Neptune and Collective Mythologies

In a strange way, the world becomes what we collectively imagine it to be. You could say this is a definition of mythology. We have stories about ourselves, about the world and about the universe. Science, which provides the modern worldview, is no different. It has 2 big Creation Myths: the Big Bang (the Universe) and Evolution (Life). It also believes that its stories are not stories, unlike every other culture’s stories.

The assumptions behind the science story (at its worst) are that the universe is a material object ‘out there’ to be studied, that it is fully comprehensible by human reason alone and that it is inanimate and indifferent to us. Any other stories are the product of primitive minds. Huge, cold assumptions.

Jupiter is the planet of story-telling. But I think that Neptune, the planet of the Imagination, is the ocean out of which the stories are picked. Neptune is that place where consciousness and matter merge, where it becomes obvious that you cannot separate human consciousness and the universe that consciousness is always trying to understand and describe.

So our stories in a sense create the world, and it makes Neptune a very fundamental planet. We usually think of Neptune as fashion, as addiction, as creativity, as redemption, as a sense of connectedness. And all this is true. But underneath it all Neptune describes the sort of world in which all this takes place, the sort of world that the collective imagination has in fact created. It may be a beautiful, harmonious vision of the universe in which humanity and nature live in balance and flourish.

Or it may be a nightmare vision of master races and dominance of nature by divine edict. I think that in the West we probably have to go back to pre-Christian times to find a healthy collective mythology. We have forgotten what it is like.

Neptune was discovered in 1846, so its placement then tells us a lot about the world people imagined they lived in at the time. The Discovery chart (see below) has Neptune stationing conjunct Saturn in the 10th House at 26 Aquarius. So the Universe was becoming scientific (Aquarius), with man, rather than God, at the top of it. Aquarius supports humanity’s intellectual gifts, but is also prone to hubris. Prometheus was a very Aquarian figure. He brought all sorts of gifts to mankind, and Zeus told him not to bring Fire, but he did, and was punished for it. Prometheus had a disregard for Zeus as the embodiment of the laws of nature.

1846 was before Darwin’s book on the Origin of Species was published, but the idea of Evolution was already becoming known and gaining credibility in the academic world. So it was entering the collective imagination, and is well described by Neptune in Aquarius. Evolution is a scientific Creation Myth that puts Man at the pinnacle of Creation, continuing the sense of dominance over nature that was granted by the God of the Old Testament. Neptune’s close conjunction to Saturn in the 10th House reinforces this sense of dominance. Neptune stationing (standing still) is like him staring at us, saying you really need to look at this.

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In the last few years we have had the 1st Neptune Return, in the sense of Neptune reaching the place it was in when it was discovered. We have just had one full Neptune cycle of Science as our underlying collective mythology. So it is not surprising that the imbalances of that mythology are becoming clearer, that we are living in a time when we can no longer ignore the sense of dominance over nature that we have inherited from Christianity, and then had compounded by Science. We are collectively in the position of Prometheus with his liver being pecked out afresh every day.

A healthy mythology has stories about the consequences of humanity’s innate tendency to get above itself. Hubris and its consequences are fundamental to ancient Greek Mythology. You find it also in the Chippewa Cree stories in the figure of Wisahitsa, a figure of fun who is always getting tripped up by his own self-importance. But an understanding of hubris is not part of our modern mythology, which is full of pride at human achievement, at how clever we are.

The Big Bang is the other modern Creation Myth, and that began to gain acceptance in the 1960s, while Neptune was in Scorpio. That is the perfect sign for the Big Bang. Under Scorpio, or Pluto transits, seeds are planted that turn out to have tremendous power, and that is exactly what the Big Bang was. A singularity giving rise to the whole Universe. It is interesting that the Christian Era also began under Neptune in Scorpio, and that has the Creation Myth of God creating the world out of nothing.

The fact that Neptune was discovered under Aquarius suggests that the Myth we need to pay most attention to is the one behind the Big Bang and Evolution, which is the Myth of Science itself and its approach to knowledge, as well as its placement suggesting power and dominance. And it is first of all important to recognise that it is a Myth, in the sense of an underlying story that we have collectively created. This is hard to do, because it is so much presented to us as an undeniable reality. But any Myth worth its salt will have this quality of believability.

Years ago I read a short book called ‘The World is as You Dream It’ by John Perkins. It was based on his experiences with South American Indians, and the title is self-explanatory. Perkins was arguing for the need to re-dream western culture – that, if you like, a new mythology is needed. And I think the Neptune Return is also telling us this.

Neptune changes sign every 14 years or so, describing the ongoing shifts in the stories we tell ourselves about the world we are in. A mere change of sign doesn’t point to a fundamental change in mythology, you need to discover Neptune for that! For some of the significant changes, you probably also need to look at the Progressed Neptune chart, and the changes in direction of Prog Neptune, or the progressed new Moons, for example. In the early 1930s, Prog Neptune reached the position it was in when it was discovered, and there was also a Prog New Moon. And this was the time that Japan and Germany’s master race mythologies changed the world.

Neptune will change sign into Pisces on 3rd/4th April (depending on where you live). There is no reason to suppose it will re-dream the whole of western culture, but coming hard on the heels of the Neptune Return, and being in its own sign of Pisces, it may well be more notable than most.

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In the last 3 years we have seen both Pluto and Uranus change signs, and this has been quite dramatic. Within days of the 1st Pluto Ingress (entry into a sign) into Capricorn in January 2008, the Stock Market began to rock and the financial crisis got seriously underway. Pluto is a god of wealth, and so rules the economy. On Uranus’ last day in Pisces earlier this month, there was the biggest recorded earthquake in Japan followed by a tsunami. On his 1st day in Aries (his 2nd and final Ingress), there was an explosion at a Japanese nuclear plant affected by the earthquake.

The Ingresses are not always dramatic, but they remind you that these planets and their signs are real things, that the meaning of human affairs is to be found in the heavens.

The chart for Neptune’s Ingress into Pisces has six planets, including a New Moon, in Aries. This suggests to me that, while our basic mythology may not change, there will still be some big changes to the way we see the world. Neptune in Capricorn, which began in the mid-1980s, was an era in which money (Capricorn) became fashionable (Neptune). Neptune in Aquarius, which began in the late 1990s, began the Internet Age: Aquarius is computers and Neptune is the interconnectedness of the web. Neptune in Pisces. Who knows?

Events near the Ingress can be suggestive. A tsunami occurs in Japan, and the whole world feels involved. The major powers are acting in concert to help the people of Libya. Globalisation – the connectedness of Neptune – may move on a step from just business convenience, the globalisation of Neptune in Capricorn; and electronic friendships, the globalisation of Neptune in Aquarius. Humanity may begin to identify more with the world as a whole. There is a nuclear accident in Japan, no-one has died from it, but both Germany and China call a halt to their nuclear programmes. That halt may not last, but it shows how sensitive we have become collectively. Even China, which has an autocratic government that doesn’t have to pay too much attention to its people. If nuclear power takes a hit, and we all know that oil is ultimately limited, then that means we are starting to tell ourselves a different story about our relationship to the earth, that we are planning to move towards clean, renewable sources. Not only is that sensible for practical reasons, but it creates a new mythology in which we can no longer dominate in the way we have become used to. It means we can only take from the earth that which she can renew, which our ancestors – and anyone with half a brain – always knew. But it is not just knowledge, it re- creates a feeling relationship that has been forgotten. And when you have knowledge and feeling working as one, then you have a new imaginative relationship, you have a new mythology. So I think that Neptune in Pisces will bring this in to some extent, even in the USA (which is notable for not changing its nuclear policy and not wanting to curb its greenhouse gases.)

How Astrology Works

10 days ago I did an interview which was published at another blog, John Barleycorn Must Die. I was asked at one point how Astrology works, and my answer was that it works because the Universe has a mysterious way of becoming what we think it to be. The Scientific Universe is not ‘objective’; it is that people have thought of the Universe as a Scientific Reality, and it has become that. And the same with Astrology. That is why Astrology works. Matter and Consciousness are intimately connected.

But then you are left with the problem that sometimes what you think is Reality, is clearly not so. It is delusional. When do your thoughts shape reality, and when are you merely caught up in a fantasy?

I think the key idea here is the Imagination, the Mundus. According to William Blake, Imagination is Reality. The original idea of finding meaning in the heavens, of relating celestial and earthly events, would have been awe-inspiring. Astrology therefore has its roots in the Imagination, and to that extent is real. When that sense of wonder is lost, when your interpretation is not fresh and you are merely reciting standardised meanings, then you could say it has become a delusion, in the same way that formalised religion is often a delusion. And that doesn’t mean people won’t continue to pay you good money and think you’re a great astrologer!

And I would apply the same to Science. Think of the awe Copernicus must have felt when he discovered that God had created this elegant sun-centred solar system, and how divine Reason, that made this discovery, must have seemed.

You take the awe out of it, and put rats through mazes in a lab, and what you have instead is a coherent, but disenchanted, universe; it has a certain logic, but is also a case of the shadows passing Plato’s Cave, that the inhabitants mistake for Reality.

So Reality doesn't reside in a system of knowledge that can be argued about. It is instead something to be perceived when the Imagination is awake. And it has a force that carries people with it, because somewhere we know it to be true, it speaks to us. Astrology as a system can seem barking mad, it seems ridiculous from a certain perspective. So I'm not surprised when people try to dismiss it. But when you see heavenly and earthly events line up, it can touch something primordial and awe-inspiring; the chattering mind is swept aside because you know something real has happened.

If you want to make an argument for Astrology, then you need somehow to communicate that sense of awe if you want to get anywhere. 17 days ago, on the last day of Uranus' (sudden disruptive events) 7 year stay in Pisces, a tsunami (the ocean/Pisces) hit Japan. The next day, Uranus' 1st day in fiery Aries, a nuclear plant exploded in Japan as a result of the tsunami.

And it's the same with the Tarot. On the face of it, it seems ridiculous. But the symbols in it speak to us, and that makes the Tarot real. If the symbols speak to the reader, then what he/she says will be true. It's not something that can be proved; it has to be experienced.

It is interesting how what seems like common sense and what is actually real can be so at odds with one another. Scientific reality, with its string of practical successes, has come to seem like the standard by which all other forms of knowledge need to be judged. Astrology, from this point of view, seems like nonsense. And that is what the intelligent man-on-the-Clapham-Omnibus is likely to think. And yet, if your Imagination is awake, it likely to seem the other way round. It's probably always been like this, in one way or another. 700 years ago it was common sense that the God of the Old Testament existed and the Bible was true. People genuinely thought there was something wrong with you if you didn't think like this. In the West we are used to thinking in Absolute Truths.

Consensus reality is easy, because it is based on someone else telling you how things are, you have the security of everyone else thinking the same, and you don't have to work at it. And you are quite unconscious that this is what you are doing. And it is always the minority who question this reality, and who probably provided its imaginative basis in the first place, before it became literalised and prescriptive.

I once suggested to a Chippewa-Cree friend, who is a story teller, that surely his people are the same with their Creation Myths, they get absolutised. And he said no, they have a number of conflicting Creation Myths in their tradition, and that stops this happening. That is why I think there is something to be said for teaching Intelligent Design, as well as Evolution, in American schools. Not because I think Intelligent Design is true - I don't - but because it gives the children more than one story about how people came about. You have 2 opposing stories that have become fundamentalised here, but paradoxically you could create questioning and open-mindedness out of their conflict.

The Charts for Neptune, Pluto and Chiron: Are they trying to tell us something?

First of all, a correction to my last piece. It seems that the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in Libya should be dated 1st Sept 1969, not 3rd Sept, as the worthy Book of World Horoscopes states. Fortunately, it makes little difference to my analysis, as it is only the Moon that shifts position, and it means that the May New Moon, rather than the April New Moon, is now the most significant one for the people (the Moon) of Libya.

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Technically, it means that instead of the MC of the April New Moon conjoining the Libyan natal Moon, we have the New Moon itself in May conjoining the Libyan natal Moon-Saturn. This is stronger, but it means the people will have to wait a bit longer to be in charge.

What I really wanted to do was to ramble a bit about the outer planets, so here goes. The outer planets have charts just like we do, for they were discovered at particular recorded moments. Of course, they existed before that (depending on your philosophical position – right now I’m in a mood to say they didn’t exist before that!) So the charts are as much about humanity’s relationship with these planets as they are about the planets themselves. And surely the Signs and Houses that Neptune and Pluto were in when they were discovered are of significance. It means that these planets have a particular meaning for us, as well as the more general meaning that Pluto has as Lord of the Underworld, and that Neptune, as god of the sea, also has.

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When Pluto was discovered in 1930, he was in Cancer and in the 12th House. We should also consider the Sun, because that is the body around which Pluto revolves. The Sun was in Aquarius, in Pluto’s House, the 8th. So we have messages here about the earth herself (Cancer), destruction (Pluto), this being hidden (8th/12th), as well as it being an issue for the collective in the widest sense (12th House). The Sun in Aquarius brings in Science and its darker side (8th House.)

The Plutonian Sun at 29 Aquarius is opposite Neptune in Virgo, as well as conjunct the Neptune of the Neptune chart, which is at 26 Aquarius. Neptune tells us what we find fascinating and glamorous and entrancing, and in these 2 cases it is in Aquarius as the scientific vision for the future, and in Virgo as the technology that follows in its wake.

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Neptune in the Neptune chart is conjunct Saturn and in the 10th house. It was discovered in 1846 as Science and the technology it resulted in was really getting into its stride. There is a huge amount of scientific ambition around Saturn in Aquarius in the 10th, and Neptune suggests both the imaginative engagement and the entrancement involved.
Pluto in the Neptune Chart is opposite the North Node, and Venus in technological Virgo disposits the Sun in Libra, which seeks balance.

So there are a number of important crossovers and repeated themes in these charts to do with the earth, its destruction, and entrancement with science and technology.

In addition, and this is quite remarkable, the 2 planets most associated with the natural world are the Moon and Ceres. The Moons of both charts conjoin (in Pluto's sign) and the Ceres of the 2 charts conjoin. If that isn't a pointer, I don't know what is! Pluto was discovered at the Lunar and Ceres Returns of the Neptune chart.

The basic 2 astrological signatures here, though, are Pluto in Cancer and Neptune in Aquarius, which can be seen as fascination with science followed by the destruction of nature (Neptune was discovered first.)

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If we take a composite of the 2 charts, we find Uranus (Science) in the ambitious 10th House in square to Cancer (the earth herself) on the Ascendant. Chiron conjoins the North Node, as it does in the chart of Pluto and in the chart for the first controlled nuclear reaction. This aspect warns of a damage that cannot be undone, an approach that is inherently out of balance. Chiron is also opposite scientifically ambitious Saturn in Aquarius. Ceres conjoins Pluto and the Moon (ruler of Cancer) is in Pluto’s sign, and inconjunct Uranus – again bringing together the themes of the earth, destruction and science.

In the last year or two, Neptune has for the first time reached the position in which it was discovered. And in about 5 years Pluto will for the first time reach a point of opposition to its natal position. So there is a reckoning happening; the environmental issue and its relation to our scientific genius is coming to a head.

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Chiron, an asteroid associated with both healing and wounding, was discovered on 1 Nov 1977, and was in the 4th House (Cancer's House) in Taurus (an earth-loving sign). As with Neptune, Pluto was Nodal, and also on the Midheaven, in the sign of Libra, of balance. Ceres and Sun-Uranus were in Pluto's sign, and the Moon was in its own sign of Cancer, square to Pluto and the Node. So again we have the themes of science, the earth and its destruction. Nodal Pluto on the MC square to the Cancerian Moon seems to me to point to an urgency in the situation.

At the same time, this chart seems to point to a resolution, a healing. Chiron is opposite an exalted Uranus (Science) in Scorpio, which with the Sun is in trine to the Moon and exalted Jupiter in Cancer. Sun-Uranus trine Moon-Jupiter suggests a basic harmony, a harmony between nature (the Moon) and Science (Uranus), but only after Science has undergone the dismemberment and transformation that Scorpio requires. Science tends to be heady, it can easily ignore the values of the natural world. Scorpio stands for the necessary re-balancing, but not in a 'nice' way. It is about getting real. Scorpio can be savage in its transformation and takes no prisoners. It suggests that there can indeed be a healing, a re-balancing, but only after we have thoroughly undone ourselves. So the Chiron chart is urgent yet optimistic, it says things can be sorted quite easily - but we have to enter the darkness first.

That said, I don't think that we have to view 'the darkness' as some extra horrid thing that we haven't encountered yet. We are already in it, if you look at the amount of natural destruction, and the consequences of that, that have happened already. And as I said earlier, we have just had the first Neptune Return and are about to have the first Pluto opposition. After that comes the first Chiron Return. So we are probably already in that Scorpionic crucible.

The Japanese Nuclear Explosion

The chart for the 1st controlled nuclear reaction, on 2 Dec 1942, has the Sun at 10 Sagittarius opposite a Saturn-Uranus conjunction at 9 and 2 Gemini. 8 to 10 degrees of Sagittarius-Gemini has proved very sensitive to transits over the years, and has since become known as the NUCLEAR AXIS.

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The astrology is impressive: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn) to create the energy which powers the Sun. OK, the Sun runs on fusion not fission, but it’s still from the heart of the atom. The chart for Hiroshima, the first aggressive use of nuclear power, has Mars at 11 Gemini - conjunct the nuclear axis. And conjunct Uranus. Astrology really does work!

This morning there was a huge explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant as a result of yesterday’s earthquake, the biggest recorded in Japan. And Uranus entered Aries last night.

In an earlier edition of this post, I put the time of the explosion as 16:50. It was a fantastic chart, but unfortunately it turns out to have been 15:36!

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As you can see, the Moon at 13 Gemini conjoins the Nuclear Axis, and Mars at 13 Pisces (symbolising the explosion) squares both the Moon and the Nuclear Axis. The MC-IC of this chart (the line from top to bottom) conjoins the Asc-Desc (the line from left to right) of the Nuclear Chart. And the Asc-Desc of the Explosion Chart has the same signs as the MC-IC of the Nuclear Chart. That is significant symmetry. And here's a bit of a whopper: the Nuclear Mars at 21 Scorpio is opposite the MC of the explosion chart to within less than half a degree. Scorpio is secretive, so the explosion may well have been nastier than we think.

So there is a lot of synastry here, making it is a very significant nuclear event. Officials are denying there will be a nuclear meltdown at the plant, just as they were denying there was much of a problem before the explosion. With the nuclear axis signified on the chart, as well as the other synastry, and with explosive Uranus having just changed sign into Aries of all places, further unfoldment seems likely. Since writing this, fears have arisen of a second explosion at the reactor. Astrologically, a meltdown cannot be ruled out. Again because the nuclear axis has been activated, the event is likely to have a major effect on nuclear policy. E.g. not putting nuclear power stations in an earthquake zone!

The other 2 major nuclear accidents were 3 Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the USSR.

3 Mile Island (where a reactor went into meltdown) has the MC-IC at 5 Gemini-Sag, close enough in my book to be on the nuclear axis. And there was a New Moon in Aries, resonant of the Uranus Ingress into Aries theme of the Japanese explosion.

Chernobyl, where there was both a contaminating explosion as well as a meltdown, has the MC-IC axis at 10 Virgo-Pisces, exactly square the nuclear axis; along the nuclear axis itself lies Chiron in Gemini opposite Saturn in Sagittarius. Chiron decribes the long-term damage to people and the natural world caused by Chernobyl and any other such leakages.

We do not seem to be looking at another Chernobyl here, because the aspects to the nuclear axis are not as strong. Maybe not even a meltdown. But because of Japan's history, any nuclear incident has heightened significance. Chiron is conjunct the Desc on the Explosion Chart, so as with Chernobyl, we are probably looking at a degree of environmental contamination.

The wider symbolism of the times is the square from Uranus to Pluto, which will be within one degree in June, and became ‘in-sign’ as Uranus entered Aries. A hard aspect between 2 outer planets always indicates a time of profound change, a shift from one era to another. Uranus-Pluto well describes the earthquake that preceded the explosion: a sudden disruption (Uranus) from the depths (Pluto). Of course, you will always get earthquakes, but it seems more than coincidental that Japan should get the most powerful it has recorded as Uranus is being empowered by Pluto.

The symbolism and timing of events around Uranus has been extraordinary. First, with Uranus in its last day in Pisces, the ocean, you get a major earthquake out at sea followed by a Tsunami. The next day, with Uranus on its first day in the fire sign of Aries, you get a nuclear explosion as a result of that earthquake. I don’t usually pay that much notice to the exact movements of the outer planets. I look to the inner planets for that. But Ingresses – when a planet first enters a sign – seem to be something else. When Pluto, a planet associated with the economy, entered Capricorn back in early 2008, almost to the day the stock market began to lurch, as a prelude to the financial crisis that followed.

Of course, the signs are, in a sense, nonsense. They were artificially constructed as 30 degrees each millennia ago, and have since slipped away by 23 degrees. But the fact that they work shows that reality involves a mysterious collusion between mind and matter. It shows that the outer world is much more a product of consciousness than one is led to believe. It is not the hard, ‘objective’ scientific world that we moderns believe it to be: scientific reality is just one more instance of the world seeming to conform to our presumptions about it. Neptune, the dissolver of boundaries, is the planet that describes this mysterious and fluid relationship between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’. Reality is a hologram.

In April Neptune will enter Pisces. Pisces is the sign Neptune rules, and one wouldn’t associate either the sign or the planet with sudden dramas and bold new actions. But look at the Ingress chart:

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Six planets, including a New Moon, in Aries. The transit of Neptune through Pisces is likely to involve dramatic changes in our underlying mythologies (which shape everything else). And a dramatic new phase in the history of our use of oil. Neptune rules oil, and the first oil strike occurred under Neptune in Pisces.

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The first oil strike also has Neptune in the 2nd house of wealth, showing how oil has become entwined with the world economy. And Pluto (wealth) in Taurus (wealth) on the Taurus IC (the depths of the earth). As Neptune moves into Pisces, so we are likely to see the first phase of our use of oil begin to come to an end.

Neptune and Pisces are associated with lack of boundaries, and that certainly describes the unbridled way we have used this resource, as if it were limitless (Neptune), when it is not. In 12 years time Neptune will reach 26 Pisces, its position at the 1st oil strike. So that is the timescale of change we are looking at.

All 3 outer planets are changing sign within a few years of each other: Pluto from 2008-9, Uranus from 2010-11 and Neptune from 2011-12. These are the 3 collective planets, so they show the world moving from one era to another. If you add into the equation an outer planet hard aspect in the form of Uranus square Pluto, then you have a double message of change, of a new era.

This is the wider context in which the Japanese nuclear explosion has occurred. A very significant chart occurring in an era of major change. For the Japanese, the earthquake and the explosion have occurred as Uranus was squaring both the the Moon and the Asc of the Japanese chart. At present, all Uranus transits occur in the wake of a Pluto transit in the preceding few years. Pluto brings deep structural change, and Uranus brings sudden disruptive events that bring that deeper change to life: something that has been brewing beneath the surface for a long time becomes apparent. Japan has been stagnating economically for many years, and China is suddenly in its face as an economic and military threat after Japan’s many years as the world number 2 economy, under the military protection of the USA. Japan is due for change, and the events of the last 2 days could be a catalyst for that.

A Ramble about the Royal Family and the End of the World

I don’t know how the British Royal Family manages to produce such a seeming lack of basic intelligence in many of its members. Prince Charles and Princess Anne seem bright enough, but the younger two… Prince Andrew is a Trade Envoy for the UK, and has kept up his links with Jeffrey Epstein, an American millionaire who has been convicted of molesting underage girls. And has accepted money off him to help pay off his ex-wife’s debts. If you are in a public position, then this matters. And a case like this is just so obvious. A senior Tory MP described Andrew as having “no discernible mental activity.” If he was anyone else, Andrew would have been sacked, but you don’t treat Royals like this in Britain. I don’t think it does them any favours.

The Queen herself is not immune to idiocy. And I don’t mean PR slip-ups, which anyone could make. Princess Diana’s butler was found to be in possession of a large amount of her effects sometime after her death. The family brought him to court on a theft charge. Half way through the headline-making trial, the Queen mentioned to Charles that the Butler had previously told her that he had these effects, and was looking after them on Diana’s behalf. The trial immediately had to be stopped.

I don’t think the Queen is stupid, though her sons Andrew and Edward may well be. I don’t think it is the famous inbreeding that has done it. I think it is being born into wealth and privilege (which can sometimes be fortunate, if you can see through the nonsense.) It can remove you from ordinary reality, from the sense that you belong to a society that has basic ways of working that you need to pay attention to and understand. That’s why Prince Philip has been making racist remarks for decades (and getting away with it.) That’s also why you get these rich families who are weird because they can buy their way out of the normal rules. Dirty, Sexy Money is a TV series about the US’s richest family (it’s a satire on the Kennedys) and to start with it seems too bizarre to take seriously. But then it dawns on you that the real Kennedys are probably every bit as bizarre. And if you put some of their antics in a TV series, they would seem too implausible. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

The Royal Family is not unlike a religious cult, with its rigid rules and hierarchy and sense of being special. Cults are often just more obvious forms, because they are different, of what goes on anyway in a lot of families and sections of society. Look at the unwritten rules and sense of superiority you usually get in wealthy or titled families, for example. I can’t see the difference between that and a religious cult.

One cult making the news is the US-based Family Radio, which is proclaiming Judgement Day on May 21 2011, and the End of the World on Oct 21 2011. A lot of its members have sold up or given away their possessions and are travelling the country in caravans, warning people about what is coming. They have arrived at their conclusions through applying mathematics to the Bible.

Unfortunately astrology does a similar thing. It applies mathematics to the motions of the planets in order to comment on, and even predict, human affairs. I can’t necessarily see the difference! Astrology works primarily symbolically and intuitively, it tells people stories about themselves that resonate with their sense of who they are. As long as the maths is kept simple enough so that the sense of symbolism is preserved and even unfolded, then I’m fine with that. But if it heads too far into abstractions such as mid points and harmonics, I lose my sense of relationship to the planets, even though I can see that these techniques work. It’s like the maths in astrology keeps the rational side happy and quiet so that the intuitive side can get on with its job. But too much maths and the rational begins to usurp its place.

And at this point astrology becomes a legitimate target for the criticisms of the scientists, because viewed from this ‘rational’ angle alone, astrology is indeed nonsense. That is why I like the modern tendency to view the planets not just as principles but as gods. It makes the point forcefully that astrology is not a science and cannot be criticised from that basis.

Anyway, I guess one query I have of Family Radio is that if their dates are produced mathematically, then at the moment of Judgement Day, it will not be 21st May in certain parts of the world. It will be the 20th or the 22nd. And the same with the End of the World. Unless the world is to end gradually, beginning at dawn on Oct 21st in the Far East and then sweeping across the globe, ending with California and Alaska.

A professor from Canada, Lorenzo DiTommaso, has made a 12 year study of apocalyptic movements.

"It’s a philosophy that explains time, space and human existence,” DiTommaso says. And by buying into this sort of outlook, a person can find comfort in a “comprehensive answer.”

He calls the apocalyptic worldview “adolescent” because it’s “a simplistic response to complex problems” and one that “places responsibility for solving these problems with someone else or somewhere else.”

I quite liked that idea of adolescent thinking, because it seems very common. Like the 2008/9 financial crisis was the fault of greedy bankers, or of the governments, or of a secret cabal who engineered it for their own ends. Or that 9/11 was the result of ‘terrorists’, or of a secret government plot. All of these are simplistic explanations for complex problems, and that blame somebody else. In the case of 9/11, both ‘explanations’ are ways of not having to understand why there are foreigners who are angry with America. Politics thrives on adolescent thinking.

Last night, I was watching a programme on the end of the world, or rather the end of the universe, from a scientific rather than from a quasi-theological point of view. The programme was presented by Professor Brian Cox, who has recently become well-known amongst British astrologers for saying on TV that astrology is rubbish. A complaint to the BBC was worked up by the Astrological Association and signed, I assume, by many astrologers. I think it’s helpful not to get too pissed off when astrology gets criticised or dismissed, because it’s always going to happen, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be quite interesting if you do get pissed off, to look at why. Is it any different, in principle, to the Islamists and their fatwas? Is astrology part of your sense of who you are, your identity?

Anyway, Professor Cox was presenting what seems to be called the Heat Death theory of the end of the universe, which I hadn’t encountered. It’s based on the idea that entropy in any system always increases with time. Entropy is disorder. So the universe will eventually, after an immense period of time, have no order left in it. This is in a trilliontrilliontrilliontrilliontrilliontrillion… years, if you get the idea. We are at present in a long phase where stars shine. But that will come to an end, and all that will be left are white dwarves and black holes. They too will gradually come apart, and their constituent atoms will dissolve into light particles. And as the universe keeps expanding, so will the average density of energy in the universe approach zero. And that will also be a state of maximum entropy, of no order, of everywhere the same – nothing.

The direction of time is measured by entropy. Time goes in one direction, that of increasing disorder. When the universe reaches maximum entropy, then time will necessarily come to an end.

The period during which life is possible, though lasting for trillions of years, is infinitesimally small compared to the overall lifespan of the universe.

I found it a fascinating story. The universe began as nothing outside of time and will end as nothing outside of time, at least that’s how I interpreted it. The Big Crunch theory, that the universe will end up collapsing back in on itself to a singularity, ready for another Big Bang (which is in line with Buddhist cosmology) has been discredited in recent decades as it has become clear from astronomical measurements that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

I don’t know where consciousness lies in all of this, if indeed it can be separated from matter. But remember, it’s just a story!

STRANGE NEW WORLDS (Part II)

Jupiter enhances whatever planet it touches, and for the last year it has been conjunct Uranus, the planet of scientific discovery, as they have passed in and out of Aries, a sign of boldness and new beginnings. It would be very appropriate if indications of life on other planets were discovered under this combination. This would not just be a scientific discovery, it would profoundly change the way we see ourselves in the universe, our philosophy, which is also ruled by Jupiter: a new (Aries) philosophy (Jupiter) as a result of scientific discovery (Uranus.)

Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions occur every 13 years or so, but when there is also a hard aspect to Pluto, as there is now, it is likely to produce more powerful results than usual. The last time this happened was in 1969, with Uranus-Jupiter and Pluto all conjunct: this was when the first man landed on the Moon! The time before that was in 1900, when Uranus was conjunct Jupiter and opposite Pluto, and that year saw both the discovery of quantum energy and the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

So we can expect something unusually big this year, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it is life on other planets. Or the so-called God particle, the Higgs Boson – though on its own, that wouldn’t be significant enough.

The Kepler Space Telescope was specifically designed to search for exo-planets – planets in other solar systems. It was launched in March 2009, and became operative in May that year. In Feb 2011 NASA announced that they had 1235 planetary candidates circling 997 stars. Of these, 68 are approximately earth sized. Exo-planets were first discovered back in the 1990s, but Kepler has brought about an explosion in their number. It would seem a matter of time before the light signatures of organic molecules associated with life are detected.

Kepler has a powerful chart – Sun-Uranus trine the Moon in its own sign in the 9th House of distant places. Astrologically, the Moon is the nearest planet to earth, and the first planet we have visited. So that’s very appropriate, and the harmony between Sun and Moon suggests success. The Sun is opposite a 10th House Saturn, which shows the ambition behind the project, and its technological nature (Saturn in Virgo). The Sun in Pisces shows the very broad cosmic awareness behind the project, and even the sense of connectedness it may bring. As well as the very sensitive nature of the science involved. Neptune in scientific Aquarius opposite the MC shows the imaginative quest behind the project, a Neptune empowered by a close conjunction to Mars. More broadly, the launch took place under a Saturn-Uranus opposition which, like Jupiter-Uranus, is a time of scientific advance.

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In 2007 I posted a piece called Strange New Worlds, describing some of the exo-planets that had been discovered up to that point. It’s very sci-fi, but it’s for real:

We’ve known for a long time of the existence of other Suns like our own, but other planets, other worlds were not definitively detected until early 1992, as the Uranus-Neptune conjunction began. They tend to be detected indirectly through their effect on their local Sun, and naturally enough the ones detected so far are mostly pretty big, because they are easier to spot. These new worlds are known as extra-solar planets, or exoplanets, and there are currently 253 of them.

Some of them are turning out to be weird and wonderful places. Here is a list from New Scientist magazine:

HD189733b (they have such sexy names) is 63 light years away in the constellation Vulpecula, with a mass of 1.15 Jupiters. It orbits its star every 2.2 days. One side is in perpetual daytime, the other side is in perpetual night-time. The day side has a temperature of 940 degrees, the dark side is 700 degrees. The dark side is so hot because winds of more than 10,000 kilometres per hour – Mach 8 – whip round the globe, spreading the heat. In July, it became the first exoplanet to have a compelling case made for water in its atmosphere.


TrES-4 is 1400 light years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the most bloated world on record, less massive then Jupiter but with a volume 5 times bigger. It has an average density less than a wine cork, and would float on water. It orbits its Sun every 3½ days and has a surface temperature of 1300 degrees. It is not known why it is so puffed up, but its days are numbered. Its Sun has run out of hydrogen and in less than a billion years TrES-4 (Doesn’t that name just grow on you?) it will be engulfed by its swelling star.

HD80606b is 190 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is 4 times the mass of Jupiter. Its orbit, which takes 4 months, is wildly elongated, varying from between about 90 million miles and 3 million miles from its Sun. If you floated in its atmosphere, you would see the Sun go from the size of ours to one 900 times as big in just a few days. In the same way, the temperature would soar from about 100 degrees to 1700 degrees. This exoplanet has the most elongated orbit known for any planet, and the reason lies in the gravitational influence of a distant companion star. The orbits of most exoplanets so far have turned out to be much more elongated than those of our local planets, which are nearly circular. This has come as a big surprise.


HD149026b is 256 light years away in the constellation Hercules. It is slightly smaller than Saturn, but has an unusually dense core – packed with about 70 earth masses of heavy elements. Its atmosphere at 2000 C is unbelievably hot – hotter than the surface of some stars, and the hottest planet known. It is so hot because it is close to its star and the planet’s surface is probably very dull-coloured, so it absorbs plenty of light.

Gliese 581 is a dim red dwarf star in the constellation Libra, 20.5 light years away. Earlier this year it was reported that an earth like planet had been discovered circling this star, rocky and with temperatures of around 20C, so liquid water could possibly be present. It has a mass of 15 earths. Then 2 more planets were found orbiting Gliese 581. The smaller one, which is 5 earth masses and a surface temperature of 0 to 40 C, has been dubbed the Goldilocks planet – not too hot for life, not too cold, but just right. Then they reckoned that the greenhouse effect would make the planet far too hot for life. And then they further reckoned that the 3rd planet, of 8 earth masses, which is much further away from the star, might be just the right temperature for life because of the greenhouse effect. These planets will be visible to the European Space Agency’s 3 Darwin spacecraft, due for launch in 2015. They will probe these worlds for signs of life.


PSR B1257+12 is a neutron star, 1.35 times the mass of the Sun, 15km wide (yes, just 15km), 980 light years away in the constellation Virgo. It is the remains of a massive star that exploded in a supernova, leaving a superdense core. This neutron star rotates once every 6 milliseconds, emitting radio beams – in other words, it is a pulsar. It was round this pulsar that the first exoplanets were detected, 0.02, 4.3 and 3.9 times the mass of the earth, while the sizes of their orbits are similar in proportion to those of Mercury, Venus and the Earth. So, remarkably, these first exoplanets are like a carbon copy of our inner solar system, scaled down by a factor of 2. The discoverer reckons the 3.9 earth planet may have an iron core and a strong magnetic field. So that though the pulsar wouldn’t produce much daylight, the planet may well still have magnificent auroras, produced by the dense streams of energetic particles coming off the pulsar, and bright enough to read a book by. The particles would also gradually erode the planet’s surface, generating a low-level haze.

Moon Families

I haven’t written anything for a week, nor have I had any ideas to do so, which is quite interesting as Mercury has just changed direction, and Mercury (along with Uranus) is the patron saint of blogging. So that’s worth paying attention to if you write, because you are likely to enter a new mini-phase every time Mercury changes direction, which is six times a year, and don’t be surprised if it sometimes takes a while to get a flow going. Mercury Retrograde stops after 3 weeks, but the whole process of repeating the places he’s been over and starting afresh takes about 2 months. If you look at the recent period, he retrograded to 20 Sag on 29 Dec, where he’d previously been on 23rd Nov. When he started going backwards on 10th Dec, he was at 6 Capricorn, which he won’t reach again till 18th Jan. That’s 2 months. So that’s about half the year that changeable Mercury spends shapeshifting!

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The transits to your chart from the outer planets describe the bigger transformations that are going on/have gone on in your life. And the progressions describe the phases, often lasting years, that you are living through.

Specific events within these transits/progressions can often be timed by the New Moons that form a conjunction with a major point in your chart. If for example you have say natal Sun or Ascendant at 15 Aries, and there is a New Moon within a couple of degrees of that, then that is likely to be a significant time for you. In the same way that a New Moon is a beginning, so too can something new begin in your life. (At a New Moon, incidentally, the Sun and Moon in the sky are in the same place, in this case 15 Aries, sitting on your natal Sun or Ascendant.)

I was at the Exeter Astrology group the other night, and Ed Gillam gave a presentation on Dietrech Pessin’s work on ‘Moon Families’, which expands on this idea of New Moons timing significant events. I found the basic idea very interesting.

New Moons occur in 3 year cycles, so that both 3 years before and after our New Moon at 15 Aries (ish), there will also have been a New Moon around 15 Aries. You'll often find that one of these 3 year periods - or sometimes both - was pretty pivotal in your life, probably the one where the 2 New Moons have the tightest orbs to (in this case) your Sun or Asc. These New Moons gradually drift backwards by a few degrees every 3 years, so that quite quickly they are too far off to be significant.

It’s sounding complicated already, so I’ll give an example. My Asc is at 29 Leo. There was a New Moon at 29 Leo in August 1979. And then one at 26 Leo in August 1982. This was a period in which I moved from one life to another, from being at University, and not quite sure why I was there (like many students!) to getting involved with a Buddhist lifestyle and friends and values that constituted an entirely different life for me.

Interestingly, the immediately preceding cycle, from August 1976 to August 1979, was also close to my Ascendant, with the 1976 New Moon at 2 Virgo being just 2 degrees away. And this was also a period in which I moved from one life to another: in August 1976, I was just finishing 10 years at boarding school, which had effectively become my life. 3 years later I was a different person, having rejected all the main values surrounding my upbringing and searching for an entirely different direction.

With natal Pluto conjunct Asc, and natal Sun opposite Pluto, and nodal Scorpio, this sort of death and rebirth is inevitably part of my life from time to time, and the New Moon-Ascendant cycle has proved very good at timing this.

There is plenty more to unpack about these cycles. I have so far just mentioned the 3 year cycle as the New Moon repeats itself at significant points in your chart (though occurring a few degrees earlier at the end of the cycle than at the beginning.)

There is also a 19 year cycle which is exact to within a day or so. So my New Moon at 29.01 Leo on 22nd Aug 1979 was repeated 19 years later on 22nd August 1998 at 28.48 Leo. And guess what? August 1998 found me beginning another new life, the Buddhist one having come apart at the seams, and it took 3 years to establish, almost exactly. (The immediately preceding cycle, from 1995-8, also had this quality of fundamental shift, but less obviously so.)

So for me, the pattern has been of 2 of these 3 year cycles happening consecutively on my Asc, with the emphasis of the first cycle being an inner transformation of values and outlook, and the emphasis of the second cycle being on the complete transformation of my life in accordance with that inner revolution. And this has happened twice, 19 years apart.

The 3 year cycle itself is divided into 4 phases, and in a way I should have started with this, because it is basic to the whole idea. But then you can get confused before you’ve even started! These 4 phases occur at 9 month intervals (which is why Dietrech Pessin calls this pattern the ‘Lunar Gestation Cycle’). And they can time remarkably accurately the unfoldment of a theme, from seed idea or impulse through to completion.

This is how it works. If there is a New Moon at 15 Aries, then 9 months later there will be a quarter Moon, remarkably at the same degree: Moon at 15 Aries (ish) square to the Sun at 15 Capricorn (1/4 of the way round the zodiac from the initial Sun at 15 Aries). 9 months after that, there will be a Full Moon, again at the same degree: Moon at 15 Aries opposite the Sun at 15 Libra. And then 9 months after that, we have another quarter Moon, with the Moon at 15 Aries square the Sun at 15 Cancer. The cycle is completed 9 months later with a New Moon at 15 Aries (all give or take a degree or two.)

Time for an example. I’ll choose someone we all know, who is not quite as popular as he used to be, Barack Obama. His Ascendant is at 18 Aquarius, and I’m going to look at the period from Feb 2008 to Feb 2011. The degrees aren’t quite as tight as I’d like (the earlier 3 year cycle was a bit tighter), but we have good info in this one, and it began quite remarkably with an eclipse at 18 Aquarius in Feb 2008, heightening the significance of the cycle.

Obama’s decision to run for the Presidency was part of the previous cycle, and the eclipse was the culmination of that cycle, as well as the beginning of the new one. One month earlier he had won his first primary in Iowa in his campaign to be the Democratic candidate. So the first practical step, the first necessary achievement in becoming President was there, which is that you start actually winning primaries. This is the New Moon phase, the first step.

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Fast forward 9 months to the 1st quarter, the opening square, of the cycle, with Sun at 14 Scorpio square Moon at 14 Aquarius on 6th Nov 2008. 2 days earlier he had won the Presidency. The opening square of a cycle is always dynamic, as the initial idea/theme bursts into action.

9 months later in August 2009 we have the Full Moon phase, with the Sun opposite the Moon at 14 Leo/Aquarius. It is the Summer to the opening square’s Spring, when you are at a peak. Healthcare Reform had always been Obama’s top domestic priority, and 3 weeks before this Full Moon his 1000 page plan was first introduced to Congress. Then in early May 2010 there was the closing square of the 3 year cycle with the Sun at 16 Taurus and the Moon at 16 Aquarius. This is the autumn, a time of fruition, of harvesting what you have sown and fought for. A month earlier, at the end of March, Obama’s Healthcare Bill was signed into law.

We have not had the next New Moon yet, which will be on Feb 3 2011, but we have already had its signifying event, which was the installation of a new Congress on 4th Jan, one which will be against Obama rather than for him, and most likely making the legislative victories of his first 2 years unrepeatable. This New Moon signifies the end of that period. It does not open up a new cycle, for the Aquarian New Moon in 3 years time will be at 11 degrees, too far off his Asc to be a significant cycle. Well, a lot of astrologers would say that, and I’ve probably already offended them with my 4 degrees off for Obama’s 2008-11 cycle, but when it comes to orbs I’m a bit of a wide boy! Let’s see if the next 3 years works as a cycle or not.

As I said, there is also the 19 year cycle at the end of which the 3 year cycle is repeated at the same New Moon degree. And you would expect a common theme. So for Obama, there would have been a 3 year New Moon cycle from Feb 1989 to Feb 1992 that also conjoined his Asc. It is hard to get exact info on this period, but during it he was elected as first black President of the Harvard Law Review, just as 19 years later he was elected first black President of the USA.

Natally, Barack Obama has Uranus conjunct North Node in Leo, so being a mould-breaker, being highly individual, is essential to who he is. The North Node describes the deeper patterns, our destiny if you like, if we are up for change and progress. And in Obama’s case, the New Moon/Ascendant cycles both activated his North Node. Just as they activated my own North Node in Scorpio. Which you’d kind of expect, because the North Node is a combination of Lunar and Solar principles.

Along with the MC, the Ascendant is one of the 2 main points in the chart through which we connect with the world. The planets themselves have more of an inner emphasis. So in many cases the Ascendant is going to be what is most visible in someone and most obviously connected with the events in their lives. The New Moon cycles undoubtedly affect e.g. the natal Sun and Moon just as much as they affect the Ascendant, but I suspect that on average the cycle to the Ascendant is more easily discernible. The Ascendant, of course, brings its own problems as it is so closely tied to ascertaining an accurate time of birth.

On the other hand, the New Moon cycles could well be used as a means of rectification. For myself, my own Ascendant is rectified from an original placement in Virgo, and the fact that the New Moon/Ascendant cycle worked so brilliantly has strengthened the case for my Asc at 29 Leo – within a couple of degrees, of course.
I want to re-emphasise at this point the 9 month intervals, the phases of the Moon, that occur within the 3 year cycle, because they can time events so well, and help us understand the particular process we are undergoing. In the case of Obama, the timing of the phases shows that his ascent to the Presidency had a strong element of wanting to transform America. And that the earlier cycle, from 89 to 92, when he was president of the Harvard Law Review, therefore probably also had a similar element: getting himself in a position where he could actually change something in a mould-breaking sort of way.

The idea for these Moon Familes (what I seem to be calling New Moon Cycles) came from an American telephone astrologer, Dietrech Pessin, who noticed that there were often 9-month intervals between people ringing her, and that they often started a cycle of consultations around a New Moon. The issue would then unfold over the next 2 and ½ years, through to the fruition of the closing square. But don’t quote me on that, because I haven’t read her book Lunar Shadows III ~ The Predictive Power of Moon Phases and Eclipses .

It is remarkable that the human gestation period is 9 months, that the Moon has these 9 month phases of unfoldment, and that bigger patterns in human life should unfold according to the same timing. It suggests that for humans, at any rate, pregnancy is even more intimately tied to the Moon than we might have thought. And it suggests that, astrology apart, we are hard-wired to live and unfold according to the ebb and flow of the gravitational influence of the Moon: it’s not just about lunatics and women’s mysteries!

Astrology included, the Moon becomes a profound cyclical principle that describes our lives on a monthly basis in its complete circuit of the zodiac, particularly through the lunar return; and on a 3 yearly basis, shifting forward every 9 months, when we apply it to the points in our chart which have been affected by New Moons over the previous 3 years (and there may be several.) Furthermore, each of these 3 year cycles (of which there would be up to 11: 7 personal planets and 4 Angles) will recur every 19 years, creating repeated patterns of development that build during the course of our lives.

NB 19 years looks rather like 18.6 years, which is the period that the North Node takes to circle the zodiac. They are different numbers, however. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a relationship, but I for one can't get my head around it!