years.

So what was seen as religious extremism under Pluto in Sag may become political reality under Pluto in Capricorn, not just in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan, but also in Iran through its development of nuclear weapons, a process the West now seems unable to stop. In going for the wrong target, which was Iraq, George Bush weakened his standing to such an extent that he was not able to go after the right target, which was Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

As for Iraq, it would seem to me that the long-term result will have been to replace oppression of Shias by Sunnis, with oppression of Sunnis by Shias. Iraq will become a natural ally of its neighbour Iran, which is also Shia, a branch of Islam which is in the minority in the Muslim world, but which will gain in standing due to Iran’s ascendancy and its alliance with Iraq.


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The US handed over power to a new Iraqi government at 9.26am on 28 June 2004. The Sun-Moon-angular Uranus Grand Trine suggests to me a natural instability and fragility which is unlikely to last much beyond the departure of US troops. Obama intends this departure to be soon, and the major transits of Pluto to the Sun and Neptune to the MC over the next couple of years reflect this major shift that seems likely to happen. Pluto will also be conjoining the Mars of the Iraq War chart around the same time, bringing the war to a close. There is no reason to suppose that militant Islam will not also make advances in Iraq as the US presence recedes.