rebel, rebel

India and Pakistan have seen terrorist attacks in the last 24 hours. Maoist rebels (apparently there are sill Maoist rebels) are suspected of attacking a train in India, while in Lahore a mosque was attacked.
ALeqM5jr1cDMwgiyRnsnwPRFd4qebYlXeQ
It’s a little hard to get a fix on the exact time that these things happened, but they happened at the full moon in Sagittarius (a sign associated with beliefs and world views) and on the day that revolutionary Uranus moved into Aries. Uranus, Saturn, and Pluto (Jupiter, too) were at least close to rising or culminating at the time of the ingress.

Uranus in Aries is can be expected to stoke rebellion and conflict. At an personal level, it will have many of us asserting our individuality. The next seven years should see a lot recognition that “I gotta be me,” especially where relationships are concerned.

But on a collective level, things tend to get expressed at a lowest-common-denominator level. Rebel bands and survivalist groups form and move into action with this kind of energy behind them. But at any level, from the survivalists in their bunkers in the woods to the corporate raiders in their midtown offices, this is a time when we will see groups “going rogue.”

The Thai government has dealt harshly with the Red Shirt protestors, one of the more obvious manifestations of this energy. Outer planets like Uranus “cast their shadows before themselves”, and in the Thai reaction to the protestors, we see that the forces of the status quo are unlikely to sit by quietly while rebels emerge.

That, of course, is good news and bad, depending on what rebels and establishments you happen to be looking at. Uranus certainly isn’t playing politics here on Planet Earth, and as long as we manifest the potential energy, that is enough for him.

29:59, and counting

This morning, the planet Uranus is at 29 degrees, 59 minutes of Pisces, just a hair’s breadth away from Aries. The move officially comes at 9:48 p.m. EDT tonight.

Today is also the full moon, which will happen in the sign of Sagittarius at 7:07 p.m. EDT tonight.

That’s a lot of energy for one day, and we can expect the unexpected throughout the early part of the weekend (I don’t know what to expect on the 30th and 31st, with Saturn and Neptune both stationing). Tempers may be short, and impatience can run high. But so can brilliant insights (if only others would listen to them!!) and streaks of creativity.

On an individual level, the best possible expression of this energy might be what I like to call creative selfishness, the insistence on following our own path in the face of all kinds of resistance. Not without concern for others and their feelings, but with the knowledge that if we aren’t true to ourselves, we aren’t much help to anyone else, either.

Remember too, that much of the resistance you feel coming from others has its source hidden within yourself. The criticisms, warnings, and demands that others place on you and which rankle you are resonating with something inside. Confronting our inner demons quiets many of the outer devils.
t1larg.boats.afp.gi
On a collective level, we are already hearing about how terror groups have been plotting at a very high rate. Then a convoy of ships carrying supplies to Gaza is riling the Israelis. There are similar stories in the news.

An overall theme is that “the system” isn’t working (Pluto in Capricorn has been making that clear for a couple of years). Given that we have widespread systemic failure, Uranus in Aries urges us to go our own way, individually or in small groups.

The success and wisdom of that are both in doubt. The Nazis came to power the last time Uranus was in Aries, but it was also a time of strength for organized labor. The planets set the key, but we write the melody.

99 cent store

Today’s Jupiter-Saturn opposition will no doubt go unnoticed in popular culture. But even among astrologers, this isn’t the Big Doin’s it used to be.
jupiter

Back before the discovery of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn were the two furthest planets anyone knew about, and their 20 year cycle was watched closely for the social and political changes it heralded.

Now that we have Saturn in opposition to Uranus, who is about to square Pluto, the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn might seem as exciting as Pacman is to today’s video games. But... This cycle might catch our attention a bit more if we recognized some of it’s more concrete manifestations.

For one, it closely correlates with the Presidents-Who-Died-in-Office cycle which began with Lincoln and ended with Kennedy (during that time, the conjunction of the two planets was in Earth signs).
saturn

Because it is a 20 year cycle and has been falling on the decade line for some time, it has also contributed to the sense that the 60s were different from the 70s... or the 20s were different from the 30s. Social trends have seemed to hinge right on the “0” years for some time (although that is obviously very complex).

The latest cycle began on May 28, 2000. That was right around the time the Dot Com bubble burst and the high-rolling 90s came to an end. We all put out our cigars and put away our top hats, recognizing we might not be such investment geniuses after all.

The Euro was introduced around this time. Actually, the Euro became an electronic currency on January 1, 1999, at the closing semi-sextile of the cycle, and paper currency was introduced on January 1, 2002, at the opening semi-sextile. Thus, the midpoint in time of these two Euro landmarks was the 2000 conjunction.

For most of the past decade, the Euro has been gaining on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The history of the Euro is interesting, and extends back at least to the formation of the European Common Market, although it was really first put into concrete form in 1992. Germany, whose Deutsche Mark was a strong currency in its own right, pushed for the Euro after reunification of East and West Germany made economic ties seem more appealing.

Now, at the opposition, or peak of the cycle, the Euro is in crisis. The PIGS are pulling down the value of the currency, which dropped to 2004 levels on the news of the economic crisis in Greece (the Euro is still strong against the dollar compared with it’s rate at introduction).

As we work through this peak in the Jupiter-Saturn cycle through March of 2011, we are likely to see the Euro severely tested as an international currency. Clearly, the honeymoon period (and it was a rough one, all in all) is over. Jupiter and Saturn represent inflation and recession, respectively, and at present everyone is concerned about these two economic scenarios.

There are other social manifestations of Jupiter-Saturn, and these may get more airplay than economics as the opposition moves from Virgo-Pisces to Libra-Aries for the next two rounds. Still, the Aries energy (supported by Uranus) may have some countries questioning their participation in the Euro.

ouch!

You know, I’m a Leo.

And I like to have a positive spin on all things Leonine. Each month when the moon passes through the sign of the lion, I get ready for 60 hours of creativity, fun, and a bit of royal treatment.

That’s the way I approached the past few days...

Since last October, however, Mars has been hanging out in Leo, a very long time, because he was doing his retrograde in the sign. Now, astrologers will tell you that Mars has an affinity with Leo, and Mars and the sun get along very well. So maybe the retrograde wasn’t so tough.
webwfire21asf_400

But this week has been. From the crackdown on protests in Thailand, to California fires beginning to burn again (sparked by a lawnmower, on top of all!), it has been the negative side of fire for the past few days.

Tensions were really soaring at the first quarter moon yesterday, as the sun (in very late Taurus) was squared by the moon, who also met up with Mars. So it certainly wasn’t a fun, creative time in the collective, and the personal stories I heard indicated that things were pretty tough on a personal level.

So I suppose I have to be thankful that the moon has made it to Virgo...

Such a thing for a Leo to have to say!

seeing double

I suppose a pithy analysis of the news would be appropriate... especially as we move towards the Saturn-Jupiter opposition on Sunday. That’s a big one, in which we will be revisiting issues from 2000...
gemini-2-patch-small

But no...

Today I simply want to point out that the sun moves into Gemini tonight at 11:34 EDT. The moon will be in somewhat serious Virgo after 8:00 p.m., but the atmosphere should be a bit more social than in recent days (Virgo is Mercury’s other sign, after all).

I wouldn’t exactly call this a party weekend, but it probably is a good time to socialize. The nice thing about Gemini is that it gets us out and communicating... we meet up with the neighbors again, after hibernating through the winter in our homes.

Oh, it’s a Gemini rocket, by the way.

the 29th degree...

The news has been very nautical lately.

Or, as an astrologer might put it, the news has been very Neptunian. With Uranus in the last degree of Neptune’s sign (Pisces) and Neptune chugging towards 29 degrees of Uranus’s sign of Aquarius, these two planets are really egging each other on.

We are seeing quite a bit of disruption (Uranus) on the seas (Neptune). Last week’s crash of the Staten Island Ferry was one such incident. And it echoed the 2003 crash of the same ferry boat, when Uranus was back at the degree Neptune now occupies (sort of an attention-getter for that degree).

Of course, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is another, more potent manifestation. There is disruption (Uranus) of technology (Aquarius) resulting in oil (Neptune/Pisces) spilling into the sea (also Neptune/Pisces).

ALeqM5iySzf4n8Tvrup-KWJO-nzGNUovDg

And Arizona’s controversial immigration law is yet another manifestation. Illegal immigrants are undocumented and unrepresented (Neptune/Pisces) citizens (Aquarius). Like the fish in the Gulf, they have little to say about their fate, while the debate is waged around them.

On a different nautical note, Jessica Watson, a 16 year old Australian girl has completed a 7-month solo voyage around the Earth on a yacht. Now that’s very Neptunian. However, there is some controversy about whether she will get the credit for sailing around the globe, since she took a southern route which may be short of the equatorial 21,600 miles required to get into the books... how very Neptunian.

yikes again!

It’s a rarity to have two Astroblog posts in one day, but the Staten Island Ferry crash this morning begs for some attention. I’m afraid, however, that I will have to go into a little ‘astrologese’ for this one. I beg your pardon.

When I heard about the crash, I pulled up the chart for this morning and for the crash on October 25, 2003. It’s especially appropriate because it is the same boat, the Andrew J. Barberi (pictured) that was involved in both crashes.
statenislandferry-1
Could it be the Saturn square (7 1/4 years) of the first crash?

Turns out no. But I was intrigued to see that both the moon’s south node and the ascendant of today’s crash were conjunct (to within a degree - in fact the ascendant is within eight minutes) of the Saturn of the 2003 crash. That puts the ascendant and the nodes within a degree of the 2003 Chiron, which was opposing Saturn at the time.

Neptune, which was in the 12th house, two minutes off the Aquarius ascendant in 2003, is within a degree of the 2003 chart ruler, Uranus. And both the moon and Chiron were in Pisces, Neptune’s sign, this morning. Uranus is now at 29 Pisces, exactly 30 degrees (again, within a degree) of his 2003 position (says something about the value of those elusive semi-sextiles, no?).

Perhaps the most telling thing, though, is according the NTSB report on the 2003 accident, the ferry was commissioned in 1981, which means that it is having it’s Saturn return.

Of course, post-hoc analysis can be rich with astrological symbolism, but it would never lead to prediction before the fact.

Today’s crash clearly echos the 2003 disaster, although thankfully it was much less severe. Saturn, Uranus, Chiron, and Neptune seem to have it in for this vessel. Or perhaps they are just testing our resolve.

yikes!

The stock market tumbled this week, putting some indexes in the red for the year. Why?

Well, the Euro crisis, stemming from the economic problems in Greece, the first of the PIGS to really go bust, certainly had an effect. (PIGS are Portugal, Greece, Spain... and no one seems sure which Eurozone “I” country rounds out the group... Ireland? Italy?).
mt-mercury-statue

But it seems possible that electronic trading programs were the culprits, at least to an extent. Click here for a New York Times article on this. No one is really sure. There seems to be some possibility that automatic programs with sophisticated algorithms may have overreacted to conditions. It is, in some ways, similar to what happened in 1988, when the stock market tumbled.

With Mercury retrograde, it sounds about right that a monkey may have gotten into the feedback loop and caused the selloff. This has been something of a bear of a retrograde, anyway. Perhaps that’s because this particular three week period is coming just before the big changes in late May and June.

But with the Messenger retrograding, we may never know.

ups and downs

With dear old Mercury retrograde, it is very hard to get a handle on what’s going on. That’s not unusual, as the news is often wrong at such times.

But with Uranus moving into Aries later in the month and the tension of the last quarter moon, we are getting the sense that something ought to be done. There’s been quite a bit of action over the last few days... although exactly where it is directed seems unclear.

A lot of what has been happening is clearly (well... maybe not clearly) related to last week’s Saturn-Uranus opposition, which blended the flavors of Virgo/Pisces (service, sacrifice, martyrdom) with Aries/Libra (individual, partner) into the revolutionary/conservative tussle between these two giants.

In Britain, Labor is taking a beating by the Conservatives... But of course, since Labor has been in power since the 1990s, it is hard to say who is the revolutionary and who the ‘conservative’ there.

In the U.S., two developments seemed particularly in sync with the prevailing energy.
r

On the one hand, the Senate prevented a Republican attack on consumer protections in a bill aimed at overhauling Wall Street (which has been turning itself inside-out all week without anyone’s help!). Click here for a story on that.

Then, in one of the most confusing “Who’s-the-Good-Guy?” moments of the week, the FCC said it would ask Congress to let it regulate broadband internet communication. Now, usually FCC regulation means restriction in content, but here, they will be in a role of protecting Net Neutrality (but what will happen to porn?). This was threatened by a Supreme Court ruling last month (check the Astroblog for the week of April 11th for details).

Broadband carriers like Verizon and cable companies would like to control the speed at which broadband works for specific sites. Site owners like Google, YouTube, and Amazon are fighting them and arguing for Net Neutrality, since they would otherwise have to pay fees in order to have their sites as high-speed access. And of course, little guys like Integral Astrology would load at the speed of dial-up.

So, the FCC and Google are in the odd role of good guy... sorta.

Anyway, we will have to wait and see. The only thing that’s clear is that nothing is too clear right now...

Si se puede

This past week has seen a focus on immigration issues, thanks to Arizona’s controversial new law. There are a couple of different astrological perspectives on this legislation. Click here for article from the Associated Press.

The timing of the law, and the reaction to it, clearly echos the Saturn-Uranus opposition on Monday the 26th. Saturn-Uranus is all about the revolutionary and rebellious in contrast to the traditional and conservative. On one level, this pits the protesters (Uranus) against the law (Saturn), while on another level it sets Arizona (Uranus) against the country as a whole (Saturn). Mostly the former, as I see it.
ALeqM5jReII5qMkvug-HLnZjm17ABd8w5g

No matter which way you look at it, however, immigration steps in to take over where health care has apparently left off as an issue. Saturn is in Virgo, and is recalling the days of the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements (among others), back in the 1960s when Uranus and Pluto sailed through that sign.

We are also approaching the Jupiter-Saturn opposition in late May. This is a smaller cycle, which began back in 2000. At that time, you may recall, President Bush was considering immigration reform. After 9/11, the issue was obviously put on the back burner, both as a priority and because of growing suspicion of immigrants.

The opposition of any cycle is the peak, when there tends to be a realization of what the issues really are. It is at that point that the pendulum often begins swinging in the opposite direction. If that is the case, then we should see the Arizona law as provoking a change which runs counter to the law itself.

But with Saturn, Uranus and Pluto making aspects to each other for the next few years, it is doubtful that things will work out so smoothly or obviously. There are even deeper issues in the body politic, and immigration is - in a sense - just one way in which we are debating where we are going.