Dissidents

Just when I thought that Neptune could not get any more strongly blatant they prove me wrong. Of course, in these cases Neptune goes by the abbreviation BS. Or as Brick in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof might put it: this is mendacity, mendacity now controls everything. This occurs as Neptune approaches the Cardinal Axis the day before America’s birthday this year. Neptune then goes stationary retrograde within four minutes of the Aries Point. At the end of March next year Neptune actually crosses zero Aries. Then near the end of 2025 Neptune briefly returns back into Pisces before going back in to Aries in late January of 2026, never to return for over 150 years.

Neptune Almost to Aries Point

In February it was announced that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny died while in a prison in the very far North of Russia. All the Western commentators immediately assumed that he was murdered (by Putin of course), even though the announcement was that he died from a “blood clot” — there is a lot of that going around. I’ve been told that Navalny got a mRNA Covid vaccine injection while in Germany so we know he didn’t die of Covid-19. Teresa May, who was briefly Prime Minister of England, thought he was killed by British intelligence, but that probably is just home team pride. But as of now we have no idea how he died other than the statement about an embolism. Interestingly, both Russia and Ukraine agreed that Navalny died of natural causes.

Alexi Navalny

But the supposed murderer of Navalny — Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia — must be the dumbest leader of any nation in the world. First of all he announced the death which he must have known would be assumed to be a murder by leaders of the West. The cause of death was not said to be a suicide, which is the common way to cover up the death of a prisoner in a jail. I’m sure you can think of examples of this. And the timing was horrible since the Munich Security Conference (called the Davos of Defense) was starting the next day. This is an annual get together of NATO members and this one had Navalny’s wife in attendance, just an interesting coincidence I’m sure. Here was Navalny safely out of Putin’s hair (so to speak) and now he’s on everybody’s mind. And every political leader knows that the way to prevent a candidate from opposing you is to tie them up with legal problems, as was recently done in Pakistan and was done to Eugene Debs by President Woodrow Wilson for the 1916 Presidential election — I’m sure the reader can think of other examples. Putin is obviously so lacking in mental capability that one wonders why anyone is worried about him.

Pest Control

The is a video floating around the Internet of Navalny as a pest control salesman. For flies and cockroaches you can use a flyswatter or shoe, he says, as huge horrible closeups of those insects fill the screen, but for bigger pests — and here a Muslim pops up — you need a gun. Now if this ad appeared in America he would be instantly called a MAGA republican and a racist. Bur fortunately he is in an official enemy country and so held to a different standard. This version is in Russian but I’ve seen one with English subtitles.

Navalny was born at 1:30 in the afternoon. I’m always a little bit suspicious of a birthtime at the half hour, and even more at birthtimes to the nearest hour, but we’re lucky to have a birthtime at all. In this natal chart the predominant planet is Neptune which is opposite his Sun-Venus conjunction, and that is true no matter what the birthtime. This perhaps indicates that he is he good with the Neptune business, certainly appropriate for this time. At his death Pluto seems to be dominating with aspects to his Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Midheaven, and Saturn.

Death of Navalny

But a short time before his death Putin gave a half-hour lecture on the history of Russia and Ukraine going back to the Tenth Century when he was interviewed by an American journalist. So stupidity is not the problem. Thus we must assume that Putin takes some kind of pleasure in thumbing his nose at the West.

But since Putin is considered responsible for the death of dissident Alex Navalny I think it is only fair to place the responsibility for the death of American dissident Ted Kazinski in an American prison on President Biden. Kaczynski, also known as the Unibomber, had a good criticism of the industrial, technological world which was laid out in his manifesto (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/unabom-manifesto-1.html). His problem was that he was not satisfied with just criticizing the industrial world, but rather took action that resulted in the deaths of many. His death in 2023 was called a suicide, but we know that excuse is often used when someone who is contentious dies in prison.

Ted Kaczynski

Kaczynski has a tight Uranus Sun conjunction, but Saturn is also there giving him a sense of both the new and the old; those two principles are fighting it out within his self. Mercury is conjunct the Ascendant and he is partially know for his writings the “Unibomber Manifesto”. When he died he was undergoing his Neptune demi-return, just like the United States is at the current time. When Neptune returns to a position opposite its natal position it is difficult as both Kaczynski and the United States would attest.

Death of Kaczynski

There is another dissident, a journalist, who died in a Ukrainian prison recently. The cause of death was given as pneumonia. His family blames the Ukrainian authorities. This journalist, Gonzalo Lira, was an American born in California (can’t get any more American than that!) and married a Ukrainian woman. The American government was warned often of bad outcomes when Lira was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities for criticizing the government’s war effort. One would think that an American held in a country that has a strong American connection would engender more concern than a citizen of a foreign country imprisoned in a place where America has no influence. But the amount of newspaper mentions of the two dissidents vary as the illustration below shows. These comparisons are not totally accurate since the record of Lira is 40 days versus only 6 days for Navalny.

The difference in the amount of coverage of these two case is staggering. For example, one survey shows Lira getting one mention in the NY Post and Newsweek while Navalny got 10 to 20 mentions for his death in all the standard sources such as CNN and the Washington Post, and all the others. Again, it helps to live in an official enemy.

Gonzalo Lira

We don’t have a birthtime for Lira so the Ascendant and Midheaven are unknown and the moon is within six degrees either way of its true position. I choose a time of 12 noon which splits the difference. He was born under a wide Uranus Pluto conjunction, a true child of the Sixties. There is a Uranus Moon opposition but how close it is depends on the birthtime. A Mars Saturn conjunction is close and difficult — the standard meaning is “driving with the brakes on”.

Death of Lira

Currently there is another journalist who is slowly being killed in his prison of Belmarsh, which is called Britain’s Guantanamo. The decision being made in Britain is whether this journalist — Julian Assange — will be extradited to the United States where he can be sentenced to a prison term of over 100 years. In his most despicable act, former President Trump attempted to sentence Assange for revealing United States war crimes. Once Joe Biden — the anti-Trump — took the Presidency one would assume that he would void the attempt to bring Assange — who is not an American — to the United States for trial. But he didn’t. Many are worried that Assange will commit suicide since he has been indoors for many years. The Democrats have assumed that Assange released stolen documents from Democrats that he got from the Russians; this release caused Hilary Clinton to lose an election for President that everyone assumed was hers so the Democrats are not sympathetic to Assange either.

Julian Assange

This famous video that his organization, Wikileaks, released is called “Collateral Murder” and shows American troops in a helicopter in Iraq laughing as they shoot two Reuters journalists and a bystander who stops to help them. This video was release on April 10, 2010 at 10:44 EST. It shows the events of July 12, 2007: https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/. This was a primary reason for his problems with the American law.

Assange has Moon square his Midheaven and his connection with the public is strong. He has a Saturn-Neptune opposition in his natal chart and this combination has been talked about recently in this blog. His life has been dedicated to exposing those uncomfortable truths that seemed like a good idea before they were exposed.

As an American it seems to me that the country is on the verge of cracking up. As the statement — one that goes back to the Greeks — has it, those whom the gods will destroy they first drive mad.

Saturn and Neptune

Previously we looked at the opening Jupiter-Saturn square — first quarter Jupiter — which portends the beginning of the second half of this decade. The second half of a decade is different than the first half, and in this case it will be strongly different. One of the reasons for this is an important aspect happening — or almost happening — a month after the third Jupiter-Saturn square which was discussed previously. It will happen exactly about seven months later. This aspect is a Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries point. (Full disclosure: I have minor aspects between both Saturn and Neptune with the Ascendant and an aspect between Saturn and Neptune.)

The key phrase I use for Saturn and Neptune is “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. As one might guess with the two planets involved, the outlook is not especially upbeat. Saturn is called the “Greater Malefic” and we’ve discussed Neptune before; we’re seeing a lot of Neptune this decade — in the mundane sphere it seems to rule propaganda and deception. While a positive spin on these two planets would be “practical spiritual action” but we are talking about the world here so I don’t expect miracles and the seeing through of myths. But perhaps that is not entirely impossible. One possible positive manifestation would be the seeing through of the incredible propaganda that has saturated the world, especially in the last 10 years. Another possible manifestation, to be very optimistic, is that there will be a “spiritual” realization that we have to consciously change our ways of existing for the first time in history to save our collective butts. That’s a lot more difficult than simply stopping carbon emissions.

Conjunction of 1989

Lets look at previous conjunctions of these two planets which take place about every thirty six years. The most famous one was the previous conjunction in 1989. This saw the fall of the Berlin Wall (shortly after the second conjunction in a series of three) and in the next two years the fall of the Soviet Union and all the Soviet connected Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union broke into several countries, such as Russia and Ukraine. This was also the turn of the decade with a Jupiter Saturn. There were also the Tiananmen Square protests of April May 1989 and he Soviet Union withdrawal from Afghanistan in May 1988 through February 1989 after Geneva Accords signed April 14, 1988. Much happened under this Saturn Neptune conjunction.

But this dissolution of the Soviet block also caused many changes in the Western block. Since 1945 and the start of the Cold War, this conflict with the Soviet Union had served as sort of a raison d’etre for the West. While the West and especially the United States could believe that they had “won” the Cold War after this conjunction and so take victory laps (cf The End of History by Francis Fukuyama) there was also a lost to the West because one of their prime motivator and unifiers — fighting the good cold war fight — was no longer around — see again Francis Fukuyama. It was as if an employee who hates his boss with passion the question becomes what does he do when his boss dies.

Conjunction of 1953

The previous conjunction was in 1953. That year saw the death of Stalin (who had ruled the Soviet Union for one Saturn cycle) and the consequential exposure of Stalin’s crimes. In the Soviet Union Stalin was once considered a great leader by many people, and to this day some older Russians still honor him, but by his death many leaders considered him horrid and Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who followed Stalin’s death, made a famous speech to the Soviet Politburo denouncing Stalin’s crimes. This year also saw the end of the Korean War with an armistice but actually the war has never really been ended in the way most wars end. Joseph McCarthy, who had held the US government under his sway, was losing power and his final downfall would come the next year (Have you no sense of decency, sir?…) and his death by alcoholism followed three years after that. McCarthy seemed like a good idea at the time — the early fifties — but his communists-in-government shtick was getting a little long in the tooth by 1954.

In his last book, Planetary Cycles Mundane Astrology famous French astrologer Andre Barbault gives even more detail on aspects of Saturn and Neptune and the history of the Soviet Union than is considered here.

Conjunction of 1917

The conjunction before that was in 1917 which saw the beginning of the Soviet Revolution that overthrew the czar who ruled Russia. This revolution was partly as a result to Russian losses in World War I. In this case the idea no longer thought of as good was the Russian ruler ship by the czar. The end of World War I, which happened the next year, was followed shortly thereafter by the breakup of four empires: Russian, German, Astro-Hungarian, and Ottoman; the breakup of the latter lead to many new nations including what became Israel. The year 1917 also saw the entrance of the United States into the battles of World War I after a far reaching propaganda campaign. This entrance followed a jingoistic movement in the US, partly brought about by only the second Democratic president since Lincoln. Suggested reading: American Midnight by Adam Hochschild.

Saturn-Neptune close

In July of 2025 both planets come within a quarter degree of an exact conjunction at about 2 degrees Aries and then both go retrograde thus avoiding the exact conjunction. This occurs one month after the final Jupiter square Saturn. At this time not only is Jupiter square Saturn but also Jupiter is square Neptune. This is certainly a good start to the second half of the 2020’s, but one that promises a turn about to what has gone before.

Saturn-Neptune Exact

In February of 2026 there is the only exact conjunction at 45 minutes of Aries. Since the Aries point represents the World, this Saturn Neptune conjunction will effect and be felt by the whole world. Perhaps the “once what was thought a good idea” was having a giant 500 year long party. But it is important to realize how important this is — a conjunction of Saturn, Neptune, and the Aries Point. This is one to remember.

Saturn-Neptune Conjunction in Graphical Ephemeris

The graphical ephemeris (above) shows the first occasion where the two planets are almost conjunct but not quite since they both go retrograde at about the same time, which normally happens when the two outer planets are conjunct and go retrograde at the same time. In the same graphical ephemeris we see the only exact conjunct at the same time in early 2026.

These Saturn-Neptune conjunction of 2025 and 2026 occur at the first degree of Aries so, considering the nature of the Aries point as ruling the whole world (consider that actress Shirley Temple had Moon at zero Cancer, square the Aries point, and she was considered “America’s sweetheart” and almost everyone loved her during the dark days of the Great Depression) that the effects of this conjunction of the two planets should effect and be felt by the whole world.

Close-up of the Near Miss Conjunction

This image above is a magnified part of the close encounter of Saturn and Neptune in July of 2025. You can see how close this is to the Aries point — dark black horizontal line — and the MC of the United States — dashed grey line.

Close -up of Saturn-Neptune Conjunction

This magnification of the only Saturn Neptune conjunction in early 2026 shows that it occurs half-way between the Aries point and the Midheaven of the United States.

As has been indicated the triple conjunction of Saturn, Neptune, and the Cardinal Axis should have repercussions around the world. The previous conjunction saw the fall of the Soviet Union, changing the future development of both the United States and Russia. But this conjunction takes place at the Cardial Axis so the world should feel the change.

But that’s not all for those who live in or are affected by the United States, which means the whole world. The Midheaven of the United States is 1 degree Libra (and of course the IC is at 1 Aries) and so this conjunction is right on the US MC/IC axis and actually closer to that than to the cardinal axis. So we should expect that the effects of the Pluto Return of the United States — discussed previously — should be magnified/modified in ways that can’t be predicted. Perhaps a new political party will be formed when people realize that the Uniparty — a name that is becoming more and more common — that rules in Washington does not serve the interests of people but serves the interests of the corporations quite well. Perhaps we will see the breakup of the United states into several smaller counties so that the US will be like EU. Suggested reading American Nations by Colin Woodard and the Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.

In the magnification you can see how the conjunction is between the Aries point and the US MC — and that both are close which is also an indication why the US has been so successful at controlling the world. The Aries point and the US Midheaven are only one degree apart and that conjunction is at 45 minutes of Aries so it is very tight in both cases, and even tighter to the midpoint of the Cardinal Axis and the US Midheaven. Fireworks of some type are promised, but with Neptune involved it will look like a damp squib.

A Full Moon To Remember

Full moons are always potent — the culmination of a lunar cycle that started with the preceding New Moon. Dane Rudhyar’s magisterial The Lunation Cycle is an important reference to the cycle of the Moon. And the lunar cycle is a prototype for the other planetary cycles such as the Jupiter-Saturn cycle that has been much discussed here. I now want to point out the Full Moon of 8-19-2024 which occurs just before Labor Day when the US election cycle is reaching a fever pitch. It should be noted in passing that the year 2024 will see many national elections, perhaps even a record for a single year. A Full Moon comes about once a month, and it is obvious the connection between the word “month” and moon. Many calendars, and especially religious calendars, are based on the Moon and not the Sun, and many solutions have been tried to harmonize the Lunar calendar with the Solar calendar. There are thirteen lunar cycles in a solar cycle. This is an example of astrology in everyday life.

A Full Moon To Remember

The first thing to notice is that there are two interlocking T-Squares which involve a total of eight of the ten planets; then there are several other indicators that this chart well represents the start of the second half of this decade.

The first T-square involves the Full Moon, with Mercury Retrograde conjunct Sun; the second T-square consists of the first in a series of the opening squares of Jupiter and Saturn which marks the beginning of the second half of the decade. Saturn is opposed to Venus and Mars is conjunct Jupiter at the apex of this T-square.

The apex of the first T-square is Uranus — Uranus squares both ends of the Full Moon — so that this will definitely be a Uranian Full Moon: expect the unexpected. The Jupiter Saturn square is almost exact.

To add further spice Neptune is almost at 0 Aries. This is its first brush with the Aries point and it goes stationary retrograde about six weeks earlier at four minutes from zero Aries. Pluto is at the first degree of Aquarius and will soon make its last brief foray into Capricorn before returning to Aquarius for the next two decades.

Let’s compare this Full Moon to the US chart. When we do that we find more interesting things. This Full moon is right on the US Moon — the people of the country. But the Full Moon also makes a wide aspect — a semisquare and a sesquiquadrate — to the US Sun — the government. Thus this Full Moon makes hard aspect to the two most important planets in the US natal chart.

Full Moon United States

Neptune is opposite the MC of the United States suggesting there will be some confusion in how the country is perceived by other and (since Neptune is conjunct the US IC) how the people think about themselves. Not a healthy situation but we have seen it playing out over the last ten years with first Neptune making a sesquiquadrate to the US Ascendant.

This occasion also marks the Mars return for the US — which is exact two days later, something that happens every two years. In this case Mars is conjunct Jupiter which in humans can suggest pregnancy but in this case that is unlikely. But use of Martian energy is highlighted, more so than has been shown so far in 2024,

Finally there is the transit of Uranus square the US Moon. This is the first pass and it goes stationary retrograde on the Moon a couple of weeks after this Full Moon, right after the next New Moon. Hard aspects of Uranus to the US Moon is an important topic which will be dealt with at length later but for now suffice it to say that the previous conjunction of Uranus to the US Moon occurred shortly after 9/11 when the US invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq.

When talking about what is called “mundane astrology” — which is what we are doing here — it is necessary to distinguish between events and trends. An event is something that happens in this case right about the time of this chart. With a strong Uranus this could be unexpected and sudden. But it is possible that nothing overt will happen at this time. More important is the trend that this Full Moon presages. This trend is something I’ve discussed before and that is that the second half of this decade will be very different that the first in ways that this chart suggests.

Israel, Palestine, and Neptune

Israel is a modern country and so it has an accurate birthtime. The downside is that there are three birthtimes. Fortunately these times are all`within an 8 hour period. I have a birthtime that is half way between the first and the second which I prefer and when we look at the attacks of October 7 you will see why.

Israel 4pm

Currently Israel is much in the news because of the attack by Hamas on October 7 and the ongoing war with the Gaza Strip. This incident illustrates that the effects of Neptune are still quite prominent. Israel has what is probably the best intelligence service in the world and the Gaza Strip is one of the more heavily surveilled regions and still the Israeli government missed this attack which had been two years in planning according to Sky News; also Hamas had trial runs in the preceding weeks which were not noticed by Israeli intelligence. And they were warned several days in advance by Egypt and the United States — which also has a well developed intelligence service — that something big was coming. This intelligence failure was so large that some conspiracy theorists have suggested that Israel wanted this attack to happen so they would have an excuse to go into Gaza with big weapons. So October 7 illustrates the delusions of Neptune writ large.

Israel 4:17pm

But there is also something called “The Fog of War” which occurs in every war since it is difficult to see the truth with so many conflicting opinions and a tendency by each belligerent to slant their own truth in a way that is beneficial to them. I thought the ongoing conflict in Ukraine was very foggy, but this current conflict in the Levant far outdoes that war in the fog arena. But again, this is strongly Neptune.

Israel 4:32pm

So here are the three possibly charts for Israel. The first for May 14, 1948 is for the start of a speech declaring the state of Israel at 4 pm; the second is for the end of that speech at 4:32PM; the third is midnight the following day, May 15, when Britain gave up control of that area. For reasons that will be clear later, I prefer a time of 4:17PM on that same day.

Israel Midnight

There are three incidents that we will look at: the Hamas attack early in October, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the Yon Kippur War (also known as the October War), which lasted some twenty days, in 1973. Those last two are by now ancient history, but Israel astrologers consider them shown by that Israeli chart.

Let’s first look at the most recent event, one that is being referred to as Israel’s 9/11 and I’m sure the date October 7 or 7.10 (like much of the world Israel uses day first in dates) will be immortalized in that nation’s history. At 6:35 in the morning the airraid sirens announced the initial attack by Hamas on a music festival or rave and so that is the time we used for this event. I’m still seeing conflicting accounts of what exactly happened but the time is what counts. Perhaps in the future people will look back at this event as they now note the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 110 years ago.

Attack on Israel 4:17 chart

It is true of this chart and in fact all charts set in this period that Uranus is conjunct the Sun of Israel. Uranus is about one degree away and since it is retrograde it is separating. Was this a Uranian event? With Uranus expect the unexpected.

At the end of August 2023 Uranus went stationary retrograde at about one-half degree from the Israel Sun, which is the same no matter what chart you use. On October 7 Uranus was a little over a degree from the natal Sun. One suggested meaning of this transit is “expect surprises” and that is certainly what happened. Uranus Sun contacts suggest change and upset, things that we are seeing right now. But note that there was much protest before October 7 because the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was attempting to make the Israeli Supreme Court subservient to the Knesset (Israel’s unicameral legislative body – unlike every US state but Nebraska Israel does not have a bicameral legislature) instead of its equal. And currently there are many citizen who charge Netanyahu with bad response to these attacks.

Here is the chart of Israel with the transits for 6:35; the only difference between the four possible natal charts is the angles and with the 4:17 chart Mars for this incident is exactly on the Ascendant. This position exactly describes what happened — an attack with violence (Mars) aimed at the self-image (Ascendant) of Israel. In addition this natal chart puts Pluto opposite the MC and thus conjunct the IC — the foundation of Israel. Remember on 9/11 the United States had Pluto on the Ascendant so we can see where the idea of 7.10 being Israel’s 9/11 comes from.

Six Day War

The Six Day War was in the Sixties and we can see the familiar Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the eleventh house. Venus, the lesser benefic, is conjunct the MC and Jupiter, the greater benefic, is conjunct the Moon so we can expect that this war will be short and successful for the Israelis. This was indeed the case. Israel was attacked by Egypt and other Arab countries and as a result Israel took possession of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. However, note Neptune opposite the Sun at a little over one degree. This suggests that the government of Israel was a bit deluded about the meaning and outcome of the war. One can see the connection between that war and the current one because of of the areas in play now were captured then.

Yom Kippur War

For the Yom Kippur War the natal Venus — the judiciary — seems to be the focus of interest. Not only is Pluto square Venus but Saturn is conjunct the natal Venus; so there is a Saturn-Pluto square that is almost exact. Saturn-Pluto hard aspects are not favorable (a Saturn-Pluto conjunciton was at the start o the Covid crisis), especially when the are configured with the natal chart. If we look at the 4pm chart we find Uranus on the Ascendant within a quarter degree.

In the upcoming years we will see in Israel as well as the Western world a developing split between what I call the Pluto Jews — represented by the government of Israel and Zionism – and the Uranus Jews – represented by groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace. As a result of this split seen around the world we may possibly see true democracy for the first time in history

Note the connections between this period — what I’ve called the Sixth Crisis — and the previous Fifth Crisis which was World War II. The Nazis were obviously quite important during the Fifth Crisis. But at this time we see that the concept of ” nazis ” is increasingly becoming prominent. Not only were the citizens of Israel traumatized by the horror inflicting by the original Nazis, but they have called Hames Nazis, while some think that the behavior of Israel’s government is like that of the Nazis. And in fact one Israel polymath — Yeshayahu Leibowitz — has warned of Judeo-Nazi behavior among the Zionists.

Suggested reading. Since one of the elements of this blog is history, I find that a real problem is that many are not aware of the history of any given case. For Israel and Palestine a fairly short and comprehensive history is found in the book Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian, which contains references to many source documents for a situation that has been developing for hundreds of years.

Uranus-Pluto Square

Something changed in Israel about 10 yeas ago according to people who live there which has led up to the current Netanyahu government which we are repeatedly told is the most “right-wing” in Israeli history. This is when there was the Uranus Pluto Square the effected the whole world. In Israel’s case Uranus was opposite the natal Neptune and Pluto was square that same Neptune, thus making a T-square between the outer planets though a hybrid one combining both natal and transiting points. These days most of the younger Israels are acting very jingoistic while the dissenters are mostly older Israelis who remember the older Israel that had socialist roots.

As another example of how Neptune plays such a prominent role in this conflict, consider that the Jews have PTSD from, most recently and most intense, the Holocaust during World War II. People with PTSD tend the overreact to minor threats, and in this case the Palestinians now too have PTSD from their treatment starting with their expulsion from their native lands — called the Nakba — in 1948. So we have two groups of people both of which have PTSD — not a good situation. Recently psychedelic drugs have been suggested as helpful to people with PTSD. In fact several cities and states in the United States have legalize psychedelic drugs for treatment of disorders. So perhaps a solution to this middle east problem is widespread use of psychedelic drugs in Israel and Palestine or as Bob Dylan said “Everybody must get stoned”.

15 years of Israeli History

Looking at the next few years for Israel shows many challenges coming up for the country as can be seen by the graphical ephemeris. Pluto squared the Ascendant-Descendant axis in 2019 and 2020 and that planet goes on to oppose the Midheaven in 2020,2021, and 2022 (1). These are the years that Israel became a laboratory of Pfizer and their vaccines. Finally Pluto will oppose the Moon of Israel in 2025,2026,2027 (2). This is a difficult decade for Israel even without considering the general problems the world will face as has been outlines here for months. The response to the events of October 7 will continue to plague the government and the people of Israel for the rest of this decade. Following these transits Israel will undergo the Pluto demi-return in 2030 through 2032 (3). Notice that it took the United States 250 year to see its Pluto Return, while Israel has a demi-return in only 82 years, one third of the time for the US instead of half as one would expect. This is because Israel was born while Pluto was speeding up as it moved closer to the Sun in its very elliptical orbit so the last 80 years have seen the fastest motion of Pluto. The US had its Pluto demi-return in the Thirties when the Great Depression was happening and there were many radicals organizing against the government Israel will also get a Neptune demi-return in 2029 and 2030 (4). Israel is undergoing some similar transits to the United States only a few years later but still in this decade in which many important global events are happening to all countries of the world.

And finally we will close this blog post with some singing from Israeli children:

The Next Half Decade

We have talked before about the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn and how each half of the cycle corresponds to a decade (since for several centuries the 20 year Jupiter Saturn cycle started near the beginning of an even decade) but the first and last quarter phases of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle are also important — the first half of a decade is different from the second half. This is most obvious for the decade of the Forties since the first half saw World War Two and the second half became the time after the War, with the rise of both the Anthropocene and the national security state and this period also has what I’ve called a zeitgeist change. In this period of the late Forties the center of the art world moved from Paris to New York City with the rise of such movements as Abstract Expressionism. NYC and America was a special place in that period. In Europe the recovery from the ravages of the war was long and arduous.

Compare the first half and the second half of the Fifties in America: the first half saw the birth of McCarthyism when Joseph McCarthy found a list of 200 or so Communists in the State Department on Lincoln Day of 1950 at a speech he gave in West Virginia until he was finally censured by the Senate in December of 1954 — the end of that half decade. In the second half television became a fixture in the American home (as Pluto transited opposite the US Moon), strengthening the fascination with the flickering image. The Korean war dominated the foreign policy side of things in the first half of the decade not just for the United States but the UN that was officially fighting that war also, while the second half started with the Suez Crisis that set the stage for the dominant powers in the late fifties.

But this is really true of all decades; a brief checking of Wikipedia shows the best movies in the US; the Academy Awards for 1964 — the end of the first half decade — was My Fair Lady, which was based on a Broadway musical which was based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. The winner in 1969 — the last year of the second half — was Midnight Cowboy, the only X-rated movie to ever win an Oscar.

And consider drug movies of the early versus late sixties. From 1962 we have The Days of Wine and Roses. In this movie a business executive and his wife (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) descend into alcoholism and then attend Alcoholics Anonymous. This was based on a TV drama from 1958 and is opening on Broadway in 2024. The drug movie for the second half was Easy Rider, about two motorcycle cowboys (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) who have sold some cocaine and then take the profits to New Orleans where they consume LSD; during the movie they and a hitchhiker (Jack Nicholson) smoke an awful lot of weed. No AA for them but a sad ending anyway.

The same is true of the Seventies and the Eighties and the other decades. This decade is no different and when we see the opening Jupiter Saturn square we will see the dawning of the second half of the decade, but at the same time or shortly thereafter there will be other important aspects which will be discussed in upcoming posts, thus assuring that the second half of this decade will be very different from the first.

Lets look at those three opening squares of Jupiter and Saturn. The numbers below refer to the graphical ephemeris (below) which allows you to see all three squares at one time as well as other aspects that will be discussed later.

First Opening Square

In the first square in August 2024(1) Jupiter is direct but Saturn retrograde. This is a time in America when the campaign season is in full bloom. For the US Neptune is on the IC (which has been discussed before) and Uranus is square the Moon (which will be discussed later). Should be interesting. There is a Full Moon at this time with Uranus making a T-square with the Full Moon so watch out for change. At the same time there is another T-square with Venus opposite Saturn and square Jupiter. And to make it even more interesting Mercury is retrograde and conjunct the Sun so it fits into that T-square. And this Full Moon falls on the Moon of the United States. With so much going on in the sky and in connections to the US chart it is a great kickoff to the second half of this decade.

Same Square Without U.S.

Second Opening Square

The second square at Christmas time (2) is with Jupiter retrograde and Saturn direct. Jupiter is close to the Descendant of the United States which means that Saturn is square the Ascendant. The new President has been elected but the inauguration won’t happen for a couple of weeks. Judging by the last two national elections there will be a big controversy no matter who wins and who loses. Expect fireworks for Christmas.

Third Opening Square

The third exact square (3) occurs in middle June 2025, shortly before and after other important aspects involving Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune which will be discussed later. This opening square occurs at the same time as the Saturn Neptune conjunction (to be discussed next) which is near the Aries point so Jupiter is also square Neptune. Jupiter is widely conjunct the Sun which is in late Gemini right before the summer solstice — called midsummer even thought it is the official start of summer. The conjunction of Saturn and Neptune is interesting because the exact conjunction never actually happens at the time. Both planets go retrograde shortly after the Fourth of July and since since Saturn is of lesser longitude than Neptune and moves faster it soon leaves Neptune behind.

All Three Opening Squares

To conclude, by 2025 the second half of this decade will have surly started, and as we will show in upcoming posts it will be quite different from the first. Of course whether that is good or bad depends on the individual or more to the point the class. Pluto will interpret this quite differently than Uranus. But it will make for very interesting times.

The Invasion of Iraq

In the month of March there was a celebration of sorts for the invasion by the United States of the country of Iraq twenty years earlier. Shown below is a chart for the moment (or one of the moments) when the invasion began but that is not the important thing. The invasion is one of a series of events that share the same long term transits and that set the context for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as well as the invasion of that other Asian country Afghanistan. First lets look at the chart for when explosions were first heard in Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq.

Invasion of Iraq

This invasion started in the early morning hours — as you can see the Sun conjunct Mercury had not risen — at about the Spring Solstice — Sun would be at 0 Aries in one day. The Moon was two or three days after Full and was high in the western sky. There was a Grand Trine (Moon, Venus, Saturn) which suggests that things flowed well, which was certainly true for the Americans if not so much for the Iraqis.

American were told that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center less than a year and a half before and that the government of Iraq contained Weapons of Mass Destruction which could be used on America so that this was only a defensive action. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that the smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud if this invasion did not happen.

Many Americans at the time supported the invasion. Now twenty years later many who supported the war at the time no longer think it was a good idea; some who supported the war at the time claim that they had grave doubts about the war at the time; and a few who supported the war at the time still think it was a good thing.

But before we look at the chart for the invasion of Iraq we need to look at the chart for the attacks of September 11, 2001, not only because that attack was the putative reason for the invasion by the United States (and some allied countries) of Iraq but also there is a clear astrological connection between the two events, one that I did not realize until I did a chart for the invasion of Iraq.

9/11

Before 9/11 I seldom thought about a birth chart for the United States, but if I did it was the “Gemini Rising” chart which is set at two in the morning. Of course I read Dane Rudhyar’s book (The Astrology of America’s Destiny) that tries to rectify the Sibley chart made by an English astrologer — Ebenezer Sibley — for the time that he thought the country was “born” but set in England where he was. But on 9/11 I became convinced of the validity of the Sibly chart. If you were to pick a chart representing 9/11 for America you could best come up with that chart that really is. Hard Saturn Pluto aspects, as we’ve talked about before in this blog, are especially serious (Tarnas has a whole chapter about this). The last conjunction of those two planets was in January 2020 and we know what happened then. 9/11 was the previous opposition, and furthermore Pluto was on the Ascendant of the United States, and it isn’t just an expression that we were blasted by Pluto. I don’t think there has been such a clear attack on America’s homeland since the War of 1812. The whole outward expression of the United States (but not its essence) was transformed on that date.

Remember the Maine!

Clinching it further, the explosion of the battleship Maine in the Havana Harbor and thus the beginning of the Spanish-American War saw the same opposition of Saturn and Pluto on the US angles of the Sibly chart but this time Pluto is on Descendant and Saturn is on the Ascendant, just the opposite of 9/11. Instead of the explosion happening at home – on the Ascendant — it happened abroad – on the Descendant. The Spanish-American War marked the beginning of the American Empire (see for example the book Empire by Gore Vidal for a fictionalized account); I call these two events “bookends of the American Empire”. After 9/11 it was pretty clear (to those who were not captives of American propaganda) that the American Empire was over, and of course that is time time when an empire is at its most dangerous.

In the chart for the invasion of Iraq — Operation Desert Storm — we still have that the Saturn-Pluto opposition strong, but now this opposition is along the MC-IC axis of this event. Pluto on the Midheaven well describes this event: the Plutonian explosion is on their government, their public image.

The war in Iraq was intimately involved with 9/11 and not merely because George Bush and company used 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq, something that had been a big neocon agenda item ever since George Bush father had withdrawn from that country ten years earlier. And the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was the outgrowth of neoconservative desire. At the time the neo-cons were mostly in the Republican Party, unlike now where they have taken much real estate in the Democratic Party, their original home.

Republic of Iraq

The chart for the Republic of Iraq, which was the nation before the invasion of that country by America — it now has a new birth chart — was for July 17, 1958, even though there was a coup in 1968 that saw Saddam Hussein put into power. A prominent feature of this chart is the Saturn opposition to the Moon-Venus conjunction with the Saturn opposite Venus being almost exact. It looks difficult for women in that country.

Iraq at time of Invasion

At the time of the American invasion of Iraq the Saturn Pluto opposition that was prominent in both the 9/11 chart and the event chart for the invasion was again important. In this case that opposition fell on the Moon-Venus opposite Saturn configuration of the Republic of Iraq with the transiting Pluto being also exactly opposite the Moon; surely this invasion was difficult but transformative (in one way or another) for the people of Iraq. Twenty year later they are still living with the results of that invasion and a new country (with a new chart) has been born.

Tripartite Interesting Times – Part II

Last time we talked about the first two of the three Interesting Times (IT) the world is experiencing in the third decade of the Twenty-First Century and tied them in to current events. The first was the Pluto Return of the United States and that was tied into the increasing division in that country. The second Interesting Time was the change from a Unipolar to a Multipolar world represented by the war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia. This time we will talk about the third Interesting Time, which is itself three-fold.

First Zeitgeist Change of Twentieth Century

I’ve previously written about a Zeitgeist change which happens with a transiting midpoint configuration of the three outer planets. In a zeitgeist change the culture of the world changes so much that people born after the change can’t believe things were ever so different then they currently are. These changes happen two or three times a century with Uranus or Pluto as the apex planet of the midpoint. (There is one exception to this which I was going to deal with in short paragraph but instead I’d like to write an entry about this.)

Second Zeitgeist Change

The first one of the Twentieth Century happened in the first decade and saw the rise of Modernism that affected art, psychology, and physics among other things. The second took place at the end of World War II and saw the birth of the Anthropocene. The third was about 1980 and saw the take over of the world by neoliberalism.

Third Zeitgeist Change

But once every 500 years there is an outer planet midpoint with Neptune as the apex planet, and that is the type we are having now. Thus this zeitgeist change will be bigger by far than just a normal change which would only be a simple IT. The last time Neptune was at the midpoint was 500 years ago — see graphical ephemeris of this period below — and I think most would agree that the world at the time changed in very significant ways, with among other things the newly invented printing press and the discovery of the New World.

Uranus-Pluto Midpoint on Neptune

In the above graphical ephemeris the transiting Uranus-Pluto midpoint is in orange and the transiting Neptune is in purple. They first come in contact at One and that connect ends at Two for a period of two years. Compare that to the one shown later for the current period.

The Midpoint in 1504

The keyword I give here is the “COVID pandemic” and all the other associated things such as censorship and propaganda which became so enlarged at that time. I see this change, with Neptune at the apex, will lead to one of two possible outcomes, broadly speaking, though of course it is much broader than that. One outcome will lead to a downgrade of the Cartesian rationalism that has grown up in the previous 500 years and a resurgence of a more spiritual, less “rational” viewpoint which I have discussed several times in the past, a move beyond the Enlightenment that came at the midpoint of these 500 years, thought it had been forming for many years before. Natural systems, which have been increasingly ignored as the industrial and global world-views have taken over the world starting 500 years ago, are on the ropes. This is obvious to the leaders of the world, but they don’t realize that THEY are the problem, or perhaps they do and don’t want anyone to figure this out with an increasingly controlled information flow. The groundwork was laid in the previous centuries.

Current Uranus-Pluto Midpoint on Neptune

Again see the midpoint starts at One and ends at Two for a period of three and a half years.

The other possibly outcome is talked about world “leaders”. There will be a one-world global government and it will be totalitarian but of course it won’t be called that. One can already see this forming with for example the WHO’s –World Health Organization — One Health program. The natural will be abandoned as we seek refuge in the artificial virtual reality world (cf the novel Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson published in 1992 when the world wide web was just a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s computer.) We will eat artificial food if we can’t find insects and the basic details of our lives will be known by that world government which will control us. This is the plan for us that Pluto has, and they are not shy about telling us of it: “You will own nothing and be happy” is one statement that has become popular.

This coming Midpoint Configuration

This is probably the most far ranging of the three ITs because there are so many things covered — as I’ve detailed before — by the term Neptune. Pandemics, vaccines, diseases, all things medical which the pharmaceutical companies are such a major player. As oil companies were the major players in the fossil fuel age, the pharmaceuticals corporations are a good symbol in the medical industrial age which is being planned out.

Another important thing that is covered by Neptune is the Virtual World which is now so much of the Real World (called IRL in the virtual world). This is the Internet or the (World Wide) Web or the Metaverse, or even the Fourth Industrial Revolution, terms which are very popular with the World Economic Forum who are gung-ho for this future.

Neptune in its guise of propaganda will be a big part of this IT. This has been the golden ago of propaganda. There was a good effort under WWI (Wilson was masterful) with Bernays who took ideas from his uncle Sigmund Freud. So the use of propaganda has been growing since the Zeitgeist Change of the early twentieth century.

There are several novels that forecasted facets of this future from the past. One thinks of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Philip K. Dick. Many writers covered this subject, but one who did but is little noticed is the first novel by Kurt Vonnegut called Player Piano. But the author who seems very prescient and from the Nineteenth Century was H. G. Wells with his novel Time Machine, made in to a movie several times. In this novel the Morlocks live beneath the ground and service the Eloi (Wells take on ultimate class reduction) so the world is divided into two races: In contemporary terms essential workers and the laptop class or in the astrological terms I’m using, Pluto can enjoy life while Uranus supports them. We have become increasingly alienated from the natural world and as a result the natural world has become alienated from us, leading to massive problems with nature. We will no longer be human and thus natural but rather transhuman and so not really connected to the earth which could just as well die because we will all be happy in the Meteverse.

Some people want to bring the scientific paradigm further so that the next 500 years will see the results of the Fourth Industrial Revolution ™ and we will be transhuman, the ultimate goal of the Scientific worldview, what astrologer and historian Bruce Scofield calls the reductionist-mechanistic-materialist view. So that is the conflict: will the next 500 years be more of the same rationalism (that has so obviously almost turned the world into a pardise!!!!!) or is it time to try something new. We certainly can’t follow a different path with Pluto (the same old leaders) running things. Are we are looking at a future where the rich drive electric vehicles only they can afford while the plebs live in their 15 minute cities? Where the rich will eat organic food while the commoners live on artificial or industrial food? It has already started with for example King Charles III of England who travels with an organic cook while urging others to eat industrial food.

One thing that makes it so much harder to break free from Pluto is that Pluto convinces people to see reality on left-right spectrum. These terms are associated with the planets Jupiter (left) and the Saturn (right) that was developed during the French Revolution. While at the time Jupiter and Saturn were the outermost planets — Uranus was discovered earlier in the same decade (not a coincidence) — there are now outer more planets that could/should be used to indicated a new paradigm. The spectrum now should be considered up and down or globalist and populist or industrial and natural or in astrological terms Pluto and Uranus, planets for the new century. Pluto was discovered less than 100 years ago.

In a stroke of genius Pluto has convinced many people that if you don’t believe everything it supports you are somehow a right wing conspiracy theorist. It has helped do this by supporting many agenda items that liberals support and mouthing the proper phrases. We all know them. And no liberal wants to be considered a RWCT so they will support the agenda of Pluto with all their hearts, even if in a simpler time they would oppose it. On the other hand Pluto has convinced the conservatives that the policies Pluto supports have been adopted by Communist China thus the conservatives accuse this agenda of Pluto as being Communism and so they consider people like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates to be Communists or at least Marxists! So to satisfy their hatred of Communism they oppose this agenda with all their hearts. And when they see liberals supporting these Communist ideas they are further incensed at their enemies. And then the liberals see the conservatives opposing this agenda they support they are even more incensed at the conservatives. Thus both “sides” get something to make them happy and keep them fighting one another and thus they won’t look at the puppeteer that is really pulling the strings. It’s a win-win situation for everybody except the people but they of course don’t realize it.

The pull of corporation profit and money has biased science so that it is no long something Newton would recognize. There is currently one great example of this. One of the domains ruled by Neptune is the rapidly developing medical-industrial complex, represented most clearly by large pharmaceuticals companies. That monopolization of medicine and even science by large corporations have biased the expansion of knowledge in this case with the germ theory which allows pharmaceutical companies to make big money but leaves other area of interest unexplored. Our view of reality has been shaped by our means of thought which have been shaped by corporations. As they say follow the money, but this also shapes reality.

We are seeing the Ultimate capture of government by that scientific world view that has developed over the last 500 years. For example the Pharmaceutical companies now dominate medicine and direct that field to study germs. Germ theory is seen as the only conceivable theory of how the world works and how people get sick. The germ theory was created by Louis Pasteur but he rejected it on his death bed and gave support to the alternative vision called terrain theory. A simplification of the difference between the two is that germ theory posits very small enemies out there which we must avoid or defeat with scientific weapons; this is masculine view similar to war. Terrain theory on the other hand has it that if the terrain of your body or environment is weak, caused by among other things bad diet (non-nutritious ultra-processed foods are much more profitable) and toxins in the environment (that earn a profit because people believe they must be used) makes you open to the bad things that otherwise your body would ignore or quickly deal with. Use of terrain theory — improved sanitation — has resulted in the greatest reduction of human death in history long before the pharmaceutical industry came into existence, but this is often forgotten.

With this emphasis in germ theory other modes of medicine such as for example energy medicine (Suggested reading: Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg and The Body Electric by Robert Becker) were overlooked or ignored thus as a people we are much poorer. Science has been captured by corporations.

What we are seeing now is the end of the 500 year Party and people are going crazy because they can’t wrap their minds at all that is happening. Unfortunately, and I’ll get a lot of criticism here, people are focusing on one symptom — climate change — of this end of party instead of what is really going on so the outcome will be much worse than if people had dealt with the real problem, but of course doing that would draw attention to some very sacred cows in society that we are not allowed to even “see”. It is to the benefits of the corporations (and other parts of Pluto) that we go around chasing climate change. It is like the old magician’s trick that has been used a lot recently: Don’t look over here, look over there. It is always dangerous to treat the symptom rather than the problem because it only gets worse. Bur climate change can be measured by a simple number and thus is easy to follow even though the problem is much more complex. It is also important that climate change can be solved by technological fixes (more technology is always good!) and new products that corporations can sell us. Suggested reading: Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein and Overshoot by William Catton.

The members of Pluto obviously don’t really believe climate change is a problem, because otherwise why would we see incidents like these: a major climate catastrophe happened when the Nordstream pipeline was exploded but if it were really a big deal certainly someone official would investigate who perpetrated this incident (probably some climate denier!) so they could at least be blamed and shamed; but all we got was one report and no investigations. Then we are told that climate change is so bad we should reconsider flying but many higher echelon (i.e. members of Pluto) people have their own private jets — you would think if climate change was really a problem they would at least fly commercial along with the common folk if only to appear they believe their line. And third: if the US defense establishment were a country it would be the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and so a good first step would be to greatly reduce the defense budget of the United States — 40% of the world total — presently larger than that of the next 10 countries combined, which includes arch enemies Russia and China — but instead they keep increasing it. Either climate change is not a problem or those most responsible for the problem don’t need to worry about it.

But Wait, There’s More

While I have described a Zeitgeist Change as being denoted by a midpoint of the three outer planets, in this particular case it is not just a midpoint but also an aspect pattern — called a mini-grand trine — which consists of a trine and two sextiles joining the two planet in trine — Uranus and Pluto — with the center planet Neptune. In the graphical ephemeris below — in the sixth harmonic to show all three planets together — we can see how Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all bunch together for at least four years — 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 — starting their tight combination around the Aries point. This formation doesn’t last as long as the transiting midpoint but is still dominates the second half of this decade. An aspect formation, even without the underlying midpoint, would be of significance but this combined with the other features again points to this being a very significant time.

Mini Grand Trine

So in a way this third interesting time is in itself threefold, what with the outer planets midpoint and the apex of the midpoint being Neptune and there also be a astrological formation happening at the same time.

Graphical Ephemeris Mini Grand Trine

Axial Age

The only comparable time in history that I can think of is when all three planets were conjunct in 576 BC or thereabouts. They also formed a midpoint configuration but it is only because they are conjunct — each three is at the midpoint of the other two. This was the axial age (Karl Jaspers) when most religions originated such as Confucianism, Lao Tzu, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Judaism (Babylonian Captivity).

Axial Age Graphical Ephemeris

The world has really changed in big ways and most people don’t realize it: They are still stuck either worrying about the awfulness of Donald Trump and his fascist band of followers who are the greatest threat to Democracy ever or praising the savior Donald Trump who will rid the world — or at least the United States — of the Communist Marxist fascism that dooms the USA.

Tripartite Interesting Times – Part I

There is supposedly an old Chinese blessing/curse which is “May you live in interesting times”. Interesting times are more eventful than uninteresting times, but whether that is good or bad, hence a blessing or a curse, is the question. An interesting time is like for example the early Twentieth Century (UR=NE/PL) or the time right after World War II (PL=UR/NE). Those were interesting times to be alive.

Currently we are living in a three-fold interesting time (IT) as if we had won the trifecta. The current term de jour is poly-crisis. I’ve explored all these three before but here I want to put them all together and associate them with keywords from the popular press and talk which may give you some insight into what is taking place. Some people think that there is some nefarious actor behind all three changes happening but I believe it is just that all three are happening at the same time. So those of us who are alive now need to know that these times are unique or special; in a way all times are unique, just as all astrological charts are unique, but some are more unique or special than others. We live in such a time. Just as keywords for the planets hide ideas that are associated with those symbols the keywords that I give will hide ramifications of these three events. Use your own imagination to complete the meanings.

The keywords and tendencies of each IT will reflect on to the other ITs so each keyword constellation will effect the others. Each IT will influence/reinforce the other two ITs so they will be different and perhaps more interesting than if each were happening by itself. As they say the sum is more than just the parts.

Last Pluto Return

The first of these three ITs is associated with the Pluto Return of the United States. No country has existed with one Constitution as long as the US so this return is unique. And since the United States is the most powerful country in the world currently, whatever happens to it will effect the entire world. But we really don’t know for sure where Pluto was 250 years ago so we can’t be sure this is the actual Pluto Return. But as astrologers commonly do for a birth charts with birth time unknown a process called rectification is used to determine the birthtime; this process is essentially if you know the answer (some momentous event in the person’s life) what was the question (chart that would show that event) or astrological Jeopardy(TM). We can judge if this is a Pluto Return by seeing if what is happening in real life (IRL) is what would be expected for a Pluto Return and so far many are talking about the breakdown of United States society, from both a blue and a red perspective. America seems to really be in a quandary. I can can see as possibilities a breakup of the country, a change in the way the Supreme Court is run, a realignment of political parties, the birth of new political parties, and other outcomes that would not have not seemed conceivable in the last century. Division is the keyword on everybody’s lip currently. More than once I’ve heard someone say that they haven’t seen a division like this since the Civil War.

Another way that this Pluto return manifests itself is in the huge involvement of the National Security State with our politics. Recent example abound but I should point out that the Russiagate saga over the last part of the last decade is a prime example (see long article by long time journalist Jeff Gerth in a recent copy of the Columbia Journalism Review and the article in the online magazine Tablet by Jacob Siegal called “The Hoax of the Century”) and the CIA’s debunking of the Hunter Biden laptop story — which was later shown to be as it was claimed to be before the 2020 election — at the request of a Biden campaign official who later became Secretary of State.

Pluto Return

The popular term for this time is Civil War, which some people think will actually happen. I don’t know about that but anyone can see there is an increasing division between one group of people (call them Team Blue or the elite establishment or team reality or whatever term you are most comfortable with) against another group of people (call them deplorables or MAGA Republicans or anit-vaxxers, or populists or team reality or even Team Red). Essentially there are two basic viewpoints of reality and each group thinks the other group is crazy or deluded or evil. But the members of each group are not all the same, for example “anti-vaxxers” are not the same as Team Red — President Trump, the mascot of the MAGA Republicans, oversaw operation warp speed which was the epitome of anti-anti-vaxxer! — and the elite are not the same as Team Blue but the omnipresent “they” wants you to believe this. But there are two somewhat hazy groups that are somewhat opposite and spreading. I believe this split will see a new political realignment at least as significant as when the Republican Party formed out of third parties that existed in the time before the (first?) Civil War. What will be the Fort Sumter moment this time? Both sides would probably nominate Jan 6 but for very different reasons. And these traits are common but it is more wide spread then the cliches. Other possibilities could be a new constitution, a modification of the Supreme Court, or even breakup of the united States into several regional blocs, sort of like a re-Europization of the EU (caused for example by the next IT).

The graphical ephemeris above illustrates the whole of the Pluto return. We see the first actual return of Pluto to its natal position at point 1 in early 2022. It happens again at point 2 and 3. Finally at point 4 later in this year Pluto is stationary on the US natal Pluto for the last return.

But this conflict is not between the “left” and the “right” as it is between two world views which more or less correspond to the astrological terms I use in this blog: Pluto and Uranus or globalist and populists or up and down or the 1% and the 99% or artificial and natural.

Transiting Neptune Opposite Natal Neptune – a Demi-Return

The second IT is what I have called previously the Sixth Crisis. Since the founding of this country every 80 to 90 years there has been a crisis; these crises started very small and local to part of North America and each crisis has become larger and more global. This is discussed from a non-astrological perspective in the book the Fourth Turning by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Howe has a new book coming out called the Fourth Turning Is Here whose title says it all.

The keyword concept I give for this is World War III, otherwise known as the war in Ukraine but perhaps expanding into a war with China. But another concept that is certainly important here is a change from the unipolar world, a world with one dominant power, to a multipolar world with some powerful countries but none are considered the “top dog”. The world has never experienced the multipolar world before in human history; before it was unipoloar the world consisted of separate nations; this was before the Europeans had expanded to colonize the whole world. Globalism and the Unipolar world started 500 years ago with Spain being the first Single Pole. Since the US has the conjunction of Sun, Venus, and Jupiter which I’ve described before as double plus good the country has been very very lucky in its expansion so the United States is currently the Single Pole.

The unipolar world could only exist once Columbus discoverd America as far as Europe was concerned and the cat was out of the bag that there was a large undiscovered part of the earth that could be exploited by the the nations of Europe. That is what the last 500 years have been about and that is about to come to an end. I am reminded of the original Dylan who wrote a famous poem as his father was dying: “Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. The American Empire is dying and that empire is certainly raging against its dying of light. The country must realize there is life after death.

Multipolarity is an entirely new way of running the world. For the West the feudal world gave way to the modern world 500 years ago and to what brave new world to (coin a phrase) will this period begat? Pluto already knows the type of brave new world it wants. Will Uranus figure its reply to this?

The Sixth Crisis

I’ve listed five factors that determined the crisis, factors that have reoccurred every 80 to 90 years since the beginning of this country. The first crisis was very local — Jamestown — but each succeeding one got larger and more geographically widespread. The fifth crisis was World War II. These five factors are all illustrated in the graphical ephemeris above. The first was Neptune making a demi-return to the natal Neptune of the United States (Number 1). Then there was Neptune over the MC or IC of the US and Neptune at either 0 Aries or 0 Libra (Number 2 and 3). Finally there was the Uranus return (Number 4) and Uranus crossing the Descendant of the US (Number 5). These five events occur during the whole decade from 2021 through 2029. The Neptune demi-return — illustrated above — started early in 2021 and the final pass of Uranus over the U.S. Descendant — illustrated below — happens in early 2029.

Watching the behavior of the United States at this time is like watching a divorce where it is obvious to everyone except one of the principles that the relationship is over and he/she struggles to keep the marriage together (often by doubling down) and as a result the outcome of the divorce for that person is much worse that otherwise would have been the case. Is this a real life “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” (a play/movie by Edward Albee) but with less alcohol? The situation could go so much better for the United States if the country had better leaders. I believe this current situation should be a chapter of a newly updated version of Barbara Tuckman’s March of Folly, a masterful book about what the title says: How stupidity and hubris (something the Greek dramatists were aware of 2500 years ago) leads to downfalls, starting with the Trojan War with the Wooden Horse. (I imagine the conversation at that time went something like this: The Greeks left this beautiful wooden horse before they departed; Wouldn’t it be a good idea to bring this into the city so we can play with it? What could go wrong? There’s some chick named Cassandra who thinks that is a real bad idea but she is so into conspiracy theories I don’t believe a word she says.) America is so besotted with war propaganda (hello, Neptune) that is difficult to find any public figure commenting clearly.

Uranus at Descendant

We’ll talk about the third IT in Part II — this third IT is a threesome also.

Three Unexpected Events With Uranus and Neptune

The theme of the last year has been Neptune and this post will be also about Neptune but in a more “traditional” sense. Some of the keywords for Neptune are disease, illness, gas, and earthquakes. That last keyword may need some explanation but it comes from the mythology concerning Neptune (the Roman god) or Poseidon (the Greek name for the same god). It seems that earthquakes were considered to originate when Neptune stamped his trident in the earth.

I once had a student who was a Pisces and she would get upset whenever I mentioned difficult manifestations of Neptune. But I did not mean to defame Neptune. I have a strong Neptune myself and in fact the planet makes a close minor aspect to my Ascendant.

In all of these charts to be discussed below Uranus is prominent. One chart has only an approximate time, one time I got from news accounts, while the other has a time to the nearest second. The charts for two of the events have a strong Neptune aspecting either the Ascendant or Midheaven.

The first (two) charts are for the multiple explosions on the Nordstream underseas pipelines that were designed to carry gas from Russia to Germany and thus to the rest of Europe. These explosion are considered the greatest act of industrial terrorism in history, caused the largest release of methane in a single event, and an act of war against Germany and Russia. Certainly a very big deal but it does not get talked about much.

This second chart is for the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It is considered by many to be the worst environmental disaster in recent American history. There have have been other disasters such as the BP oil well explosion but that was in the Gulf of Mexico and not the continental United States. There have been other train derailments but this one was carrying several toxic chemicals and so was worse. As I understand it, the vinyl chloride — used to make PVC — that the train was carrying was burned so that the track would be quickly available. It is normal for spillage from trains to be cleaned up and taken away; it is very unusual for this mess to be burned. Because it was burned more toxic substances were produced, including dioxin which is a known carcinogen.

The third event is the first of several earthquakes to hit Turkey (or Turkiya) and Syria with the epicenter in Turkey. While Turkey is a original member of NATO Syria is one-third occupied by the United States and it is under sanctions which makes helping that country much more difficult.

Nordstream explosions happened in four different locations (see map) but three were close together and the first explosion happened somewhat distant so the location is the center of the three explosions closest together and the fourth has its own location.

First Nordstream Explosion

From the chart we can see that this was a New Moon (about two hours after the exact conjunction of the Sun and Moon) which was below the earth so it was very dark at the time. The second chart was 17 hours later so that the New moon was almost a day old. Jupiter was opposite the Moon closely (see the fourth harmonic chart later for a graphic illustration of how close).

Second Nordstream Explosions

In a pattern we will see repeated, the Sun was in hard aspect — a sesquiquadrate in this case — to Uranus at about half a degree in the first chart but in the second chart this aspect was almost exact. One quick interpretation of Sun-Uranus hard aspects is that something unexpected happened this day.

Notice the shape formed by Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sun. It looks like a kite with the tail pointing to the Sun. In astrology there is a planetary formation called a kite which looks much the same except the aspects holding the kite together are trines and sextiles. So I will call this formation a Hard Kite.

First Nordstream Explosion Harmonic 4

Finally note that Mercury is opposed to Neptune, and indeed this whole incident has Neptune writ large. No one will take responsibility for this huge terrorist act and most governments say they have no idea who did it. The mass media seems uninterested who finding out what happened. Perhaps relevant to this lack of interest is the fact that there are six planets retrograde: the five outers and of course Mercury. This incident is a huge mystery that no one is interested in. Of course, remember the old statement: Don’t ask a question if you don’t want the answer.

Second Nordstream Explosions Harmonic 4

This case was discussed previously (Midterms and Minor Aspects) and the fourth harmonic chart is interesting to look at since it reveals that Pluto is tightly configured with Moon/Jupiter and Uranus/Saturn.

Neptune is involved: though most consider this an act of sabotage and not a natural phenomenon there is much uncertainty about the perpetrator. A few weeks ago noted journalist Seymour Hearst posted an article telling how the United States, along with Norway, blew up the pipeline. He indicated that this was an act requiring a major player or a state to perform. There was absolutely no mention of this in the major media. Then more recently the New York Times and a prominent German newspaper published separately details from intelligence sources that the explosions were from explosives planted by a pro-Ukraine group of six from the fifty foot yacht Andromeda. This seems similar to the plot of a episode of the Sixties sitcom Gilligan’s Island where the Professor makes a coconut bomb which is planted underwater by Ginger and Mary Ann. Then there are claims that Russian ships were seen in the vicinity of the explosion a few days before it happened. Thus there is uncertainty of the perpetrators and at least two very conflicting stories, thus a Neptunian haze surrounds this event.

The next case to look at is a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a small town near the Pennsylvania border. The train was carrying several toxic chemicals including vinyl chloride which is used to make the very common PVC. But the derailment would not have been nearly as bad except that a controlled burn of the spilled contents took place later, thus exposing the toxic chemicals to a much wider group of people and also hiding the local effects since they were spread over a larger population. This chart is based on the time given by the sources I checked. Neptune is exactly on the Descendant and also square the Midheaven. There is an exact Sun square Uranus at the time, saying again that something unexpected would happen on that day. Not only does Neptune rule the toxic chemical spilled, but there is also uncertainty about what caused the accident and why it was made worse by the “controlled’ burn. Another problem was caused by lack of safety equipment; for example the train had the same type of brakes as used during the Civil War instead of newer brakes that could have prevented the derailment but cost more money. Also, more engineers on the train could have noticed the forming problems before the accident.

Train Derailment

Making this incident even more interesting is that Don Delillo wrote a novel in 1985 called White Noise that had been floating around Hollywood for many years until it was finally made into a movie with the same title released in 2022. The novel/movie concerns an airborne toxic cloud from a train derailment and the movie was filmed in East Palestine. The movie seemed to capture the disaster that happened in that town and some of the residents of the city were even extras in the movie. Certainly a case of life imitating art.

Earthquake in Turkey

The third incident to look at is the Earthquake in Turkiye/Syria. The time and location are exact (which is usually the case with earthquakes and seismographs). This earthquake took place about six hours after the Full Moon. Neptune is exactly square is Ascendant and there is a wide square of Sun and Uranus, not surprising since this earthquake took place three days after the derailment.

Number of Earthquakes in Turkey per Year

As shown in the graph Turkey has had a huge number of earthquakes in the Twenty-First Century compared to the time before. As of this writing there are about 53,000 casualties and 26 million displaced persons. While certainly not the deadliest earthquake in a century the death toll is high because it was early in the morning when most were asleep.

There is some contention that this was an artificial earthquake: a Romanian legislator brought this out in a speech before her Parliament. She maintains that since there was no true epicenter and many earthquakes occurred along the same line it was caused by something like HAAAP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Program) which of course was immediately denied by fact-checkers. Thus Neptune shows the doubts over the true origins.

I did not pick these three events expecting anything in common; they were large scale events that seemed to be important and with long term consequences. But there are some things in common. Two of the charts have tight aspects between Neptune and one of the angles, either the Ascendant or the Midheaven. All three have hard aspects between the Sun and Uranus. And all three are Neptunian in the more traditional sense.

Change Of Sign

We will soon see the first of three major sign changes for outer planets. Anytime an outer planet changes sign it is considered significant. There are many articles available that describe what has happened throughout history when, say, Neptune goes into Pisces or Pluto goes into Capricorn. A few years ago I discussed what happened when Pluto entered Capricorn. That occurred in 2007 through 2009 and the world saw what is called the Great Recession (as opposed to the Great Reset which is coming up). The previous time that Pluto entered Capricorn saw Britain become the dominant power in the (unipolar) world, which lasted until World War I when the USA took the reins of power even though it took the country another world war to act on this and believe it. And the time before that saw the Reformation start after Martin Luther supposedly nailed his theses to the church door. We will soon see all three outer planets — Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto — change sign within a 3 year period. One can see that if one change of sign is important, then three changing at almost the same time will be very very important.

In the book Astrology of Sustainability the astrologer J.Lee Lehman, PhD. talks about the transits of outer planets and mention this while discussing Pluto moving from Capricorn : “…cluelessness is a general characteristic of a period with a change in outer planet sign: the people who have benefited from the Old Regime often are slow to notice that the rules have changed.” Imagine what three changes of signs in three years for the outer planets will mean to those members of the Old Regime, that is Pluto, in the upcoming years.

Signs are, like house systems, a way of dividing 360 degrees by that ever popular number twelve starting of course at zero Aries. So whenever a planet changes sign it is making a multiple of 30
degree aspect to the Aries point. Thus when Pluto goes into Aquarius it will be sextile the Aries Point; when Neptune goes into Aries it will be conjunct the Aries Point; and when Uranus goes into Gemini it will be also sextile the Aries Point. Uranus has a period of 84 years so few are still alive who remember when Uranus last went into Gemini which was in 1942. The period of Neptune is twice that of Uranus so the last time Neptune entered Aries was 1862. Note that at that time Uranus was also in Gemini having entered that sign 1858 and 1858. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius was in 1778 when the United States was fighting its Revolutionary War. It is fairly obvious the commonality of those three periods: both 1778, 1862 and 1942 saw the United States involved in a war. I wonder what will happen this time.

The last time all three planets changed sign at about the same time, and into the same signs as they are changing into now, was 500 years ago, as illustrated above. Uranus went into Gemini about 1524; Neptune went into Aries about 1534; and Pluto went into Aquarius about 1531 — the same three ingresses we are seeing now. Since Pluto has a period of 250 years we see that this upcoming entrance of Pluto into Aquarius is only the second time since 1531 that Pluto entered Aquarius. In the Sixteenth Century Uranus was the first to change sign and Pluto went into Aquarius seven years later; Neptune was the last to change sign. By the time Pluto entered Aquarius Uranus had moved into Cancer and shortly after Neptune entered Aries Uranus moved into Leo, two signs after Gemini. Not all three ingresses happened as close together as they do this time.

Thus 500 years ago the spread for all three ingresses was about 10 years so there was not much overlap. To say that the period 1524 to 1534 was important to the shaping of the modern world is not hyperbole. One can see that the three outer planets changing into the same three signs this decade is an echo of what happened 500 years ago. At the intermediate time 250 years after that early 16th century period, Uranus went into Gemini about 1775, Neptune went into Libra — opposite Aries — about 1779, and Pluto went into Aquarius about 1777. The timing of these sign changes with the birth of the United States is quite obvious. These three ingresses also mark the Enlightenment, though that had more to do with the grand trine of the three outer planets that century. The Enlightenment is that time when rationalism replaced religion as the dominant force in societies. I have predicted previously in this blog that we will see irrationalism (that is the opposite of rationalism) replace rationalism after this change the world is going through this decade. This may be hard if not impossible to believe if you were raised in the scientific paradigm that dominates this society and has seen the adulation of scientists after World War II (they gave us the atomic bomb that ended that war was a popular outlook in America at that time) and it has only grown since in our technically dominated world. And according to the rational mindset astrology is the ultimate in irrationalism.

One way to see when all three outer planets change sign visually is by using a graphical ephemeris in harmonic six because all three of the signs being changed into are positive: Pluto into Aquarius, Neptune into Aries, and Uranus into Gemini. The heavy horizontal line is 0 Aries or in this case the positive sign boundry. Looking at the image above we see that Pluto first moves into Aquarius in the Spring of 2023, just dipping its toe in so to speak and then goes back into the safer confines of Capricorn until late winter of 2024 when it moves seriously into Aquarius until it returns briefly to Capricorn in Fall of 2024 but finally moves into Aquarius for good at the start of 2025. Neptune goes stationary at the Aries point in Summer of 2024 (to be discussed in more depth in a later post) before returning to Pisces for winter of 2025-26, finally moving into Aries for good in early 2026. Finally Uranus moves into Gemini for late Summer, Fall and Winter of 2025 and finally moves into Gemini for good in Summer of 2026.

Summarizing, Pluto moves into Aquarius in 2023 and 2024, Neptune moves into Aries 2024, 2025, and Uranus moves into Gemini in 2025 and 2026.

As mentioned previously in this blog, the interpretations that I use of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in the current context can be laid out as follows: Note these planets have multi-variant meanings (I believe that term was used by Richard Tarnas) and so those planets have different meanings in different circumstances. But for the current crisis of this decade I think the following meanings are most useful. Uranus represents the individual people and the local and natural world as well as the desire and need for freedom. Neptune represents deception and illusion and propaganda as well as diseases and vaccines and that virtual world we call the “Internet” as well as a sense of a spiritual world. Pluto represent the opposite of Uranus in the current sense, big tech, big media, big pharma, global and the not natural — that is to say the technical and industrial.

With those meanings in mind we can see that these three different ingresses represent three different currents taking over the world . The first current will be of Plutonian energies, something that we can already see though the actual ingress won’t happen until the Vernal Equinox of 2023. The energy following that will be Neptunian which suggests there will be even more uncertainly about what is happening in the world and more propaganda supporting the narrative of Pluto so it will seem like the forces of Pluto will be all-powerful since it will appear at that time that that is the only energy available, but it will be hard to know for sure. But to paraphrase a common statement, Uranus bats last. The Uranian energies will finally come in after everyone is confused and believing that Pluto has triumphed. This will be discussed in a later post. This will see the biggest change in the direction of the world for a least 500 years. As the Romantic poet Shelly said a little over 200 years ago in the poem The Masque of Anarchy — “Ye are many, they are few” or to paraphrase Uranus is/are many and Pluto is/are few.

There is also a fourth change of sign at almost the same time as the first ingress of Pluto into Aquarius and so this should actually be considered the first of the many changes of sign in this short period, and this is one for a planet that for most of humankind’s existence was the outermost planet; Saturn is changing sign from Aquarius to Pisces in early March about two weeks before Pluto makes its first foray in Aquarius. This suggests a changed from the scientific viewpoint ruled by Aquarius to a more “non-scientific” viewpoint ruled by Pisces. In fact it has already started. The last two years have seen the popularity of the phrase “Trust Science”; I see it on lawn signs in richer neighborhoods above mine. This is a profoundly anti-science statement. You trust religion but science needs controversy and a variety of opinions in order to grow. I say this as someone who actually has a degree in science even though it is only BS. A more accurate statement would be Question Science since that is what scientists are suppose to do. But I guess that belief is so Twentieth Century.

So perhaps Science is dead but we just don’t realize it and may not realize it for many years.

Since Saturn is a relatively fast moving planet we will see it’s entrance into Aries within this decade also. And that time will be also important, but that is a subject for another post.