The Astrology of Sex-Strikes; the 3-month Mars-Venus Conjunction

On Wednesday, thousands of Kenyan women went on a week-long sex-strike in protest at the government’s internal squabbling. The wife of the Prime Minister is supporting the strike, though she refuses to comment on her husband’s opinion of the matter. It is his dispute with the President that is at the centre of the impasse.

The PM’s wife, Ida Odinga, ‘refused to be drawn on whether the fiery wife of President Mwai Kibaki would join the movement. Questioned whether she would ask Mrs Kibaki to join her in the strike, she replied: "Please let me not answer that question, you can ask her." Lucy Kibaki has a notoriously fiery temper.’

It’s fun, but the women are in earnest. They fear that the row could lead to further unrest: after disputed elections in Dec 2007, 1500 people died and 300,000 were forced from their homes. Ida Odinga points out that this tactic worked in Liberia when it was at war. Sex is not talked about in public in Kenya, so the issue is deeply embarrassing for Kenyans.

The strike began on Wednesday, time unknown.


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As you can see, there was a Mars-Venus-Moon-Pluto t-square. So the women of Kenya (Venus) are taking action (Aries) through sex (Mars). They are very angry (Venus conjunct Mars in Aries) on behalf of the people (Moon) and are engaged in a power-struggle (Venus square Pluto) with the government (Pluto in Capricorn), who they do not see as serving the needs of the people (Pluto in Cap opposite Moon). The resolution of this t-square lies in the missing sign, Libra, which is a workable peace between the Presidential and Prime Ministerial factions.


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Kenya has Sun in Sagittarius square to Pluto, so the country naturally tends towards power struggles (Pluto) around its leaders (Sun), and probably eventually it will be a dictatorship, which Sun in hard aspect to Pluto often indicates: misuse (square/opposition) of power (Pluto) by the leader (Sun). Russia, Iran, South Africa and Zimbabwe all have Sun in hard aspect to Pluto.

Kenya also has Mars at 5 Capricorn, which is closely aspected by this week’s Moon-Mars-Venus-Pluto t-square. So the Kenyan men (Mars) are under attack (square Mars) from angry women (Venus in Aries conjunct Mars).

As the strike ends, so on that exact day will transiting Venus move out of an applying square to the Kenyan natal Mars.

Sex-strikes by women have a long history. At the end of last year, the women of Naples threatened a strike unless something was done about illegal fireworks on New Year's Eve. They were inspired by the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, in which the women of Athens refuse to have sex unless their men folk forge a truce with their rivals from Sparta. The recent Naples strike would have taken place under a Mars-Pluto conjunction. The campaign began some time before in a town called Lettere, possibly around the Venus-Pluto conjunction in November 2008.

In October 1997, the chief of the Military of Colombia, General Mañuel Bonnet publicly called for a sex strike among the wives and girlfriends of the Colombian left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers, and paramilitaries as part of a strategy — along with diplomacy — to achieve a cease fire. At the start of that month, there was a Mars-Pluto conjunction, and a week later there was a Venus-Pluto conjunction.

In 2003 there was a 2 month sex-strike by Cameroonian women over the destruction of crops by cattle. During that time, Mars squared Pluto and Venus conjoined Pluto.

In September 2006, wives and girlfriends of Colombian gangsters called for a sex-strike to curb gang violence. At the beginning of that month there was a square from Mars to Pluto, and at the end a square from Venus to Pluto.

So in all cases we hard aspects between Mars (men and sex) and Pluto (power struggle), and Venus (the women) and Pluto. In some cases Saturn (abstinence) is involved, and even then not necessarily as a hard-aspect. This suggests that the real issue is the power struggle, rather than the forced abstinence. And the tactic often works!

It is an interesting time for relations between men and women, because Mars and Venus are undergoing a 3 month conjunction – mid-April to mid-July – which is very rare. I can’t find another example of it. It is happening because Venus, which usually moves much faster than Mars, went retrograde for a while recently, and as she backed into a standstill in April, so Mars came up to join her. After a planet has stood still, it only picks up speed again slowly, slowly enough in this case for Mars to be able to keep up with Venus for a while before she finally leaves him behind in July.

For a short time in April, Mars was conjunct Venus and Uranus in Pisces. Then there was a 2 day period where Venus was exalted at the end of Pisces conjunct Mars in early Aries, the sign it rules. This was the time to hit the bedroom, and if you didn’t, I can only offer my condolences, because you are unlikely to see this aspect again in your lifetime. You just missed out on the best sex you are ever going to have.

Until the end of May we have Mars conjunct Venus in Aries. It’s an excellent time for starting relationships, for hot sex and for plain-speaking. But that can so easily turn into a fight, with neither person able to see the other’s point of view. From early June to early July, Mars will be conjunct Venus in Taurus. This will be a lot easier, and a time to focus on pleasurable activities together. After that, Venus will start to move away from Mars, and the 3 month focus on relationships will draw to an end.

The US Progressed Chart (Sibly) has an exact opposition from Mars to Venus at the end of May, and a one degree orb for a year either side of that.


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With Prog Mars in Libra and Prog Venus in Aries, each in the other’s sign, issues of war versus diplomacy are being strongly raised. It is fascinating that this opposition should be exact in the middle of a very rare 3-month conjunction of Mars and Venus. There has been a new approach to foreign diplomacy under the Obama administration, and this coincidence of transiting planets and progressions suggest the intensity and urgency with which negotiations are being conducted, whether or not we hear about it in the news.

The Prog opposition is in the 4th-10th house axis of the US natal chart, indicating that America’s standing in the world, and the perception of that at home, are involved; and this opposition is also in the 2nd-8th house axis of the prog chart, indicating that the weak economy (2nd) and reliance on foreign resources (8th) are also factors behind the new diplomatic strategy. But you didn’t need astrology to tell you all that!

Progressed Chiron is just over a degree from Prog Venus in Aries, and this suggests to me obstacles that will not easily be overcome due to America seeing things too much from its own point of view (Aries). This chimes well, for example, with Obama's outraged denunciation last year of the idea that 9/11 was in any sense 'chickens coming home to roost'. If you cannot understand why your enemies would want to attack you, then you are only going to have limited success in negotiating a peace.

The Astrology of Nuclear Fusion

In June the Americans are going to conduct a nuclear fusion experiment, in which they will simultaneously fire 192 lasers at a pellet the size of a ball-bearing containing heavy hydrogen. The total power of the lasers will be about 500 trillion watts – more than the whole of the USA uses at its peak – but it will only last for a few nanoseconds. The idea is that this burst of energy will heat the hydrogen up to the millions of degrees required to initiate nuclear fusion and that, crucially, the amount of energy released will be significantly greater than that required to initiate the reaction – of the order of 10 to 100 times as much, it is hoped. If it does work, then it will be a landmark in the 50-year quest to produce controlled nuclear fusion, which is a kind of Holy Grail, promising unprecedented amounts of energy, an unlimited supply of raw material – water – and a virtual absence of waste products. So far all we have had is uncontrolled nuclear fusion, in the form of hydrogen bombs, which are that much more powerful than fission explosions. It will take several hours for the lasers to recharge. What will be needed for viable production is to have several pellets being lasered every second. So presumably very large arrays of highly efficient lasers will be needed. At the same time, an international consortium is building another sort of experimental reactor in France. It is called ITER, and the idea here is to ionise the heavy hydrogen so that it can be contained in a magnetic field, and then heat it up to 10 million degrees or so, at which point hydrogen fusion will begin (just like in the Sun). The plasma would obviously melt any physical container, hence the need for the magnetic field. The basic chart for nuclear energy under human control is for 2 Dec 1942 at 15.25 in Chicago, when Fermi achieved the first controlled fission reaction. Click to Enlarge This chart had a progressed New Moon in Jan 2007, showing the new era of nuclear power stations that is upon us, as well as the nuclear proliferation which has begun in recent years. The Progressed chart for Hiroshima – the chart for nuclear weapons – remarkably had a New Moon 2 months earlier in Nov 2006, again showing the nuclear proliferation that we are starting to see. It is generally some years between a Prog New Moon and the seed it has planted becoming visible. Given that the basic nuclear chart describes all uses of nuclear energy, the 2007 Prog New Moon could also be seen as describing the latest experiments in achieving nuclear fusion. The chart for man-made nuclear fusion has to be the chart for the first H-bomb, which was exploded in the Pacific on 1st November 1952. Click to Enlarge In the basic nuclear chart, the central symbolism is the Saturn-Uranus conjunction: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn). In the fusion chart, the central symbolism is the Saturn-Neptune conjunction: the fusion (Neptune) of matter (Saturn). Both charts have an angular Pluto, showing the sheer power involved. This year Jupiter-Neptune is hard aspecting the Angles of the fusion chart, showing the resurgence of this 50-year old dream. The Holy (Jupiter) Grail (Neptune) of technology (Aquarius). Over the next 6 years, Prog Saturn-Neptune will cross the Prog MC of this chart. So nuclear fusion (Saturn-Neptune) will be achieving a much higher public profile (MC). Straight after that, Uranus then Pluto will hard-aspect the Moon-Saturn-Neptune-Uranus t-square. This suggests all sorts of developments coming out of that higher public profile. The astrology suggests to me that finally controlled nuclear fusion is coming our way, for better or for worse. I expect to see the first power station around 2020, as Pluto finishes empowering the natal Neptune of the fusion chart. One of my first blogs, back in 2006, was on nuclear issues, which you can read here.

The Dorothean Triplicities

I’ve started listening to one of Bernadette Brady’s studyshops on medieval astrology. There is something called Dorothean Triplicities, out of which you can generate planets that rule the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parts of your life respectively. I tried it out at my astrology group last night, and it seemed to work pretty well.

I’ll describe the technicalities later, but I’ll use Barack Obama’s chart as an example.


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Using the technique, we find that Mercury rules the 1st part of his life, Saturn the second and Jupiter the 3rd. These periods are not set number of years; rather, by listening to someone’s life story, you can see where the periods change over.

So Mercury and the first part of Obama’s life. It is in Leo, and what his background does seem to have generated, for better or for worse, is a unique individual. Mercury is also associated with thought and curiosity and travel, as is Jupiter, which Mercury is closely opposite. All this fits with his early years. In his chart, Mercury rules the 8th, which describes his exploration of his ancestry, and the 5th, which describes the creativity that led to his books.

I’d say that he has moved into the second phase of his life, which is Saturn. Say no more! You could say it started around 1996, when he first assumed public office, as a member of the Illinois Senate. I’d also say there had been a gradual shift from Mercury to Saturn going on for some years before that. His Saturn is strong in its own sign of Capricorn, and in his chart rules the 12th House, describing his responsibilities (Saturn/Capricorn) for the collective in its widest sense (12th).

The final phase of his life will be ruled by Jupiter. It is in Aquarius in the 12th, conjunct his Saturn, and ruling the 11th House. So I see the last part of his life as being expansive, with a return to the community-based work of his earlier years, but with the world as his arena. He will be a world statesman, with a vision for the future.

I don’t understand why the Dorothean Triplicities are as they are, but this is how you generate them. Firstly, you need to identify the leading planet. If the Sun is above the horizon – a diurnal chart – then the Sun is the leading planet. If not, then you have a nocturnal chart, and the Moon is the leading planet. You then note the element the Sun or Moon is in, and read the following chart:


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In Obama’s case, his leading planet is the Moon (nocturnal chart), and it is in Air. So we read the Air line, which is Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter. As the chart is nocturnal, we swap round the first 2 planets, and we get the series Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter.

In the case of say George W Bush, he was born with Sun in Cancer in the 12th. So the Sun was above the horizon, and it is a diurnal chart. So the Sun is the leading planet, and it is in water. Reading this off, the relevant planets are Venus, Mars and Moon respectively.


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So Venus in Leo ruled his youth. He was the eldest son, the prince of a political dynasty (Leo) that was also wealthy (Venus). He indulged himself (Venus in Leo) and did not seem to fit in anywhere (Venus sextile Uranus). Venus rules the 4th House Libran Cusp, which is the political home he grew up in, and it also rules intercepted Taurus in the 10th, which describes the difficulty he had in establishing a career.

The second phase of his life, which I would say is now ending, is ruled by Mars, and I’d say this phase began when his life began to work: he began to be able to take effective action, which is Mars. This was from 1988 onwards, starting with being part of his father’s successful run for presidency, then making money through his share in Texas Rangers, and then his career as Texas governor and then US President. Mars rules the 10th House of career in Bush’s chart, describing how his ability to take action translated into career success.

Bush described himself as a ‘War President’, which is very Mars. His Mars is in Virgo, which you would expect to be analytical and considered and service-based. But it is also unaspected, which means that it functioned on its own, without being reined in by the rest of the personality. It was primitive and confrontational, and was ultimately disastrous for American foreign policy. It only seemed to be Virgo in the sense that he had a clear idea of who his targets were, too clear even, and therefore simplistic.

The final phase of his life, which I’d say he is now entering, is ruled by the Moon, which is in 3rd House Libra. Bush governed more by instinct than by reason, and this final phase of his life may be a time when the wreckage of the last years of his Presidency may give him pause for thought; it may be a time when he brings thought (Libra/3rd) to his instinctive responses (Moon), and develops a more balanced view (Libra) and even some wisdom (conjunction to Jupiter). The Moon square to his Cancer Sun further describes this need to balance head and heart. With the conjunction of Jupiter to the Moon, however, he may also return to his youthful self-indulgent ways, and develop a complacent view of his political career.

Neptune and the Zeitgeist

Being the outermost planet, Pluto is generally used as the strongest significator of the age we live in. And his recent move from Sagittarius to Capricorn has seemed to justify this.

But what about Neptune? Most of the time, Pluto is further out than Neptune. But because Pluto’s orbit is so elliptical, there are periods such as the present when Pluto is, or was until recently, within the orbit of Neptune. You can check this through the ephemeris. The further out a planet is, the more slowly it moves. If you compare the distance through the signs travelled by Neptune and Pluto between say 1st Jan 1981 and 1st Jan 1985, you will see that Neptune moved about 8 degrees in that time, and Pluto moved 10 degrees. So Neptune was the outermost planet in that period.

Currently there doesn’t seem to be much in it. There has been a loose sextile between the 2 planets that has lasted since the late 1940s. This has occurred as Pluto increased his speed from Leo through to Sag, as he always does. He is currently slowing down again, and drifting further from the Sun.

So for the last 60 years, we would be justified in saying that Neptune has been just as strong a significator of the Age, and more so at times, than Pluto. Pluto is more noticeable at present because he has just changed signs, but Neptune will also change signs in 2 years.

One astrologer said to me that Pluto being within the orbit of Neptune means that transformation (Pluto) comes within the bounds of the imagination (Neptune). This has certainly been a new emphasis within astrology during this period.

For a start, astrology has become more Neptunian. Traditionally, astrology is associated with Uranus: insights from another dimension, and primarily an intellectual craft. But in recent decades we have learned to feel our way into the symbols and let them speak to us; we have started treating the planets as gods. Also, astrology has become a transformational craft as insights from psychology have been brought on board. So we could say that in astrology, at least, transformation has been brought within the bounds of the imagination.

Pluto is now slowing down, and we are at the end of this 60 year period where Neptune and Pluto have been moving at comparable speeds.

But it is interesting to look back and characterise the times according to Neptune, and treat this planet as an equally strong indicator of the zeitgeist as Pluto has been.

So, for example, Neptune was in Capricorn from 1984 to 1998. Recent decades have been characterised by a growth in globalisation, in terms of both trade (Capricorn) and culture (Neptune), and this configuration also describes the dissolution (Neptune) of national boundaries (Capricorn) involved. As Pluto has entered Capricorn recently, so there are signs that this globalisation may be going into reverse, economically at any rate, as countries move to protect themselves in difficult times.

More recently, since 1998, we have had Neptune in Aquarius, but it has been Pluto in Sagittarius, from 1995 to 2008, that has really grabbed the astrological headlines: Pluto in Sag describes the continued globalisation that has occurred, the rise of fundamentalism and the war on terror, and the sustained global economic boom, culminating in a huge bubble and its consequences. All that is pretty hard to ignore, but I think we have to take the influence of Neptune in Aquarius as equally significant.

In a way Neptune in Aquarius began back in the early 90s through Neptune’s conjunction with Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius. As that ended, so Neptune moved into Aquarius. Neptune in Aquarius is also a strong indicator of globalisation, but more in the sense of nations working together for common social and political goals, rather than the trade emphasis of Neptune in Capricorn. In the European Union, we had the Treaty of Maastricht in the early 90s, which was a huge step towards closer integration. As Neptune moves towards the end of Aquarius, so there are signs that the attempts at union are starting to unravel: firstly in the rejection of a Constitution by a number of countries; and secondly through the division between rich and poor countries that the economic crisis is opening up.

The international criminal court was agreed by treaty in 1998, as Neptune entered Aquarius, and brought into existence in 2002.

Perhaps the over-riding event of Neptune in Aquarius has been the internet, and the cultural impetus and further globalisation developing through that. The internet began at the tail-end of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, and just as Neptune was about to enter Aquarius. The importance of the internet is widely understood; but if we put Neptune on a level with Pluto, then the internet’s influence and potential perhaps become even more significant. Instant electronic communication (Aquarius) with no boundaries (Neptune) - one more piece of technology, but still in its infancy, and with a transformative effect that is still too early to see.

Behind our understanding of the world lies mythology. It’s all about stories. Christianity was – is – a bunch of stories about the universe. Not a very good bunch, in my opinion, and what’s worse they get taken literally. Science is also a bunch of stories about the universe. Quite a good bunch in my opinion. Like Darwinian Evolution - a good 1/2 story. Like Christianity, however, their listeners think they give the whole picture and tend to take them literally. But we need these stories to give us a sense of the universe we live in.

Jupiter is stories. But I’d say Neptune is the ground, the metaphysical womb from which they come, particularly the big, mythological stories. So the sign that Neptune is in would indicate the stories, images and symbols that lie behind our understanding of the world. These come first, and the world we live in becomes an expression of those stories.

The 80s and 90s were the peak of relativism and deconstructionism, particularly in the academic world. That is, we came to realise more fully that there are many truths, none of them absolute, and that ‘objectivity’ is very hard to achieve, as we are all arguing from a particular set of assumptions and cultural conditionings. This is very different to a traditional mind-set, whether Christian or Muslim or even Scientific, which assumes it has the absolute truth, and judges other viewpoints according to that light. Of course, we can then get absolute about relativism, and many people did.

But I think that Neptune in Capricorn – the dissolution (Neptune) of the traditional mind-set (Capricorn) – describes well what happened. Neptune was actually outside of Pluto during much of this period, appropriately making the point that it is mythologies that come first, and that that is what accepted religions and philosophies are: mythologies, not facts. (This period was also a peak in feminist activism, and again we have the dissolution (Neptune) of rigid male authority (Capricorn)).

This process prepared us well for Neptune in its next sign of Aquarius and the cultural diversity of the internet.

So Neptune in Capricorn, the Uranus-Neptune conjunction and Neptune in Aquarius have created a great open-mindedness among people. I imagine that people must have experienced something like this in the old empires, before the rise of modern nationalism, where you had people of all sorts of nationalities and religions living side by side in the big cities.

But it is not easy to live like this without a certain inner security and sophistication. It is a threat to simpler minds, and that is why we have had a concurrent rise in religious fundamentalism worldwide (wow, I sound like a real elitist here, but I’m prepared to be when it comes to fundamentalists!) This was Pluto in Sagittarius, pulling in the opposite direction to Neptune in Capricorn/Aquarius. And now Pluto in Capricorn, where we are starting to see religious fundamentalism go mainstream, particularly in the Middle East. (Guess what - I don't like the 'Rev' Rick Warren! Puffed up, smug, authoritarian, anti-gay creationist...)

I don’t think that Islamic fundamentalism is just a response to ‘western cultural imperialism’, for we have seen a similar rise in religious fundamentalism in the USA. It is certainly a response to cultural values that have arisen in the west, but I think they are part of an organic process that has a lot to do with science, and modern science has its roots in a more civilised Islamic world hundreds of years ago. So up yours Osama!

In 2 years time, Neptune will enter Pisces and a new mythological age will begin. At present we have a coming together of different mythologies from around the world, as well as conflict between them and a retreat into fundamentalism. Neptune in Pisces looks to me like a continuation of the process of globalisation of mythologies: not just having them side by side, but more of a blending, and a recognition that all mythologies have the same source - spontaneously arising out of the depths of the Mind in response to a world for which we need explanations as well as a sense of enchantment.

It is Mind, in a sense, that comes first, as the Buddhists would say. This is why science can never achieve the objectivity it aspires to and pretends to. It is just another myth, good in some ways, but a very partial one.

The chart for Neptune’s entry into Pisces is very nice.


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Not only is Neptune conjunct Venus and Chiron (‘healing mythologies’), but there is also a New Moon in Aries involving Jupiter. If anything is about a new start, a new vision, it is a New Moon in Aries, and Jupiter emphasises that and brings self-belief, good fortune and….. stories! Uranus conjunct Mars in early Aries and square to Pluto adds exceptional dynamism to this chart. 6 planets in Aries!

The world as we know it is being destroyed as Pluto (destruction and regeneration) begins his journey through Capricorn (tradition), and as disruptive and liberating Uranus approaches a square with Pluto. That process of destruction has only just begun, so much so that we are collectively still attempting to recreate the old through fiscal stimuli, renewed commitments to free trade etc.

This economic destruction is just Pluto’s entry point, and the coming square with Uranus will affect us on all levels. In 2 years time it will perhaps be clearer that the past is the past and that it is time for a new way of looking at the world, a new myth to replace the old one of endless economic expansion and technological progress – a form of progress that we mistook for progress in human consciousness itself. Pluto in Capricorn, as well as being a retreat into tradition, is also likely to take further a process of destruction of tradition that has been going on for hundreds of years in the west.

On another note, Neptune indicates fashion. We are passing through a period where cat-walk models, and therefore our idea of womanhood, have become an expression of Aquarius at its worst - a disembodied ideal. It's worse than that, because it seems like an attempt to keep women physically adolescent or even child-like, while at the same time we have moved into a time of greater awareness of, but also demonisation of, paedophiles. Yet these fashion gurus want us to find these anaemic sticks sexually attractive. It's sick! It's been said that a lot of the main fashion designers are gay men who naturally prefer a boy-shape. It's probably also got something to do with the shadow side of feminism, in which women feel they have to compete with men on men's terms, and that means no curves!

Neptune is on home territory in Pisces. Pisces also doesn't have a problem with eating plenty - no boundaries - when they remember to eat! So it may be fashionable to be a proper woman again - or a mermaid!

ONLY IN THE VATICAN...

“Men and women sin in different ways,” concludes Msgr Wojciech Giertych, theologian to the papal household, writing in the Vatican newspaper. The most common sin for women is pride, and for men it is lust.

The report is based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.

I don’t doubt there may be some psychological truth lurking in this observation, but it gets confused by the notion firstly that pride and lust are 'sins', and further that they are 'deadly', and therefore have dire consequences if you die without having confessed them. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

The idea of eternal damnation is an appalling one. How can a human being actually get their heads round this possibility? Torture that goes on and on FOR EVER.

With this sort of context, the confessions on which the study was based have to be taken as made under duress, and therefore unreliable.

Anyway, I can’t see anything wrong with lust or pride, taken in moderation. It’s normal and healthy to feel attracted to others (lust), and to enjoy feeling attractive (pride). If they become the basis of who you think you are, then that’s another matter. But it doesn’t damn you, and anyway you can’t force people to change, as the Catholic Church seems to try to do.

Catholicism isn’t the only religion that tries to terrorise people into behaving as it wants them to, though if we were to have a real war on terror, I think Catholic Doctrine would be a good place to start. Tibetan Buddhism also does this. You get these extraordinarily detailed and lengthy descriptions of the different types of hell, which are extremely difficult to escape from, in some of the Scriptures. And after you die, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you eventually become so terrified by the white light of reality that you flee into another body. For any of you out there who still idealise Tibetan Buddhism, remember it is an organised religion that can be just as heavy-handed as the Catholics.

So don’t die, it’s not good for you!


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Incidentally, the modern Vatican gained its independence on 7 June 1929 at 11am in Rome. With Venus in Taurus and Mars in Leo, you would have thought it would be women who stand accused of sensuality/lust, and the men who stand accused of pride. With an intercepted Sun-Moon in Gemini, and nothing to speak of in water, the Vatican is not short on ideas, but not too good at connecting them to actual human beings.

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.

The Pope takes a pot shot: this time it’s the Jews

Pope Benedict has done it yet again. First in 2006 it was the Muslims: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Then just before Christmas he announced that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

And then last week he reversed the excommunication of a bishop who is a holocaust denier.


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With his natal Mars at 29 Gemini, Pope Benedict is a crusader who sees life as a battle between light and dark, good and evil. And with Gemini communicativeness, he is not afraid to say so. A sign gathers momentum as you progress through it, so the end of Gemini is one of the most war-like places to have this planet. No doubt it is related to the idea we find in Arabic astrology, that Moon in late Gemini is a good time to start a war: this was the placement of the Moon on 11 Sept 2001.

This theme of opposites, of light versus dark, is also reflected in the Pope’s Moon in Libra, another sign that can be belligerent (e.g. Margaret Thatcher). His Moon is square to tribal Pluto in Cancer, and he also has the Sun in war-like Aries.

Naturally he or his spokesmen always deny that these attacks are such. But the astrology tells a different story.

The above quote about the Muslims was by a Christian Emperor, which the Pope then quoted, and twice pointed out it was a quote and not his own words. But he still found them useful to say. At the time (12 Sept 2006) Pluto was starting to oppose his natal Mars, and Mars had just finished squaring his natal Mars.

When he made the comment about gays and transsexuals (22 Dec 2008), Mars was opposing natal Mars, as was Pluto.

And when he reinstated the bishop last week (21 Jan 2009), Mars had just finished hard-aspecting his natal Moon square Pluto. And Pluto, of course, is still opposing his natal Mars.

So the underlying astrological theme of these attacks has been transiting Pluto opposing his natal Mars, and the trigger in each case has been transiting Mars. While transiting inner planets act mainly as triggers, transiting outer planets transform. And this transformation is not necessarily evolutionary. If the person involved is not very aware, outer planet transits can release primitive, barbaric elements in the psyche that then get acted out.

In the period from 9/11 through to the start of the Iraq War, for example, Neptune was making an opposition to George Bush’s natal Pluto Rising, which is one of a number of loose cannons in his chart. The Iraq War particularly was started for reasons that did not add up, and with little thought as to what to do afterwards. This strongly suggests unconscious, atavistic elements at work.

This also seems to be what is happening in the case of Pope Benedict XVI. Pluto is revealing a deeper level of his natal Mars which, as Pope, he has the scope to act out in an atavistic way if he so chooses. And he does so choose. The Pope is known for being a considerable intellectual, and his Sun, Moon and Mars all back this up. Mercury in Pisces might seem surprising, but Pisces has a great power to absorb information and make connections. So he is a classic case of someone who can seem civilised and advanced because of their intellectual accomplishments, but in whom the emotional depths remained untouched by all this learning. His Moon in civilised Libra but square to crab-like Pluto in Cancer expresses this perfectly.

What the Pope is doing is different to just not being politically correct, and thereby offending people. I have no objection to that. It does us good to get offended occasionally, as the late John Mortimer pointed out. Political correctness is usually about guilt-ridden liberals creating ‘rights’ for others and imagining ways that minorities might get offended. Like imagining that black people want to be called people of colour, or American Indians want to be called Native Americans (they don’t: they like being called Indians). It’s patronising, and it’s often insisted on in an intolerant way. The cardinal rule of PC is that no-one from a minority or another grouping must ever get offended.

But this isn’t what the Pope is doing. He’s not offending people in a healthy way, like making fun of the Jews’ pretensions to being the Chosen People, or of Americans for thinking they have the world’s best political system. He is using his position to demonise whole groups of people who are not Catholics, or who do not follow the Church’s teachings.

What we have at the heart of the modern Catholic Church is old-style barbaric medieval religion. And it’s not just this Pope. Ratzinger (the present Pope) was the enforcer for the sainted Pope John Paul II (Dare I say it, but as Rahm Emmanuel is enforcer for the sainted Barack Obama.) At least it’s now all out in the open.

It was under the present Pope that Tony Blair, who also has Mars Rising in Gemini, converted to Catholicism. In an interview some months after stepping down as Prime Minister, Blair was asked if he had any regrets about the Iraq War. He didn’t (though he hadn’t managed to get the previous Pope’s blessing for it!) What we have, he continued is “a visceral struggle between what is right and what is wrong.”

Ratzinger became Pope under Pluto in Sagittarius, a period which saw a rise in fundamentalism worldwide. Now with Pluto in Capricorn, we are seeing the Church establishment (Capricorn) reverting to a more primitive form (Pluto).

The Saturn-Pluto Cycle

I’ve only just realised that Saturn makes a square to Pluto this year, on 15th November. So that makes 3 major configurations this year, along with Saturn opposition Uranus (2 more crossings) and the remarkable Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune triple conjunction at 26 Aquarius in May.

I reckon we’ll begin to feel the effect of Saturn-Pluto from May onwards, when Saturn changes direction. Oppositions usually have a more obvious effect than squares, and with Saturn opposing Uranus all year, the effects of Saturn-Pluto may not be that easily discernible.

All the same, the square will be part of an important cycle that began in 1982 with the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto. One regular feature of the hard aspects of this cycle is the empowerment (Pluto) of Conservatism (Saturn) in American politics. 1982, for example, saw the rise of Reaganism; the opening square of 1993/4 saw the Republicans under Newt Gingrich take control of Congress; and the opposition of 2001 saw George W Bush come to power. It is quite possible, therefore, that we shall see a new impulse towards conservatism in US politics over the course of the next year.

It won’t come from Congressional elections, because there aren’t any. But it may come from Barack Obama. He may turn out to be a much more conservative figure than people had hoped for. Already his spending plans to stimulate the economy are running into trouble with Democratic Senators for not being bold or liberal enough.

From the New York Times online: ‘Senate Democrats complained that major components of his plan were not bold enough and urged more focus on creating jobs and rebuilding the nation’s energy infrastructure rather than cutting taxes’. “There is only one thing we have got to do in the stimulus, and that is how can we create jobs,” said Senator Tom Harkin Democrat of Iowa. “I am a little concerned by the way that Mr. Summers and others are going at this in that, to me, it still looks like a little more of this trickle-down, if we just put it in at the top, it’s going to trickle down. A number of people in there said, ‘Look, we have got to have programs that actually create jobs and put people to work.’ ”

I think a good way to look at Barack Obama as President is through his Saturn-Jupiter conjunction. These 2 planets are not purely personal, for they also describe our interaction with the social/public sphere. In conjunction, they can describe a powerful leader. It is interesting that Obama’s Saturn is in conservative Capricorn, and his Jupiter is in futuristic Aquarius. It mirrors the exact Saturn-Uranus opposition under which he was elected, and shows how important both these impulses are in him. Perhaps what we saw in his campaigning was the liberal who would bring America into a new and united future. But equally strong in his chart is his cautious, conservative Saturn.

This has become clearer to me over time ever since his comment about wanting to see Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel. I found this a shocking, hawkish thing to say. His silence over the Israeli assault on Gaza also spoke volumes.

As Jessica Murray put it last month: “Obama’s approach to the economic crisis is perhaps the most Saturnine feature of his approach. Besides arguing for the banker bail-out, he has chosen as advisors men who have been stalwarts of the Wall Street establishment, taking counsel from the very man who led the crusade for deregulation at the Clinton Treasury: Robert Rubin. Tim Geithner, one of the premier architects of the current global financial disaster, is a contender for his cabinet [and as of publication of this issue of Daykeeper, Geithner has been named Secretary of the Treasury—Ed.]. And then there is the odious Larry Summers, also at one point on the short list for Treasury Secretary. Another Clinton-era Friedmanite, Summers not only promoted the export of toxic debt to the rest of the world, he took the idea to its most literal extreme by advocating the export of actual toxic pollution to impoverished nations.”

So it will be interesting to watch these 2 impulses at play in Barack Obama. With a Saturn-Pluto square coming up this year that hard aspects both the US MC and Obama’s Venus (popular appeal), it may well be that the man increasingly defines himself to the right of the political spectrum.

On the other hand, Saturn doesn't finish squaring Pluto till August 2010, just before the mid-term Congressional elections. So it may be that Congress lurches to the right at that point instead of - or as well as - Obama doing so.

Saturn-Pluto is also associated with war, terrorism and violence. The present cycle, which began in 1982, saw “the depths of the Soviet war in Afghanistan that led to the rise of the Islamic jihadist movement, fuelled by clandestine US support” (Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, p215.) The opening square of 1992-4 “exactly coincided with the first World Trade Center bombing, Osama bin Laden’s first call for a jihad against America, and the coming to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan." (ibid, p216). The opposition of 2001 of course saw the World Trade Center attacks and the start of George Bush’s War on Terror.

So over the next year we are likely to see a new phase open up in this war between Islam and the West. If the US begins to withdraw from Iraq, it may be a winding down of this war. On the other hand, it may intensify in Afghanistan, where it all began.

Saturn-Pluto has its economic aspect, due to Pluto’s association with wealth. Under the 1982 conjunction, we saw the rise of a new economic era after the stagflation of the 1970s, associated with deregulation and monetarist policies. The square of 1993/4 marked the long boom of the Clinton years. The dotcom bubble of 2001/2001 was arguably the peak of this period, as the Saturn-Pluto cycle reached its mid-point. 2009/10 will see the closing square of this cycle, just as 1973/4 was the closing square of the last cycle: the associated world oil crisis was arguably the death knell of that Saturn-Pluto economic cycle.

It is clear to many of us that we are witnessing the slow death of the current economic model, and this year’s Saturn-Pluto is testament to this. The conjunction of Pluto to Saturn represents the planting of a new and potent seed. The opening square is its empowerment, the opposition its peak and the closing square its gradual death, the cleansing of what was impure.

The Source of the US Sibly Chart; the US 2nd July Chart

There are 2 ways of generating the US Sibly Chart, which is the chart most commonly used by astrologers. The usual way is to do a chart for 5.10pm on 4 July 1776 in Philadelphia. There is some evidence for a late afternoon chart but none, it seems, for a time as specific as 5.10pm.


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The other way the chart can be generated is by using medieval techniques to create a chart that signifies the Declaration of Independence. Susan Manuel showed in 1994 that if you take the House Cusps for the preceding Cancer Ingress of 20 June, set for Philadephia, you get the House Cusps of the Sibly Chart. If you then superimpose the planetary positions for 4th July 1776, set for 12 noon GMT, you get the planetary positions of the Sibly Chart.

“Manuel showed that Sibly was working within the tradition, established by the great mundane astrologers of the Islamic world, in which it was not necessary to set a horoscope for the exact time at which an historical event took place (even the birth of an important individual), but rather to locate the horoscope which signified the event under consideration.” (Nicholas Campion, Book of World Horoscopes). Susan Manuel’s paper can be purchased here.

My solar fire produces charts using this technique which are almost there, but not quite. Like I need to set the Sun at 1 minute of Cancer for the Ingress chart. And the Noon chart has the Moon some degrees out. But no doubt there are explanations somewhere for this.

I'm not convinced that Sibly used these techniques, because the 5.10pm time also produces the chart pretty convincingly. But it still seems an eerie coincidence.

I can’t say I understand these techniques, though it’s a fascinating way of going about things. In a way, I prefer it. Astrology is essentially a divinatory system that uses symbols, so a symbolic way of generating charts would in some ways seem more logical than trying to pin down birth times. I guess the way you’d do it for your own chart would be to draw up the preceding Cardinal Ingress chart for the place you were born, and then superimpose the planetary positions for noon on the day you were born. I quite like my own chart done this way. It puts my Mercury-Uranus opposition along the MC-IC axis, which is quite a good position for a blogger!

I also think people and countries have a way of becoming their charts if used long enough, however dubious the origin of the charts. This is because astrology is divinatory, and what you are doing is making a kind of energetic link between the chart and the person/country, and that link deepens the more you use the chart.

Just for fun, here is another chart for the USA, which I wrote about 2 years ago. It’s based on the fact that, as Nicholas Campion says: “The birthday of the USA is celebrated on 4 July, but in fact the crucial vote for independence was taken on 2 July 1776, and constitutional historians…. never tire of pointing this out. Contemporary press reports were in no doubt that this was so… Even the participants in the drama regarded this vote as the vital event in both political and symbolic terms.”


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There is some evidence for 4pm. And with Moon conjunct Pluto, Scorpio Rising and Sun in the 8th, it gives a very Scorpionic chart, for which I argued in the same blog 2 years ago.

Interestingly, it has good synastry with Barrack Obama. For example, his Scorpio MC conjoins the US Scorpio Asc, and his Saturn conjoins the US Moon-Pluto.

By transit we see the US beginning a square from Neptune to its ASC: its old way of expressing itself (ASC) through the use of power (Scorpio) is dissolving. The Progressed MC (the Presidency) has just moved into steady, financially aware Taurus, and out of belligerent, headstrong Aries. Prog Saturn is approaching an opposition to the Prog MC, showing the renewed sense of responsibility and authority that has entered the Presidency. The Progressed Moon in Leo is approaching the Prog Asc: the people (Moon) have found their essential voice (Asc/Leo) in electing a new president whose Sun closely conjoins the Prog Asc.


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Progressed Mars, the planet of America’s military ambitions, is in Libra, a sign Mars finds difficult until it learns diplomacy. This year it also went retrograde and became intercepted. So it is in difficulties, as we all know, particularly over the next 18 months, after which point it will cease being intercepted.