Month: July 2016

 

 

There is now threatening to be a pandemic of breakaway movements who have taken heart from the Brit bungee jump (with less elastic than expected). Texit or Texodus, Calexit or CaLeavefornia, even NHexit in New Hampshire, are getting all roiled up about splitting away from the already federalised USA. There is no escape clause in the much cherished American Constitution and early attempts have been bounced back.

The USA 4 July 1776 chart does look unduly unsettled from this month till April 2018 with tr Uranus square Mercury at the moment and moving on to square the USA Pluto. So there may be much heated debate though it’s unlikely to lead to a King/Emperor/President in Texas.

Texas is leading the charge and the Texas 2 March 1836/USA relationship chart is riven with dispute over the next few years as first tr Uranus is conjunct Mars and then opposition Saturn. But with a 12 degree Pisces Sun, the oil baron state doesn’t look to be winning much for a couple of years.

California, 9 Sept 1850, already has a revolutionary-prone Uranus Pluto in Aries conjunction natally in its joining chart. That is being keyed up by tr Uranus conjunct Pluto Uranus in 2018/19 so they’re like to be in the mood to disrupt and cause some unrest.  The California/USA relationship chart does have tr Pluto trine Uranus in 2017/18 which could shake a few apples out of the tree.

But the likelihood of a full scale civil war between states and Washington seems unlikely.

 

 

 

The 9 degree Virgo Solar Eclipse of 1 September upcoming is conjunct the North Node opposition Neptune and square a Saturn Mars conjunction in Sagittarius so will be significant in its effect – spreading unease from Saturn Neptune, aggravation, bad temper and accidents from Saturn Mars. The exact Mars Saturn conjunction is August 23^rd at 9 degrees Sagittarius – so there will be a pre-Eclipse spike and a lingering post-Eclipse hangover.

Mars Saturn has a variety of meanings – associations with the military, with assassinations, harmful and destructive energy, but it is also a bringer of discipline (through gritted teeth), has a capacity to overcome obstacles through sheer will power. Admittedly it also tends to erect the hurdle course over which we will, all in different ways, have to negotiate our way.

The Virgo Eclipse is in a Saros cycle, 19 North, which is about coming down to earth with a bump, seeing a situation for what it really is, a good time for facing the truth.

Setting the Eclipse chart for London it puts Uranus in the 7^th conjunct the Descendant = splitting of a close partnership; with the afflicted Mars Saturn in the 2^nd house of personal finances.

The Cancer Ingress chart for 20^th June 2016, set for London, has Saturn on the MC and Pluto in the 12^th. Both these placings were on the Cancer Ingress for 1939 just pre-the outbreak of World War 11, though it had the much more brutal Pluto opposition Mars square Saturn MC. This 2016 Cancer Ingress has Moon in the 11^th = uncertainty about an unknown, insecure future; Neptune in 1^st = uncertainty about identity; Neptune opposition Jupiter = cloud cuckoo land hopes bring disappointment; unpredictable Uranus in the financial 2^nd quincunx vengeful Mars in the foreign 9^th.  Plus a 5^th house Sun Venus = a Leonine sense of self-importance, though since it fell on a Full Moon, also a split population, with head going one way, heart another.

 

I’m still chewing over quite why such a cataclysmic and game-changing event wasn’t clearer on the charts.  The UK joining the EEC chart 1 Jan 1973 12am, was never that happy with a controlling Sun square Pluto, a mutually non-supportive Mars Neptune and a suspicious, doubt-ridden Neptune Venus opposition Saturn. Plus an ‘adventurous’, leap-in-the-dark and hope-for-the-best Uranus square Jupiter.

Tr Uranus moving through the 7^th is opposition the UKEEC Uranus (a Half Return) this year, exact through the run up in May, so would be a time for a rethink and perhaps a rebellion. In individual charts the Uranus opposition Uranus brings a mid-life crisis when people do crazy things, kick over the traces and act like teenagers. Tr Uranus was also trine the Solar Arc MC over the referendum which would suggest a change of direction. Though tr Uranus in Pisces in 2005 was trine the MC – and nothing split then.

So maybe a combination of influences building up to a critical mass. Tr Pluto moved into the 4^th for many years ahead in 2012, then crossed the Sun and is now sitting exactly conjunct the North Node in the 4^th – so a time of domestic mutiny and resentment about the old ways not working. Plus tr Uranus in the separating-relationships 7^th since 2013.

What is being elbowed sharply this year is the UKEEC Uranus square Jupiter, with tr Uranus tugging at one end and tr Pluto at the other. It would certainly suggest a strong desire for freedom and hang the consequences. Uranus Jupiter is nothing if not a gambler.

 

Looking at the UK 1801 chart again with the benefit of, not just hindsight but, distance, following the old Arab astrologers’ belief that the primary function of astrology was in understanding the past, it does become slightly clearer.

The 1801 chart has two major configurations. One is a Cardinal Grand Cross of Capricorn Sun opposition Moon MC square North Node opposition Ascendant, the other is a wide Fixed Grand Cross of Mars in Taurus opposition Neptune square Venus opposition Saturn. All bar three planets are tied into these two configurations.

When a major configuration moves by Solar Arc to hard aspect another, then a life-changing crisis occurs. It pulls together almost the entire chart into one compacted bundle. At the moment Solar Arc Sun is square the UK Mars, and Solar Arc MC is square Mars from the other side.

The UK’s Fixed Grand Cross is heavily resistant to change, but here it gets enough of a dunt from the Cardinal Grand Cross , moved by Solar Arc, to take the initiative to shift. There was certainly a major shake-up and shock when the Solar Arc Moon squared Mars in 2007/08, but clearly not enough to take the decisive step. Or perhaps that was a necessary forerunner, laying the ground for this.  So first the 2008 financial collapse (Mars in 8^th) with no constructive steps taken afterwards, except old style governments entrenching the status quo by propping up the banksters who’d caused the problem.  This is stage two. It’ll be another couple of decades before these configurations pull apart with the focus until the mid 2020s being on the financial ramifications. Only latterly will Saturn in the 11^th = the legislature, get a radical rethink.

 

A statue to Mary Jane Seacole, voted in 2004 as the greatest black Briton, has been unveiled at St Thomas Hospital in London. Born to a Scottish soldier father and a free Jamaican mother who was a herbalist, she went to tend the sick during the Crimean War at her own expense. She became destitute on her return to the UK and was helped by service personnel who raised money for her. In her later years she returned to Jamaica and then to London where she moved on the periphery of royal circles.

Born 23 Nov 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica, she was a Sun Mercury Jupiter in Sagittarius square Pluto; with Jupiter conjunct Mars also in Sag. So not short of determination or a yen for travel, though not perhaps blessed with practical sense about money. She also had an innovative and courageous Saturn Uranus in Libra sextile Mars. After her death, she was forgotten for almost a century.

Florence Nightingale 12 May 1820 2pm Florence, Italy who also organised nurses during the Crimean War and became a social reformer has tended to get all the glory. She was a New Moon in Taurus in the travelling 9^th house sextile both Jupiter and Pluto in Pisces – so confident and determined. Her Mars in Leo was trine Saturn in self-reliant Aries, so brave, disciplined, suited to military associations.

 

Absolutely Fabulous, the movie, has just launched, a Brit comedy about fashionista desperation, with a pair of drunken ladies d’un certain age, embarrassing themselves on a spree across Europe. Written, like the original successful TV series by Jennifer Saunders, she co-stars with Joanna Lumley and the original cast plus Kate Moss and a zillion other celeb cameos. Reviews suggest it may be just what a battered UK needs to divert attention from existential meltdown.

Principal Photography and the Premiere were both launched on the Jupiter in Virgo trine Pluto, with the start of filming having an enthusiastic Venus Mars and Jupiter trine Pluto and a Libra new Moon, which had to give it head wind. Other less helpful aspects, of course, since nothing is simple these days.

The multi-talented, Jennifer Saunders, 6 July 1958, is a Sun Cancer square Mars in Aries opposition Jupiter, so not short of an adventurous spirit, with a Pisces Moon.

Joanna Lumley, 1 May 1946 7.30pm Srinagar, India, is a New Moon in Taurus square Mars Pluto in Leo, so not quite the flighty air-head she usually plays.

Both she and Saunders share Jupiter in Libra which in both cases is getting the tr Uranus opposition this year into early 2017 which is good news.  Both also have social-butterfly Venus in Gemini.

Their relationship chart has an energetic and argumentative composite Sun Mars Mercury Venus trine sensible Saturn and creative Neptune. It won’t all be sweetness and light since Saunders’ Sun square Mars hits on Lumley’s Saturn. But clearly there’s enough right to give them on-screen chemistry.