Saturn-Uranus and the Congressional Bust-Up; The Current Outer Planet Configurations

Saturn and Uranus are now seriously approaching an opposition, and will be exact on US election day, which points to the unusual significance of that election. So I’ve been watching out for manifestations of Saturn-Uranus, and of course the punch-up in the US Congress over the proposed $700bn bailout of Wall St is a perfect example.

On the one hand you have Uranus, the ideologues who believe in a free market at any cost, in which the government does not interfere, and that includes not bailing out banks that have cocked up. On the other side you have Saturn, those who emphasise the responsibility of government to prevent systemic failure and to weigh the issue from the viewpoint of society as a whole.

Those who scuppered the Bill were mainly Republicans of the Uranian type. Mind you Nancy Pelosi, the House leader, did not help when in Aries fashion she attacked the Republicans when summing up the debate. You can clearly see the weakness of Aries here: you have a major national crisis, a bi-partisan approach to leadership is needed, and the Aries is not able to step outside of the ‘rightness’ of her own point of view. That is why Aries, like all signs, needs its opposite, in this case Libra.

This punch-up in Congress was, I think, of huge significance. It was about much more than the $700bn bailout. It was drawing lines in the sand for a big debate that is yet to be had about the way the country is run, Saturn versus Uranus. And it shows how divided the 2 principles are at present, that agreement could not be reached at a time of national crisis.

The movements of Saturn and the outer planets between them describe the main themes we find in the world. At present we have the following transits as applied to the world economy:

Uranus square to Pluto.
This transit is only just starting, like it was in the Wall St Crash of 1929. I’ve been banging on about it in my last few posts, because I think it is now the overarching astrological theme, and will be for many years. At present it represents the dramatic shocks (Uranus) to the economy (Pluto, god of riches) that are deeply destructive yet transformational (Pluto). I think these shocks will intensify, on and off, for a while yet, whatever the outcome of the $700bn bailout, as Uranus and Pluto approach each other.

Pluto’s entry into Capricorn
We would be having the seismic shocks whatever sign Pluto was in, but his entry into a new sign emphasises that we are entering a new era, and Capricorn shows the direction of the change: from profligate Sagittarius to responsible Capricorn, from optimistic and booming Sagittarius to pessimistic and recessionary Capricorn, from free-market Sagittarius to regulated Capricorn. Astrologers (including myself) have made a lot of the immediate effects of Pluto’s entry into Capricorn this year, but on reflection I don’t think Pluto works in this immediate way: it is the square to Uranus that has made the big difference.

Saturn opposite Neptune
Yes, just when you thought we’d left that one behind. But with outer planet transits you often continue to see the effects a year or two later, after the transformational work has been done and had time to percolate through. This was the case with the Saturn-Neptune opposition of 1971-2. It wasn’t until 1973-4 that we had the oil crisis followed by a worldwide recession, both classic hallmarks of Saturn-Neptune. Last year, in the immediate aftermath of the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition, the price of oil began to soar and continued to do so. And now we have a recession (OK, that is said to be debatable. But I ask, if this is not a recession, then what is?)

It is quite remarkable and eerie the way that, economically, the present Uranus-Pluto square is mirroring in such detail the previous square of the 1920s/30s; and the way the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition has mirrored the opposition of the early 1970s. It makes you realise that astrology works!

Saturn opposite Uranus
Uranus is finding his way into the world not just from the approaching square to Pluto, but from the opposition to Saturn, which is enabling him to manifest in concrete form (Saturn). Pluto is our wealth and the power we get from it, hence its connection to Wall St. But Wall St is also Saturn, for it is the financial establishment. So Uranus currently has 2 routes through to Wall St, and look at the result! And the Saturnian route has a whole year to run.

I think that from recent events we can begin to see why Saturn-Uranus will be exact on US election day. The election is occurring at a time of grave crisis for the USA – and probably Europe as well – and this gives added significance to the election. The economic Saturn-Uranus theme is becoming clearer, and will play a major role in the next Presidency.

The bigger Uranus-Pluto economic theme is perhaps impossible to comprehend at this stage. But Saturn is closer to home, so Saturn-Uranus is more comprehensible. It is about 2 opposing principles in the economy, as we have already seen in the Congressional bust-up. It is about free-market ideology versus practical responsibility. We usually think of Uranus as progressive, as forward-looking. But he is also an archaic, backward-looking, brutal god, and I think it is this aspect of him that the free marketers now represent.

What oppositions also tend towards, however, is a creative resolution, rather than one side defeating the other. Yes, a more regulated economy (Saturn) is needed. But Uranus also has a part to play, so that we move into the future with new ideas (Uranus) while learning from experience (Saturn), rather than retreating into a protectionist, over-regulated economy (Saturn). Uranus in particular represents the new ideas needed in a world where the old sources of energy are less available, and where environmental considerations are more important.

It is interesting that Saturn-Uranus has a resonance with Uranus-Pluto, for Pluto is entering Saturn’s sign of Capricorn. So this will intensify the transit, and intensify the debate which began in Congress over the bailout, but which as I said earlier will turn out to be about much more than that. It is about the way the economy and the US itself is run, and this was just the opening skirmish.

The next President will have to contain these 2 sides, as the election chart forcefully informs us. The next President cannot therefore afford to be partisan as Bush was. (It is strange that Bush was unusually non-partisan as governor of Texas, and this was part of his Presidential platform, yet ended up more partisan than most.)

It looks like Obama will win, and historically it is tempting to compare him to Franklin D Roosevelt, who became President with the Great Depression well under way. FDR had Sun in Aquarius square to Neptune in Taurus, and Obama has Sun in Leo square to Neptune in Scorpio. This Sun-Neptune synastry forms a Grand Cross, and they are both inspirational (Neptune) leaders, with FDR only being a few years older than Obama is now when he became President.

The $700bn bailout, Uranus-Pluto and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Since I wrote the piece below yesterday (which still stands), the Congressional talks over the bailout have imploded, and we have seen the collapse of another bank, Washington Mutual, the biggest failure in US banking history (albeit seamlessly bought up by JP Morgan.) It is hard to keep up with events. It is still nowhere near what happened in the thirties, when thousands of banks went under. But that is the real fear, the real possibility.

Here’s a prediction: the $700bn (read $1 trillion or more) bailout of Wall St isn’t going to work, assuming it gets through Congress. It may seem to work for a while, but it is sticking plaster over a deeper issue that will eventually come back with renewed ferocity.

This is because what we are encountering is Uranus-Pluto. There’s no way you can ‘work’ with Uranus-Pluto, for it is too powerful and it is not human. A whirlwind from the gods is coming in over the next few years, and it is hubris to think that we mere humans, with our partial understanding, can control it. That is why the Great Depression of the 1930s is still not properly understood, for it occurred the last time that Uranus squared Pluto.

So those financiers who will admit they do not understand the current situation are in tune with the gods. Those, like Hank Paulson, who came up with the $700bn scheme, are not looking nearly deeply enough.

What we are seeing is the beginning of a highly unpredictable and profound change in the world economy. The $700bn (read $1 trillion) bailout is essentially an attempt to hang on to the old system, with a few rules changed here and there, largely for political reasons. For purely astrological reasons, therefore, it cannot be part of the long-term solution. It is beside the point.

I think that transiting aspects between outer planets need to be given very wide orbs, because they are so powerful, the changes they bring about take so long, and their action is readily observable over these wide orbs. So I think I am probably being over-conservative when I use an 8 degree orb in these cases. The astrologer Richard Tarnas reckons we need to use 15 degree orbs for the bigger collective transformations. And if you look at the events of Jan 2008, when Pluto entered Capricorn and the financial turmoil began, you really also want to implicate Uranus, which was 14 degrees off a square and closing.

I think it is because Uranus was involved that Pluto’s entry into Capricorn has been so dramatic. If we look back at Pluto’s entries into Virgo through to Sagittarius, none of them were particularly dramatic, though over time his effects were certainly felt.

So what is happening now is beyond our understanding, far more than if it was just a single outer planet. Look at what happened from the mid 1980s through to 1991, as Gorbachev began his programme of perestroika that eventually (and unintentionally) led to the collapse of the USSR. This was Uranus-Neptune, and it began when they were about 16 degrees apart. As they closed in on each other, the drama intensified, and I don’t think any of us could have predicted what happened, or understood it fully at the time. It was 2 outer planets, just like the 60s were with the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, and you get this huge cultural impetus on all sorts of levels that takes decades to work through, and that takes decades to get perspective on. And that is what is happening now. There is this deep impetus coming in, and all we can do is live through it and be awed by the changes we see.

9/11 was the ‘result’ of Saturn opposing Pluto in Sagittarius. That changed everything, in a way, but we still had the same underlying system. Saturn is not an outer planet, so its aspects to outer planets are not of the same nature. 9/11 is going to become much less significant as Uranus-Pluto gets underway, not just because of the passage of time, but because it actually doesn’t have the same level of significance.

I don’t know whether or not to see Pluto as an ‘evolutionary’ force. He can certainly provide the conditions for some sort of evolution to take place, if that is what we want. And I’d say the same about Uranus and Neptune. The last Uranus-Pluto square picked us up in the late 1920s, and dropped us in the Second World War, out of which a very different world emerged. Certainly the old world had reached some sort of tipping point, some sort of big imbalance that inevitably led to change. And of course things that some of us call 'good', like the UN, came out of that. As well as things that some of us call 'bad', like nuclear weapons and the Cold War.

But there is no way I could say that the last Uranus-Pluto square led to an overall evolutionary step forward for humanity. It was just different. It is like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, who uses wheels when he finds himself on the ground, and then wings when conditions change and he is in the air and having a very different experience, when events have propelled him from one state to the other. But one state isn’t inherently more ‘evolved’ than the other.

I don’t think Pluto is a ‘moral’ force either, for that is a human idea and Pluto is remote from human life, far more so than Jupiter, who in his own hypocritical way governs ethics. So I don’t think that current events, from an astrological point of view, are about Wall St financiers getting their ‘comeuppance’, however much we might like to see that. Some of them may come unstuck, and that may satisfy our desire for fairness or even for revenge. But many if not most will no doubt remain rich and employed, though perhaps not quite as rich as before.

On the other hand, Jupiter is in Capricorn this year, so if any of these CEOs and hedge fund managers do find themselves suddenly subject to human law, it is to Jupiter that we need to look.

America staggers, and the world holds its breath

The crisis in the US banking system, which could still go into meltdown, affects the whole world. It is a global drama, and it is not pre-ordained how it is going to turn out. The US government, with its proposed $700bn buyout of bad banking debts, is doing its best to contain the crisis. But nobody seems to understand the situation. In my last post I quoted George Soros. Today’s financier wearing the dunce cap is Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and one of the people who is central to trying to sort out this crisis. A year or two ago he was saying how inherently great and strong the US financial system is. He used to be a Professor of Economics.

Now if these people were the equally highly trained scientists running the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, who are currently trying to sort out a damaging helium leak, it would not occur to me to offer them advice on how to do it, or to think I knew better. But economists are different. They have the highly democratic attribute that however many degrees they have, the man or woman in the street may still know better. Which gives me the right to proffer my opinion. Which I probably would do anyway.

When the $700bn buyout was proposed last week, the Sun was in Virgo square to Pluto. So the buyout was based on an analysis (Virgo) in an attempt to regain control (square to Pluto) of the situation. Now the Sun has moved into Libra, and very appropriately for that sign the focus has moved onto the Congressional negotiations over the buyout. It is not just about Libra as negotiator, though. There is a big outcry about fairness, another Libran attribute. Why should these banks be bailed out for their mistakes, and the CEOs walk away with millions, when all these ordinary people are losing their homes as the banks foreclose on them?

As the New York Times wrote today: “The lawmakers objected strenuously to the broad authority Mr. Paulson was requesting, the lack of additional steps to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and the absence of any demands for ownership stakes in the banks that would be helped.”

Fairness was never part of George Bush’s vocabulary, despite having Moon in Libra. This is probably because his Moon is square to his narrow, tribalistic Sun in Cancer. He was quite happy to let New Orleans suffer under Katrina because they were only poor black people, in a way that would never have happened if it had been say Boston. He is wealthy himself, and wants to see the rich getting richer. People who have made a lot of money, far more than they actually need, usually have a mean, selfish streak (which they see as a superior virtue), and George Bush is no exception.

So the $700bn buyout as proposed is entirely in keeping. It is crude, and the banks get away with it at the expense of the ordinary people. And it was put forward in a way that exploits people’s fears: accept this quickly, or the whole financial system and the economy could go down the plug. So it is very heartening to see the strength of the Congressional resistance, from both Democrats and Republicans.

In the UK, the government has rejected calls for curbs on executive pay, while acknowledging the unsatisfactoriness of the situation. If there were curbs in the UK, we would simply lose executives to other countries where there were no such curbs. But the US is big enough to go it alone in this respect, and set the trend for the rest of the world. There seems a good chance such curbs will be set. This will be Pluto in Capricorn at its best.

It is all a sign that the Bush period is passing. But it is more than that. Hard aspects between outer planets usher in new epochs. In 1989, as Uranus approached a conjunction with Neptune, the USSR began to lose control of Eastern Europe. 2 years later, with Uranus and Neptune still not quite conjunct, the USSR itself finally collapsed. Similarly now, with Uranus having been within 8 degrees of a square to Pluto since May, epoch-making events are starting to occur. We are witnessing history.

It is not just about some sort of massive restructuring of the US economy. It is also about America, for now, getting weaker. You can see that in the speech that the President of Iran gave at the UN in New York yesterday, in which he criticised the ‘bullying’ tactics of the ‘occupiers’ in Iraq. Fair point maybe, but the timing says it all. And on the same day, North Korea had the UN seals on its nuclear facilities removed. As America staggers, its enemies are getting bolder. And they’re not wasting any time about it.

Uranus-Pluto: the 1930s and Now

The financial system is based more on confidence than ‘solid’ assets. Money itself is purely based on the confidence that if you accept a particular piece of paper in exchange for goods or services, you will be able to change it back again further down the line.

So the current global crisis is not just about banks having lent unwisely and undermined their balance sheets in the process. That started it, but what it quickly became was the ‘credit crunch’, in which financial institutions no longer had confidence in one another, because they didn’t know each other’s exposure to this unwise lending. And a particular bank may go bust not because it is unsaveable, but because a loop develops where no-one will do business with it because no-one else will, and like Lehmans it can go under in a matter of hours.

So this is the $64 trillion question for the world right now: how far will this contagion spread? The Dow Jones and FTSE rallied yesterday due to government and central bank intervention, and are continuing to do so today, as the US government promises to take care of many of the bank debts that have built up. We have had these bouts of turmoil before, like when Pluto entered Capricorn in January, or when Bear Stearns, one of the big US investment banks, went under in March. But each time the turmoil is intensifying, and each time the hope is that it has been contained.

Many financial commentators are comparing current events to the 1930s. Astrology confirms this. We are now in the very early stages of a Uranus-Pluto square which will not be exact until 2012. In 1929, the year of the Wall St Crash, Uranus and Pluto were similarly just coming into square (using an 8 degree orb), and would not be exact until 1932. I find this similarity quite eerie.

Then Uranus was entering Aries, at it will do again in a couple of years, so it is a kind of re-visiting of the 1930s for this reason as well. Pluto was in Cancer, but I don’t think the sign is all that matters: Pluto is a god of riches as well as of death, so his movements always describe the economy. (By sign he is doing this rather aptly at the moment, as he moves from party-time Sag to hangover Capricorn.)

So a Uranus-Pluto square or opposition is probably about the most disruptive and transformative aspect you can have when it comes to the world economy. It fortunately doesn’t happen very often, and indeed the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression, was the last time it occurred. The 1930s square lasted right through from 1929 to 1937, finishing in the USA with another Depression! It was the boost to the economy from World War II which finally finished it off. And a very different world was ushered in.

No-one seems to fully understand why the Great Depression occurred, although the stock market bubble and excessive borrowing of the 1920s was certainly a major factor. Likewise no-one seems to fully understand what is happening now. George Soros is a well-known speculator and investor, and if anyone would know, you might have thought he would. He was asked what he thought about the US government allowing Lehman Brothers to fail. He said well if the overall situation doesn’t spiral out of control, then it will be seen as a good decision. But if it does spiral out of control, then it will be seen as a bad decision. True, but it also shows he is finding the future just as unpredictable as the rest of us!

What is going on now is classic Uranus, as well as classic Pluto, with each intensifying the other. Uranus really is unpredictable, as current events are showing. We are not necessarily headed for a Great Depression, just because that happened in the 1930s. On the other hand, we could be. We just don’t know and can’t know. What we do know – and as astrologers we have privileged information – is that the Uranus-Pluto square will not be fully over until 2019, in 11 years time. And that what is happening now is therefore the beginning of a long, transformational journey for the whole world. We know as astrologers that there is no going back economically, for the transit is too big for that. Astrology trains us to have a sense of the currents in society, and the magnitude of the coming change is something we can probably sense anyway.

Of course Uranus-Pluto will bring change on all sorts of levels: we can already observe the sea-change that is on its way in both US and UK politics, for example, though Britain as usual is lagging behind. With Russia and China becoming increasingly assertive, we can also see a sea-change in world politics on the horizon.

BODY-BLOWS FROM PLUTO

As Pluto turns Direct, the global financial system is receiving body blows. Earlier this year Bear Stearns, one of America’s top five independent investment banks, went under. Then yesterday, in one day, two more went: Merrill Lynch was bought up by Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection.

There hasn’t been anything like it since the thirties. It is Pluto the Destroyer at work. He gave us warning of what was to come in January when he entered Capricorn, revealing the excesses of the Sagittarian years and sending the markets went into turmoil.

Since then the system has managed to hold itself together, and some have even announced that the worst of the ‘credit crunch’ is over. But Pluto does not work like that. He attacks the foundations, and does not give up till they have yielded, making way for something new.

So for this reason, for purely astrological reasons if you like, I don’t think we have seen the last of the turmoil by a long chalk. It is going to carry on, the body blows will continue until the whole system submits. Uranus is still within 8 degrees of squaring Pluto (the orb I use for mundane outer planet transits), hence the sudden, shocking nature of the events. Uranus will move out of orb in 2 days time, so we can expect the seismic shocks to ease off, at least for now. Uranus won’t be back within orb until next April. But Pluto will be continuing his demolition work nonetheless.

Pluto clearly has a big job to do while he is in Capricorn, because he has begun it so early. The next 16 years should see a profound change in the way we do business. It’s tempting to say that western economies will become more sustainable and better regulated, both Capricornian hallmarks. It may well turn out like that, but in a fundamental way you cannot second guess an outer planet transit. There is stuff to be gone through that is in no way predictable, and which is central to the transformational process. All astrology gives us is the ability to go there gracefully.

It is interesting, and perhaps not surprising, that all 3 firms that went under did so as part of an outer planet cycle. Bear Stearns was founded in 1924, and had just finished its Uranus Return, and was finishing its Pluto opposition; Merrill Lynch was founded in 1965 and has its Uranus opposition; and Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850, and is (was) due to start its Neptune Return in the next couple of years.

I thought I was online again, but my wireless system has crashed once more. I’ve had continuous trouble with it since I’ve had it. So I’m going to go back to using a modem once Tiscali sends me the driver CD (which I’ve lost!) So it looks like one more week of going to the library and skimpy research and no new pictures on the blog!

Zimbabwe and South Africa

Sometimes in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, I imagine what I would do if I had the power to set the world to rights. Or at least I used to, until the Law of Unintended Consequences became clearer to me. Which means that you do something that seems like a good idea, and it backfires on you in ways you couldn’t necessarily have predicted. Like the US invading Iraq, the majority Shias gaining power there and gradually aligning themselves with that other Shia nation, and enemy of the US, Iran. Or like Eco-minded people wanting GM-Free soya, so producers start chopping down the Amazon in order to grow the crops to satisfy the demand. Or the US subsidising the planting of bio-fuels, with the result that less food is produced, prices go up, and many ‘undeveloped’ countries can no longer afford to feed themselves.

Actually, I reckon many of these consequences could have been foreseen with a bit of forethought. But when an issue enters the political arena, often the only way is to turn it into a black and white issue that leaves no room for doubt, in public at any rate. And that forestalls intelligent discussion. Perhaps democracies suffer more from this than more autocratic countries, which have the luxury of not having to please the population moment-to-moment. Russia seems to have known exactly what it was doing when it invaded Georgia recently, and got the result it wanted very quickly.

One fantasy I did hang onto was kidnapping Robert Mugabe and keeping him in the sort of Arctic hideout that Superman has until things changed for the better in Zimbabwe. But of course unless you know the situation very well, and even if you do, it’s hard to know what might happen as a result. Maybe his cronies would take over, and do a better job of hanging on to power than Mugabe has.

At any rate, a power sharing agreement has just been reached between Mugabe and the Opposition, so it is probably just as well that I didn’t kidnap him. The Opposition did rather better than Mugabe in recent elections and he was no longer able to rig the results so easily. This isn’t the end, but it’s probably the beginning of the end of the crisis that has destroyed the economic base of a country in which prices are currently increasing 10 fold every 3 weeks.


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In April I wrote that the political instability in Zimbabwe, caused by the opposition demanding its rightful say, will finally be coming to an end by September this year. It looks like I scored a hit there!

My reasoning was that, using 1 degree orbs, Zimbabwe will be finishing a 3 year period in which the Progressed Sun (Leader) has been opposing natal then progressed Uranus (instability).

As I also wrote then and in August, whatever political changes occur, Zimbabwe will continue to have natal Sun opposite Pluto, so there will always be a tendency for the leaders to become dictatorial. Iran and Pakistan also have Sun opposite Pluto, and we see the same tendencies there. And Russia has Sun square Pluto.

Unfortunately, South Africa also has Sun opposite Pluto.


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The South African Sun is in the 9th House, which was expressed in Nelson Mandela being as much a ‘spiritual’ leader as an administrative leader. The current leader Thabo Mbeki does not have this quality, but is seen as intellectual and academic, another 9th House attribute.

Mbeki is also known for defending the view that HIV does not cause AIDS, and this in a country with a massive Aids epidemic. Mbeki has natal Sun in Gemini square to Neptune. This viewpoint strikes me as delusory (it is used to justify the idea of Aids as a western conspiracy), and is perhaps indicative of the beginnings of a degeneration in the South African leadership.

Jacob Zuma is the probable next President. He is a populist and has had himself photographed in traditional tribal dress. He has been surrounded by allegations of rape and corruption for years. He was acquitted of rape, and during the trial sang ‘Bring Me My Machine Gun’ with the crowd of supporters outside. In the last few days the corruption allegations – of which he seems almost certainly guilty – were thrown out of court for being ‘politically motivated’.

Zuma was born on 12th April 1942. He has natal Sun in Aries sextile Mars, Moon square Mars, and Mars square Neptune. All that Mars/Aries is good for an impulsive strongman leader. And Mars in Gemini conjunct Jupiter and square Neptune is perfect for singing ‘Bring Me My Machine Gun’.

So I think it likely that under Zuma we will start to see a serious slide towards dictatorship, and the fulfilment of the Sun opposite Pluto in the natal chart.

Zuma has described himself as a socialist, and he supports redistribution of wealth. In this context, this would include ‘land reform’, which has been so disastrous for the Zimbabwean economy. It has already begun in South Africa, with white farmers being subject to compulsory purchase of their land. This is fair enough in itself, except that the farms are often then left to rot. One farmer described the dead cattle in the fields of his old farm, and how the drainage had been ripped up and sold. He has since bought another farm, and is again finding himself subject to a compulsory purchase order.

These African farms have been a source of much wealth for their countries, but they are complex operations run on tight margins. In Zimbabwe they were stolen and handed over to people – often Mugabe cronies – who had no intention of farming like this. A similar development seems to be starting up, but in a more civilised way (for now) in South Africa as well.

The Tragic Mr Brown (Part III)

I'm back in the library bashing out a post before my allotted one hour runs out. Forget about putting pictures in, unless they're old ones. I just spent £45 to find out there's nothing wrong with my computer or router. And my service provider says there's nothing wrong their end. I have to sort this before next week, or I'll get caught up in Mercury retrograde and that'll be that for 3 weeks!

Anyway, in the UK we are experiencing another round of calls to get rid of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. Specifically, 9 Labour MPs have formally requested a leadership election (which Brown could, of course, win.) The more who do this, the more emboldened others become to do so, and once 70 MPs have sent in the papers making the request, there will have to be a leadership election. The first MP to make the call was a junior Minister, and she promptly got sacked, as she would have known, but someone had to make the start. There is such a groundswell of dissatisfaction with Gordon Brown amongst MPs.


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Brown is particularly sensitive at the moment to the movements of Pluto. Natally he has Chiron at 1 Capricorn conjunct MC at 5 Capricorn. Blair also had a Chiron-MC conjunction in Capricorn. Both men have an intense desire to leave a legacy (Capricorn MC) and a way of damaging it by their own volition (Chiron). Blair did leave a real legacy: his government managed to both keep the economy growing while putting loads more money into public services. Yet all many of us remember is the Iraq debacle and the bulging-eyed religious fanatic that Blair became. His achievement was real, but it will take time, perhaps another generation, to acknowledge it.

Brown shares in that same achievement, for he was the Chancellor, the controller of the national purse-strings, during those years. He is busy damaging that legacy by the very fact of being PM, a position to which he was never suited. Again, it may be years before Brown is remembered for his achievements as Chancellor rather than his shortcomings as Prime Minister.

Of course, with Pluto entering Capricorn, we are starting to encounter some of the limitations of the economic model under which Blair and Brown, and the whole western world, were operating. It was a model of endless growth which had been there for many decades. A model which is obviously worrying if you have any sort of perspective, but which whole populations had been caught up in. You can't blame the politicians, because we elected them. And all people wanted, quite often, was a quite understandable improvement in their living conditions. It was a sort of lemming thing. So within the economic universe they inherited, Brown and Blair did quite well. At the same time, history will make a wider judgement not just about them but the wider profligate western world of which they were a part.

Even though the country's current economic difficulties are in many ways not of Brown's making, the fact is he is not a leader, he doesn't like public exposure (half his planets in 12th House Pisces), and so his unpopularity is largely of his own making.

When Labour got hammered in the local elections back in April, Pluto was very close to Brown's natal Chiron. Since then the unrest has continued on and off. Now with Pluto having just turned Direct but still stationing, a new phase in the destruction of his leadership seems to be beginning. Instead of mutterings and insinuations, we have concrete action to remove him starting up. The requisite 70 MPs may yet not sign up, but I think they will.

The weakness of Gordon Brown's position was highlighted a month ago, after another bye-election hammering, when his Foreign Secretary David Milliband wrote a newspaper article about the future of the Labour government that did not mention Gordon Brown. And Milliband kept his job! (See my posting of Aug 13th).

So the next significant Pluto event for Mr Brown will be when Pluto crosses his Chiron later this year. If he is still around, that may be when he finally goes, the damage to his legacy done, no longer the Iron Chancellor but the Prime Minister who failed. He will still have Pluto conjunct MC to go through, and if he is still PM, it may describe his drubbing at the next general election.

I seem to be having a series on the Tragic Mr Brown, plotting the course of his downfall. It is not because I want him to fail. It just seems to be what is happening. It is tragic because he so desperately wanted the job all his life, yet is so unsuited to it.

I have 2 minutes of my one hour left. Over and out...

My connection to the internet slowed down and then stopped on both my computers over the last 2 days. What a coincidence, and it's not the service provider. Maybe I should stop making fun of politicians and terrorists? So I'm having to race over to the local library until next week at least. But Mercury Retrograde begins then, so I might have several weeks of this. Last time this happened was in late 2006, when my phone line was down and British Telecom took 6 weeks to mend it!

Saturn is bang on conjunct my Ascendant, and it seems to have put my life in a bit of a limbo over the last few months. Saturn can certainly give constriction. But he also gets us to take practical steps, new and grounded ones. So hopefully things will begin to change over the next few weeks as Saturn begins to separate from my Ascendant.

I seem to be having a Tibetan Buddhist phase right now. A few weeks ago I wrote about Tenzin Palmo, the Englishwoman who spent 12 years in a cave in the Himalayas in the 1970s/80s. Now I've just read Dragon Thunder, which is all about Chogyam Trungpa from the viewpoint of his English wife Diana ('Lady Diana Mukpo'). When she was 16 she ran away from Benenden School (a very posh English girls school) and married Trungpa. Born on the New Moon in Libra in 1953, she has the classic Libran characteristic of focussing her life around her partner; the limitations of that forced her to discover her own personality and interests, which Trungpa supported. She spent years training in horse dressage, which has an emphasis on aesthetic perfection. Again, very Libran.

Anyway, my main interest was in Trungpa, the controversial 'crazy wisdom' teacher who had huge success in America from 1970 until his death in 1987 aged 48. What you don't get in this book is Trungpa from the viewpoint of the disciples, and I'm re-reading 'Double Mirror' by Stephen Butterfield to get that perspective. No doubt I'll write about this in a few days. But Trungpa did seem to have a combination of brilliance along with an inability to see the real dynamics and motives of his group of disciples. This inability, or naivety, seems to be very common in 'spiritual' teachers.

McCain or Obama? A Visual Astrology Perspective

In the current Visual Astrology Newsletter, Bernadette Brady relates US Presidential elections to the Venus cycle, which lasts for 8 years. Because the election always occurs in early November, Venus will at that point (in those particular years) be in Libra or Sagittarius, and so well separated from the Sun. Venus is therefore clearly visible as the Morning Star or the Evening Star. The Evening Star elections (one of which is coming up) are more favourable to a change of party in the White House.

Venus bestows favours on any planets she sheds her light on, so the candidates who symbolise those planets are likely to win. After taking us on a fascinating ride through the Evening Star elections of the 20th century, Bernadette Brady concludes with:

The 2008 Evening Star Election

At the time of the election Venus is once again radiating Pluto but differently to the 2000 election as there is also a distant but bright Jupiter in the cape of Sagittarius (see image below). If Venus’ empowerment goes to both planets, questionable as the orbs are wide, then this would symbolise a landslide victory to the younger "crown prince", a bold sweeping ascent to the White House where the sheer weight of the mandate places great power in the hands of Obama. Such power can be a heady drug for any politician so the younger rival will need to remember that he is not Caesar, he is not one of the gods and is only human.


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But if Venus' light does not reach Jupiter, then the emphasis will be focused on the raw power-struggle of Pluto. The election will be won by the "family" with the most money, power and grit. Adding to this intrigue, the heir of the retiring king [the Sun] is not being damaged by Mars [to which it is conjunct]. Rather that Mars is expressing itself as John McCain, the Soldier.

One gets a sense already of the power of the Jupiter Pluto victory to the young contender, Obama, but if it comes to a fist fight in the manner of the 2000 election - the last Evening Star election where Venus radiated Pluto - then the victory will go to the one who can wield the most money and power.

The Large Hadron Collider

On 21st October the Large Hadron Collider will be unveiled in Switzerland. It will be the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. Through colliding sub-atomic particles at energies never before achieved, scientists are hoping to make breakthroughs in their understanding of the fundamental nature of matter.

From Wiki: ‘When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized particles, models and states might be produced, and for some searches are planned, including supersymmetric particles, compositeness (technicolor), extra dimensions, strangelets, micro black holes and magnetic monopoles.’

The LHC is being commissioned just as the Saturn-Uranus opposition starts to become exact (4th November). Good timing! Saturn-Uranus is associated, amongst other things, with scientific/technological breakthroughs: Uranus gives the brilliant ideas, and Saturn the impulse to give them concrete form. It is hard to imagine that the LHC won’t produce breakthroughs.

Approval for the project was given in 1994, just as Pluto entered Sagittarius. Construction began 4 years later, within a 27 kilometer underground tunnel on the Swiss-French border. It is an enormous project, and has involved thousands of scientists. Now, with Pluto in its final months in Sagittarius, it is about to bear fruit. It will give us the power (Pluto) to further our understanding of the universe (Sagittarius).

On 21st October there will be a Void Moon between approx 1pm and 4pm GMT, so they would be advised not to have the opening ceremony then. Events beginning under a Void Moon have a way of not bearing fruit, like the first voyage of the Titanic and the Tibetan protests against the Chinese.

Another Pluto in Sag project is ITER, which is an international attempt to create a nuclear fusion reactor. Formal agreement to build the reactor occurred on 21 Nov 2006. Pluto was in Sag trine to Saturn, which is nice for the project actually happening. The Moon was in Sag, and crossed the nuclear axis on that day. And the Sun was conjunct Jupiter. So plenty of expansive Jupiterian/Sagittarian energy. The idea is to produce 500MW of energy through a sustained reaction of up to 1000 seconds. If they pull this one off (and construction alone is expected to take 10 years), then it opens up a future of much safer nuclear power, and a lot more of it, with virtually no radioactive waste.

I long for the world to operate in a simpler and more sustainable way, that brings us back to the basics of life, and reconnects us to the natural world. (I have Virgo Rising). At the same time I am thrilled by futuristic technological advance. (I have Aquarius Sun). I like reading space operas set in the far future. (I've just read Peter Hamilton's 'The Reality Disfunction'). I think that genetic engineering as applied to people could create some fantastic advances – elimination of inherited diseases and disorders, whether physical or mental, for example. Most people I know do not share my enthusiasm! They tend instead to be horrified by GM or nuclear fusion. There are, of course, horror scenarios which many scientific advances have brought and will continue to bring. But I think it is hard to argue that scientific advance has overall made the world a worse place, and that major branches of research should therefore be stopped. In any case, it's going to happen anyway, and I'm not going to spend my life opposing the inevitable.

Electing inexperienced leaders: it's the US Sun square Saturn

It could be argued that the real contest over who will be the next President of the USA is between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, the 2 Vice-Presidential candidates. Barack Obama, being black, stands a good chance of being assassinated. I am not being grisly or distasteful, it is just a fact. And John McCain is an old man who has had skin cancer several times in the last 15 years, and has permanent physical weaknesses from his maltreatment at the hands of the Vietnamese, during which period he twice attempted suicide. After his release, Navy psychiatrists commented that he “had an "overdeveloped superego" and an "unrealistically high" need for achievement.”


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This "unrealistically high" need for achievement is described perfectly by his Moon in Capricorn opposite 10th House Pluto. Moon in Capricorn implies a need (Moon) for achievement/high position (Capricorn). The opposition to Pluto in Capricorn’s House emphasises, empowers and neuroticises this need. This man really does need to be at the top, to the extent that even at the age of 72, when most of us have eased off and become free of that sort of drive, he remains desperately ambitious. Capricorn is a sign that only comes into its own with age, and to that extent I think we can trust that he really does want to do the job, and will have the energy to do so, assuming his health holds up. OK, there is probably a neurotic element, some sort of need for identity, but that just goes with the territory.

I think Sarah Palin was right to point out that Barack Obama has not sponsored any major legislation, yet has managed to publish a volume of memoirs. There is a hubris in that. As someone commented on one of my posts, Barack Obama’s decision to run for President - or at any rate a sense of a special, high destiny - probably took place when he was a child. This was also the case with the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who was forced to admit to this recently in an interview. Meanwhile Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London, used to say when he was a kid that he wanted to be king of the world. It’s a bit shocking when you think about it that these people manage to fulfil their childhood fantasies, that we allow them to govern us.

Bill Clinton pointed out that he was a year younger than Barack Obama when he became President, and that age therefore need not be a factor. It need not, but by that time Bill Clinton had been Governor of Arkansas for 12 years, and had also had the experience of being voted out of office early in his governorship. So he did have political experience, considerably more than Barack Obama. Will Barack Obama be an effective President or won’t he? We have no way of knowing, for he has not been properly tested. Note I am not saying he wouldn’t make a good President. My point is that at this stage we don’t know and can’t know.

This is no way to elect a President, and it is a sign of US political immaturity that the Democrat party is prepared to countenance such a candidate. This would never happen in say Russia or China. They must be laughing. Astrologically, we can see this in Sun square to Saturn in the US chart: a challenged (square) relationship between the leader (Sun) and the requisite experience and authority for the job (Saturn).

The same applies to Sarah Palin: her only major political position has been as Governor of Alaska for the last 2 years. Yet she will automatically become President should John McCain be elected and then die.

As I have pointed out before, would it occur to any of us to appoint a highly skilled professional like a brain surgeon through a popular vote, and to allow candidates to stand who were e.g. plumbers, but could speak in visionary terms about brain surgery? Such a course of action would be considered mad, literally so. Yet this is exactly what we do when appointing someone to run the country, an equally skilled and responsible job. And what difference to the outcome does your puny individual vote make? Absolutely none, yet we are brainwashed into believing that such a system gives us the people the power, we are the free world, unlike those poor people suffering under foreign dictatorships.

August Sets 100-Year Record for No Sunspots

Gregory LeFever has published this article (plus sources) at his blog Quantum Spirit:


For the first time in 100 years, we’ve just completed an entire month without a single sunspot. And the lack of sunspots could signal a new Ice Age or some other extraordinary climactic conditions on Earth.

According to data from UCLA’s Mount Wilson Observatory, the last time this happened was in 1913. When the sun is active, there are easily 100 or more sunspots in a month. While there’s an 11-year cycle of diminished sunspots, the current lack has scientists puzzled.

So far this year, the average number of sunspots per month has been three. August had none.

Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin has Sun conjunct Mars (gun-toting) conjunct the US Moon (flag wearing). And Venus in Aries (Amazon). The guy behind her is having his last cigarette before being executed.

Sarah Palin, Alistair Darling and Pluto in Capricorn

Not living in the USA, I’m not quite so excited by the appointment of a running mate to the old man who looks like he will lose the next presidential election. But Sarah Palin (born 11 Feb 1964) does have Sun-Mars-Saturn conjunct in Aquarius, square to Neptune. There was a batch of people born in 1964 that has that signature. My take on it is progressive, humanitarian idealism with an unacknowledged undertow that is evangelical and intolerant and ideological. Now of course not all people born with this signature are like this. But Ms Palin is a politician and an American and a Republican, so I think a few years down the line and we will begin to see it. Once hall-of-mirrors Neptune has finished conjoining her Sun-Mars-Saturn.

I think this signature is classic for the progressive, ‘enlightened’ leader who cannot see their own shadow. I’m not saying this makes her better or worse than anyone else: it is just how she is built, and what she has to deal with. The path to hell is paved with good intentions: that’s what she needs to remember. With Sun in Aquarius, it is natural and basic to her to want to better humanity. But then add in the drive and self-certainty of Mars, the ambition and control of Saturn, and the rigidity of this fixed sign, and you can see what I mean. Humility and doubt and self-awareness ain’t her, at least not very readily.

She's a bit of a babe - or at least used to be - which will make it hard for some men (most men?) to see her as she is.

She was born in Sandpoint, Idaho. If she was born after 8.30am, then she has Moon in Aquarius, which would emphasise the above points. Otherwise she has Moon in Capricorn, which would describe her conservative qualities and ascent to high position. (Remember that Aquarius is co-ruled by Saturn, so can paradoxically also be a conservative, even right-wing, sign. Ronald Reagan was an Aquarian. So was Ceaucescu, the Communist-era dictator of Romania. And so is Dick Cheney.) If Sarah Palin does have Moon in Capricorn, then it is Void!

I don’t know if this means anything or not. A Moon is Void when it is at such a degree in a sign that it will not make any more major in-sign aspects until it enters the next sign. Traditionally it is said not to be good time to start something. Some astrologers are anti-Void Moon, I don’t see why, it is symbolic, just like the rest of astrology. But I don’t know what it might mean in a birth chart. Anyone with any ideas? The following were born under a Void Moon: Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Robert Kennedy, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Armstrong and Billy Graham.

Meanwhile in the UK, the news still includes the Chancellor’s assessment that the country is facing its greatest economic difficulties for 60 years. At least, that is how it got reported, and it seemed to contribute to yesterday’s plunge in the value of sterling. Listening to him today, his comments made more sense. He was quoting the IMF, who had originally made comments to the same effect, but saying that it was the whole world that faced these difficulties, the worst since the 1930s. The difficulties are produced by the unique combination of credit crunch and high oil, commodity and food prices.

Alistair Darling (who comes from a long line of Chancellors with prominent eyebrows) thinks that Britain is well set to meet these difficulties. This contradicts the assessment of the OECD, who reckon that Britain will fall into recession in the 2nd half of 2008.

All the same, the IMF’s assessment of world economic conditions is fully Pluto in Capricorn. No Sagittarian talk of growth (‘negative growth’ is a term I would like to see vanish), but a realistic assessment of obstacles. In the longer term it would be nice to see this deepening into a new economic model, based on sustainability rather than on endless and unnecessary and wasteful ‘growth’. This is the positive economic promise that Pluto in Capricorn holds out before us over the next 16 years.