Uranus-Pluto Crises

We’ve been here many times before with the showdown between the US President and Congress over the next year’s Federal Budget and raising the debt ceiling. It can lead to shutdowns of government departments until the money is there to run them. These shutdowns began under President Carter.

But we haven’t had one of these showdowns before under a Uranus square Pluto transit. These 2 planets will be within about a degree of an exact square until early August. Moody’s is considering downgrading US government debt from its AAA status on what it calls the low but not insignificant risk that the US government may default on some of its debt obligations. If the US government were to default, it would be under a transit such as this. It would have huge international ramifications.

Uranus-Pluto brings crisis followed by dramatic and far-reaching change. With these 2 planets being currently so close, it is not surprising that the crises are bigger than usual. The European debt crisis has escalated again, with several countries vulnerable to default. And it is no longer just minor economies like Greece and Portugal. Italy is now on the list.

The tightness of Uranus-Pluto suggests to me that the US budget crisis and the European crisis cannot be dealt with in the usual ways: more bail-outs in the case of Europe, and political compromise along with ever higher levels of debt in the case of the US. These crises, because they are happening under this major astrological aspect, can only be solved by deep structural change.

It’s like we’ve been moving towards this for some years now. Astrologers have known that with Pluto moving into Capricorn, to be squared by Uranus a few years later, deep change in the world economy was on the way. The stock market lurched almost to the day as Pluto first moved into Capricorn back in early 2008. Since then we have gone from lurch to lurch, seemingly staring into the economic abyss and pulling back each time with various rescue deals. But the crises keep coming back.

Uranus-Pluto says to me that something at some point is going to give. If it is not this year under the almost exact square, then it will be next year under the exact square. But the present sense of crisis will not ease until early August, when Uranus and Pluto begin to separate.

I said ‘economic abyss’, but that is just how something appears when you are resisting Pluto’s ministrations. Giving in to Pluto is never as bad as you think it is going to be. Pluto resides deep underground, and part of his function is to bring us down to earth. The western world needs to find a new basis for its economy, based on being less affluent than we used to be. Resources will have to be spread more widely to include the BRIC countries, and with their living standards going up, we cannot rely long term on cheap goods based on their cheap labour. Less affluent doesn’t necessarily mean less happy, but we have forgotten that. In some ways a major default might be a good thing, and the sooner the better.

The word crisis comes from the Greek krisis meaning ‘the turning point in a disease’. Astrologically, I’d say that turning point will happen some time in the next year. Pluto’s entry into Capricorn in 2008 was in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, which is economically favourable. The first exact square from Uranus to Pluto on 24 June next year also has a Venus-Jupiter conjunction. ‘Favourable’ is a relative term which in this case means we have merely had the Great Recession instead of the second Great Depression!

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is in crisis as well. This is also Uranus-Pluto. It is only one company, but it is the world’s second largest media conglomerate. It is iconic and influential, and the scandal is going to affect standards and practices across the journalistic world. This is what happens when capitalism is not properly regulated and scrutinised: its competitive nature means that there is strong pressure to do whatever it takes to beat your rivals, in this case getting news scoops by hacking dead people’s phones.

It is the same story that we saw with the banking industry: laissez faire under Pluto in Sag leading to crisis and regulation under Pluto in Capricorn.

America’s relations with Pakistan, a crucial ally, have also been in crisis since the raid which killed bin Laden. Again, it is only a difficulty between 2 countries, one of them not very powerful. But America’s continual infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty is pushing this nuclear-armed country more and more into the hands of the Islamists. And that would be very big indeed. Hillary Clinton described this prospect a while back as a ‘mortal threat’ to the international community.

So we are in major crisis season, as one would expect from a tight Uranus-Pluto aspect. Crises are turning points. You can only put off dealing with them for so long. Any that are not dealt with now will surely have to be dealt with in a year’s time, under the exact square.

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.