Is the President of Russia his own Man?

There is debate amongst analysts as to whether the current President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, is his own man or merely a puppet of the previous President, Vladimir Putin. Medvedev took office in March last year, and it was pretty clear at the time that he was there as Putin’s appointee. Putin was barred by the constitution from a 3rd successive term in office, so Medvedev was there to keep his seat warm until the next elections 4 years later. Meanwhile Putin has become Prime Minister.

But then a couple of days ago Medvedev gave an extraordinary speech calling for economic reform. It included the following:

"Instead of a primitive economy based on raw materials, we shall create a smart economy, producing unique knowledge, new goods and technologies, goods and technologies useful for people," Mr Medvedev said.

"Instead of an archaic society, in which leaders think and decide for everybody, we shall become a society of intelligent, free and responsible people."

This effectively amounts to a strong criticism of the previous leader’s policies. It does not look at all like he will roll over and allow Putin to have his job back in 2012. He is consigning Putin to the past.

So what went wrong? One look at Medvedev’s chart reveals all. He has Sun in Virgo conjunct Uranus and Pluto. The one thing someone with this configuration is not is a ‘yes-man’. Medvedev was born in the 60s when this configuration was in the heavens, a period characterised by reform (Uranus) and by protest (Uranus) against the powers that be (Pluto). He looks set to become a radical reformer, but in a spirit of service (Virgo).


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Saturn describes the types of leaders coming into power, and Medvedev took office with Saturn in Virgo, which provided a break from the grandstanding of the Saturn in Leo era: look at Bush and Blair and ‘he-man’ Putin.

So the he-man thought he was getting a yes-man. Why did he make this mistake? Venus is the planet of relationship, and Putin’s Venus conjoins Medvedev’s Mars-Neptune. Mars-Neptune can make it hard for a man to assert himself, and this is perhaps what Putin was relating to and relying on. But Neptune can be deceptive, and being in the sign of Scorpio perhaps gives Medvedev the ability to play power games, to play possum.


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Putin’s Mars is square to Medvedev’s Sun, and very widely to his Uranus-Pluto. This suggests that Putin was genuinely able to sit on Medvedev, but all the time Uranus-Pluto was lurking in the background, just out of sight.

When these outer planets decide to come on stage, personal considerations get put to one side. Russia needs Medvedev’s Uranus-Pluto and the reforms it can bring. The collective has brought it out of him, perhaps even to his own surprise.

The chart I use for Russia is based on the moment when Yeltsin stood on the tank and defied the old guard. It was this event which proclaimed the existence of an entirely new and sovereign Russia.


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This chart has Mars in Virgo square to Moon in Sagittarius: the will (Mars) of the people (Moon), and it of course hard aspects Medvedev’s Sun-Uranus-Pluto. So there is an astrological confirmation that Medvedev is responding to the collective will, and as such it is going to be very hard for Putin to unseat him.

The birth time on Putin’s chart is not that reliable, but in the chart we have, Neptune has dissolved his power base (Pluto-MC) over the last couple of years. Even without the MC, his Pluto (power) has been affected, in the same way that Neptune was opposing Tony Blair’s Pluto when he left office. It is quite simple yet effective astrology: Pluto is the power you wield, and Neptune dissolves it.

Sun, Saturn and the MC all describe aspects of the leadership of a country. In Russia’s case, Neptune has been opposing the Sun, and Uranus is about to trine/sextile the MC and Saturn respectively. With all 3 being affected, it seems that Russia is experiencing not just a change of leader, but a change in the type of leadership, which will unfold further over the next 2 years as Uranus does his work.

When 2 transiting outer planets are hard aspecting, we can expect the collective will to be more visible and assertive than usual. During the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s, for example, we had, well, the 1960s. And as Uranus moved to conjoin Neptune in the late 80s/early 90s, Communism fell and a new world order came into being.

With Uranus approaching an in-sign square to Pluto next year, we are moving into another period of powerful collective events, based on collective feeling. It's like pressures build up over a long period and they tip over into action. The reforms in the American healthcare system are perhaps an early example of the present Uranus-Pluto (as well as Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius, conjunct the US Moon). We can see it coming in Russia, if Mevdevev is to be believed, and I think his and Russia's astrology justifies such a belief. It's not so clear in the EU, but the beefed up Presidency, and a sense of increasing economic threat from the US and China combined, could easily produce a collective desire to pull together more effectively. And China? With continued exponential growth, the people will want to take their place as a world power, and this aspiration was clear in the Beijing Olympics, where more was spent, $40bn, than in all previous Olympics combined.

Where Uranus is involved - as in the 60s and 90s - we can expect reform; and where Pluto is involved, as in the 60s, we can expect increased power struggles, either within or between countries/superpowers.

In the UK, we are likely to have a new Prime Minister next year in the form of David Cameron. Like Medvedev, he is a 1960s Uranus-Pluto man, but the connection to his personal planets/Angles is much more tenuous.


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If you bring his given birthtime back four minutes (which is possible, given how midwives work, so I'm told!), you just about get a conjunction to his ASC. Forward again, and it is out of sign. I can't see he has shown much sign yet of Uranus-Pluto. Look at the reforms Tony Blair had brought to the Labour party by the same stage in his leadership. If Cameron was a reformer in waiting, I think we'd have seen more sign of it by now.

The North Node

I’ve been toying with the idea that the North Node becomes more visible as we get older. The (North) Node, you could say, describes what we are here to become for karmic reasons, it describes the deeper issues that will sort, that will become empowered, if we become that Node. Because these things are deep, they are hard to see; in fact our life may apparently have had little to do with the Node, until after 40 years we look back and see how it all adds up.

So I dragged a few names out of my famous people list to see what turned up. Elizabeth II of England has Angular Node in Cancer, conjunct Pluto and trine to Saturn-MC. That is a powerful placement, and shows how seriously (Saturn) she takes her vocation (MC) that was given to her (trine) by her people (Cancer) who are the source of her power (Pluto). As she has got older, so has she become the matriarch (Cancer) of her country.

President Kennedy did not live long, so his ‘later life’ is his reputation since his death. His Node is in Capricorn, opposite Pluto. He is remembered as a great president (Capricorn, a sign of leadership and authority), and this is partly because of his early death (Pluto).

Rupert Murdoch has Node in Aries, conjunct Uranus and square to Saturn and Pluto. A very powerful placement. He has maintained his ability to fight and to initiate (Aries) into his old age, and continues to be a mould-breaker (Uranus-Node, which Obama also has.) It’s not necessarily very pretty having Saturn and Pluto in square to the Node, and you don’t feel there is much that Murdoch would not do in pursuit of power and wealth.

An odd one: the Batman story seems to keep going, with yet another re-invention in the last few years. I wondered if he has Node in Scorpio (re-invention continuing into old age), and sure enough he has. The chart I use is that for the first publication on 1st May 1939. Note that Batman does not have superpowers, unlike the Incredible Hulk etc. This is reflected in the astrology, where the superheroes tend to have Jupiter-Chiron aspects: superpowers (Jupiter) created by a wound (Chiron e.g. the Hulk’s exposure to radiation, Superman losing his family and home planet as a baby.)

Bob Geldof has the Sun conjunct Neptune of a musician and the Sun conjunct Saturn of someone who is determined to achieve; but as he has got older, so has his compassionate Node in Pisces become more prominent, through Band Aid etc.

Margaret Thatcher has Node in Leo. She was a singular leader, unable to adapt as time went on (fixed Leo) and adopting regal airs (Leo). She is loved by many (Node trine Venus) yet also did a lot of damage on a human level (Node square Chiron).

Prince Charles has Node in Taurus, conjunct the Moon and in a Grand Trine with Saturn and Jupiter. So here we have issues of wealth, which on the one hand Charles is comfortable with and which gives him security (Moon in Taurus), but which he has also grappled with (Node), using his wealth to create sustainable, healthy projects, such as his organic farm and the village of Poundbury in Dorset. This is the aspect of Taurus as Values: what value do I place on money, what do I consider important about money?

The answer that is perhaps predominant in our culture is that money is a value in itself, and the more you have of it, the more ‘value’ you have. The Taurus-Scorpio Nodal axis is interesting in this respect. There is often some kind of struggle around money and material values with this placement. While Taurus Node asks us to look at what value we place on money, Scorpio Node asks us to understand the power of money.

Getting that power right is what it is all about. With money we can have power over others. It can also have power over us, when its lack makes us feel disempowered, or when its presence makes us feel substantial and powerful. Money is a power, and that cannot be wished away, but its real power is as a resource to make things happen. We can do things, meaningful things, with money that we could not otherwise do.

So money in itself is not evil, and being wealthy does not make you bad, despite what Jesus said about camels and eyes of needles. (Who’d want to go to the Christian heaven anyway?) Like anything, it is about why you want it. It is an energy, and it can be used in healthy and unhealthy ways. Getting this one right is the lesson for many Scorpio Nodes, in the context of the general Scorpio inquiry into the nature of power.

Like Batman, however, Scorpio Nodes (such as myself!) also need to continue to re-invent themselves into old age.

Saturn is 10 days off an exact square to Pluto, and one meaning of this is empowerment (Pluto) of the forces of conservatism (Saturn). Saturn-Pluto aspects have a history of handing power to the Republicans in the USA, and sure enough the Republicans have just won 2 key governorship elections, a year after Obama was elected. The Saturn-Pluto square will still just about be operative a year from now, so we can expect to see a further swing to the Republicans in the 2010 mid-term elections.

Saturn-Pluto combinations are also associated with the darkest, most violent events – like 9/11, which sparked off the War on Terror, and was associated with an opposition of the 2 planets. Indeed, the current square is the next phase in the cycle of hard aspects after the 9/11 opposition, so we can expect to see a new phase in what used to be called the War on Terror unfolding over the next year.

This War began with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Yesterday, 5 British soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman, the biggest single ‘combat’ incident for the British since the war began. More generally in Afghanistan, Karzai has been re-elected as President after an election widely held to have been rigged, so much so that a run-off was set up, only for the challenger to walk out on it. Corruption, another Saturn-Pluto keyword, is a hallmark of Karzai’s government. With Saturn-Pluto overseeing these events, and continuing for another year, things will probably get worse before they get better, but then a new phase will come in.

The story is similar elsewhere in the Middle East, with increased violence in both Iraq and Pakistan as Saturn has approached the square to Pluto, and which has intensified in the last week as the square became ‘in-sign’ – i.e. from Libra to Capricorn.

With Uranus also coming up to square Pluto, the increased violence we are likely to see in the Middle East over the next year would seem to be the start of a bigger, tectonic shift, a change in the balance of power, as America and the Muslim world slug it out. At present, it seems unwinnable from either side. Minority groups have become very effective at ‘asymmetrical warfare’, or what we would call terrorist attacks, which aim to have a psychological impact, and much more commitment of resources is needed by America and its allies – and probably a lot more ruthlessness – if they are ever to win. This is difficult for democracies, as people resist spending the money required, and undue violence often gets exposed.

The Russians, for example, seem to have suppressed the violence in their breakaway region of Chechnya in a way that the US could never have done, because they are prepared to be brutal in a sustained way that America could never get away with. Mind you, if there was a direct threat to America’s homeland, it would probably be a different story.

America has its ‘dark-ops’ and its Guantanamo Bay and its involvement in some pretty ghastly stuff, and it’s right to protest against it, but I think it’s nothing compared to what Russia and China would do as a matter of course. America could never have got away with suppressing Tibet in the way that China has over 60 years. America behaves like any Empire would, but I think the demonization it comes in for, both at home and abroad, sometimes needs a bit more perspective.

In June next year, Uranus and Pluto will come within 3 degrees of each other, and will for the first time be ‘in-sign’ – from Aries to Capricorn. So the pattern I see is that the increased levels of conflict that are likely over the next year as Saturn squares Pluto will start to tip over into a sense of fundamental shifts in the balance of power. In the US Progressed Chart, Saturn and Mars have both gone retrograde for the first time ever in recent years. So we are likely to see power slipping away from America.

G3, Pluto in Capricorn and Tony Blair

These days it is unfashionable for astrologers to predict the future. There is quite a no-no around it, for example, in the UK astrological establishment. The present and past are fine, but not the future! Even the most hardened future-phobe, however, has to be tantalised by the upcoming Uranus-Pluto square, because it interacts so strongly with the charts of all the major powers. It has, in fact, intrigued astrologers for years, whatever their future-persuasion.

The square will be taking place from the early to the middle degrees of the Cardinal signs. This aspect also occurred from the late 1920s onwards, with Uranus in Aries, as now, and with Pluto in Cancer, opposite to its present sign of Capricorn. So that square similarly affected the charts of the major powers, and look at the convulsion the world went through!

The square begins in earnest next year, when Uranus enters Aries, but it will not be exact until 2012. I think it has to mean a big shift in the balance of power (Pluto) in the world, but exactly how is open to debate. I started thinking about this (again) because of the flurry of news around the possibility that Tony Blair may become the next President of the European Council.

The post is being beefed up as of January. There is the European Commission as well as the European Council, each has a President, and it is easily possible to get confused about how it all works. The European Council, however, is the highest body within the EU, being composed of the heads of each member state. So the Presidency of this body, particularly as it will now have a 2½ year tenure instead of 6 months, and a more streamlined decision making process, potentially carries considerable clout. This could be especially so in the hands of someone like Tony Blair, for whom the red carpets come out around the world.

Back in March I wrote a piece predicting that the Uranus-Pluto square would mean the end of the EU, because there were not enough vital interests holding it together, and it is the function of Pluto to reveal such inauthenticity. What we do know is that this square will mean a convulsion for the EU one way or another, but I’m thinking now that it means the opposite: an EU that is pulling together much more strongly, and asserting its presence more on the world stage.


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Above are the 2 charts for the EU - one the Treaty that founded it, the other for the organisation itself - and both are subject to Uranus and Pluto in a big way over the coming years.

What is changing the game for the EU is not just the possibility of a transformative President (love him or hate him!), but also the rise of G2: America and China as the 2 big economic blocs. Although China is still behind Japan and Germany in wealth, it is rapidly catching up, having recently overtaken Germany as the world’s biggest exporter of manufactured goods, and equalling America in its production of greenhouse gases!

So I think with the rise of China particularly, it is make or break time for the EU in a way that it wasn’t previously. It is a competitive world, and America and China will between them decide how the world is run, and who gets the lion’s share of markets and resources, unless the EU acts as one, economically at any rate. The EU is the world’s largest economic bloc, bigger than the US, so it could wield considerable power. Culturally, the EU is made up of countries that are very different, and that is always going to place limitations on social and political integration. It was hard enough for the original 13 US states to come together as an entity, and it nearly didn’t happen, so how much harder will it be for Europe, whose countries have been separate for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

The potential for a more prominent President comes out of the Lisbon Treaty, which has to be agreed by all member states before it is ratified. This process itself shows how cumbersome the EU is, and why its future as an effective Union is a matter of debate. In the case of this Treaty, one small country, the Czech Republic, has been holding out, bringing the future of the whole Treaty into question. But now a compromise has been agreed that meets their demands, and the Treaty can go ahead.

One of their demands was to have an opt-out from the European Human Rights Charter. Otherwise they faced the possibility of land claims from thousands of Germans who were expelled after the Second World War. In case this opt-out sounds too egregious, it needs to be remembered that the UK has also negotiated this same Human Rights opt-out.

So I’m reckoning that the EU will increasingly act as one, economically and in foreign policy at any rate, because the pressure to do so is becoming unavoidable. As Pluto moves through Capricorn I think we will see a G3 world come into being, dominated by the US, China and the EU.

This is eerily similar to George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984, where you have a world dominated by 3 big continental powers, all continually at war with another, and with populations who are extensively spied on and brainwashed by their governments. Pluto in Capricorn first of all describes the establishment of new national/continental boundaries (Capricorn) through which the balance of power (Pluto) will operate. But it also suggests increased governmental (Capricorn) power (Pluto) – and in our age, the increased ability of governments to gather information about people is a primary means of asserting this power.

In a world that is becoming a more clearly defined struggle between major powers – which we have not had since the end of the Cold War – manipulation of the population to keep them onside increases. We saw this, for example, in the US at one of the peaks of the Cold War in the 1950s, with widespread fear of nuclear attack, and the rise of McCarthyism. Again after 9/11, free speech closed down and nationalism rose.

I don’t think all this is going to be immediate, but things will gradually go that way as Pluto moves through Capricorn. I just regard it as what one would expect, rather than as a terrible betrayal of the hard-won rights and freedom and tolerance that we have achieved. That has been great, but I think it has been an anomaly, historically. How often, historically, has it been possible to openly criticise the government without fear of reprisal? Not very often at all, so I think we need to cherish this remarkable period while we can do so, and recognise that we will, at least to some extent, lose that freedom as, for now, the world moves towards a new state of struggle between major powers.

So what about Tony Blair and the EU Presidency? There has been a lot of speculation, and hopes raised, in the British Press. Labour have been lobbying in Europe for it, and the Tories have been understandably lobbying against it. As news came through yesterday that the Lisbon Treaty would most probably be ratified, the headline was that hopes were fading for Tony Blair becoming President. This happened because, quite naturally, once the issue of the President became actual, other European leaders went hang on, we want to think about this, we’re not going to be bounced into anything. So we’ll have to see what happens over the next couple of months.

As for Tony Blair, what empowered him during his time as PM was a series of major Neptune transits. This in a way is not surprising, because he is a grand performer. I found out a while ago that Blair’s father had been adopted, and his biological parents were both actors!


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While he was PM, Neptune crossed his MC and went on to hard aspect his Sun, Moon and Pluto. I predicted in 2004 that he would lose power when these transits finished, particularly the one to Pluto, and this was what happened in 2007, though I was 6 months out in my timing. Neptune described his ascent to the political stage, and his command of the crowd, but it also described the gradual seepage of power after a certain point – in fact, as it crossed his ideological Moon in Aquarius at the time of the Iraq War.

So Blair has had a rest from major Neptune transits for a couple of years, and he has been out of power. But they are due to start up again, as Neptune squares his Jupiter, Mars Ascendant conjunction over the next few years. This stellium gives him his power with words, and if he were to become President, we would see that ability back again, but on a much bigger stage. Being Gemini Ascendant, Blair’s ability has always divided people: he is a populist, he can sway the crowd, and many people quite rightly don’t want to be drawn into that kind of mass euphoria. As President of the EU, I think he would find it much harder to sway people in the way he did the British back in the 90s.

Here's my prediction for Blair: the astrology is right for him to become President, and if he does, he will serve 2 terms, totalling 5 years, while Neptune empowers him. As Neptune moves away from his Jupiter-Mars-Asc at the end of this period, so will Pluto square his Venus at 15 Aries. Venus is popularity in a politician, suggesting that, as happened in Britain, he may end up with people turining aginst him.

The Jewish Mistress

A Jewish husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big open mouthed kiss, then says she'll see him later and walks away.

The wife glares at her husband and says, "Who was that?"

"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."

"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce!"

"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Jaguar in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours."

Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm. "Who's that woman with Moishe? " asks the wife.

"That's his mistress," says her husband.

"Ours is prettier," she replies

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This one's for real, off the BBC News site:

A US woman charged with offering sex for baseball World Series tickets has denied she did anything wrong.

"I'm not embarrassed about my actions. I'm embarrassed about how I was arrested," Susan Finkelstein, from Philadelphia, told AP news agency.

The 43-year-old was speaking a day after meeting an undercover policeman responding to her ad on Craigslist.

In the ad, the Philadelphia Phillies team fan said: "I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!" She also described herself as a "gorgeous, tall, buxom blonde diehard Phillies fan".

Mrs Finkelstein said she had wanted to get tickets to take her husband to Wednesday night's opening game of the World Series - in which the Phillies beat the New York Yankees 6-1.

Her lawyer said his client never explicitly offered sex, adding that she was merely "a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever".

The Idea of Sufficiency

My Native American friend Xbox (not his real name, and anyway he’d rather be called Indian) talks about the idea of sufficiency. He does a lot of obscure reading and is a mine of unusual information and original conclusions. Anyway, he’d observed that when a tribal people were largely wiped out through disease or whatever, they would often return to their original numbers quite quickly, and then stay at roughly that number. It was like they would collectively have a sense of what was enough, what number could be supported by the environment. And from that came his idea that humans have a sense of sufficiency, of what is enough. Like when you’ve had enough to eat.

In a way the idea seems obvious and very sane, but our culture has lost sight of it. We no longer have any collective sense of there being enough people, or enough wealth, or having done enough work, or whatever. Prosperity no longer means thriving, it means greed.

Sufficiency is a Saturnian idea. A healthy Saturn sets appropriate boundaries and regulates the proper measure of everything. An unhealthy Saturn is empty inside, and endlessly compensates through ‘achievement’ and hard work and wealth.

It has become central to our collective sense of well-being that the economy is growing. It doesn’t matter so much that it should adequately provide for everybody. No, what matters is that it should be growing, so we are told, and we believe it. This is the negative Saturn at the heart of our culture. Things are bad in the UK at the moment because we are in a recession. No-one says well we’ve all still got enough to eat and a roof over our heads – and we could easily cater for those who haven’t – so what’s the problem?

Working long hours is part of the same thing. We feel good about ourselves when we’ve been working, which isn’t altogether a bad thing. But it is more than that, it is a moral thing, we feel like we are good people because we have been working, and we want others to know. I know a small farmer who will often watch kids TV in the day, and then at night he’ll get in his tractor, put on the lights and start working, and it looks to the neighbours like he is this incredibly hard-working farmer who is at it even in the evening. This over-identification with work is also negative Saturn.

Sufficiency is different to sustainability. The problem with our current western way of life, as we see it, is that it is not sustainable, due to climate change, limited resources etc. That’s a good start, but it’s not the real issue. Because awful things can be perfectly sustainable. The early USA slave culture was perfectly sustainable. Some wars seem to go on and on, they seem quite sustainable.

The reason we have reached a point of unsustainability is because we have lost sight of sufficiency. What we seem to be looking for collectively with all the climate change stuff etc is an economy based on sustainable greed rather than unsustainable greed. As I said, it’s a start, but it is paradoxical, because an economy, a way of life, based on greed always wants more, and so eventually becomes unsustainable.

So I think that the political buzz word needs to be sufficiency rather than sustainability. It takes the pressure off in all sorts of ways, morally and psychologically, as well as materially. But I think it is a mind-set way too far to be accepted, simple as it is. Perhaps Pluto in Capricorn will help, although it could just as easily mean more power (Pluto) to the banks and other financial institutions (Capricorn). Maybe we have to wait for Pluto in Aquarius in 14 years time, which will empower (Pluto) the progressive thinkers (Aquarius).

The Nobel Prizes

Here is the first part of the latest visual astrology newletter. Back copies can be found here.

Alfred Nobel and a star named Spica
The "Spica Honours"

Bernadette Brady M.A.

With the news of President Barack Obama winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize it is a good time to step back and look at the Nobel Prizes and their place in our culture and our sky stories.

The idea of a world prize came into being in Paris on the 27 November 1895 when, a year before his death, Alfred Nobel (1833- 1896), a Swedish chemist and inventor, wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prizes. These prizes were to honour the outstanding achievements by individuals in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. Since that time the field of economics has also been added to this list.

On that day the sky map showed that Venus was a bright morning star (rising before the sun) and was radiating the beautiful blue star in the constellation Virgo named Spica

Venus radiating Spica when Alfred Nobel signed his will, creating the ideal of the Nobel Prizes. Composite image from Starlight

Now whatever Venus shines upon is, within the Mesopotamian view of reading a sky narrative, greatly enhanced or empowered. Thus a radiated Spica on that day spoke of a moment when brilliance was allowed to shine through, an honouring of that which is exceptional. The brilliance voiced by Spica is that which is a gift or an aid to the whole of humanity, for Spica's original gift was the goddess' bequest of the knowledge of argriculture, the expertise of how to grow food. Indeed the fact that Alfred Nobel’s idea grew probably well beyond his dreams is partly, I believe, because he instinctively signed his will when the milieu of the moment was perfect for the acknowledge of works of brilliance.

However, the life of Alfred Nobel (pictured left) was in contrast to his great ideal, for he made his vast fortune through the invention of dynamite and the subsequent ownership of arms factories. Both of these activities are evidence of his own brilliance, yet a brilliance directed towards the destruction of life rather than its honouring.

Nevertheless when we look at his own natal stars, (he was born on 21 October, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden), we see that on that day Spica was his heliacal rising star, thus taking a focused role in his life.

The heliacal rising star is the star which rises before dawn and which is the most recent star to return to visibility after its period of invisibility due to its closeness to the sun.

This star, whatever star it is, represents a deep vocation for the individual and symbolises a driving force within them.

From Starlight's report[1] for Alfred Nobel, I have pulled the following text:

Spica as the Natal Heliacal Rising Star

Wanting to use one's talents for the greatest possible good.

This is the star that has been walking the path of the underworld and has now emerged to be visible in the world of humans. This star, the Heliacal Rising Star, is the star under which you were born and it will bear gifts to you from the land of your past, your family and your genetics. It is your past, in a mythic sense, the jewel or the treasure, which your ancestors handed to you at your birth. This star is a theme in your life; helps to build your philosophies, and can at times take on a vocational pulse.

Spica is the star in the wheat sheaf in the hand of the goddess, and was considered a symbol of her gifts to humankind. These gifts were originally of harvest and bountifulness. The wheat sheaf, therefore, symbolised human knowledge of cultivation. In present times, the wheat sheaf is the symbol of knowledge and insights which are respected. The star is not connected with any particular field or profession but rather shows the potential for brilliance. Spica is a gift of brilliance, an innate talent, skill or ability which is out of the ordinary. With Spica in such an important position on the day of your birth, you have the mark of a gifted person who truly does have something to contribute to the world.

Given his genius of invention, we can see Spica at work in Nobel's own life. However, what I found more moving was the way that this great gift of the goddess that had been used in Nobel's working life as the brilliance of destruction had been turned to the better purpose of the goddess of seeking those who give their great gift to humanity.

A time and place

October is the time of the Nobel Prize announcements in Stockholm and it is also the month of birth of Alfred Nobel. Thus echoing down though history, it is also the time when Spica is the heliacal rising star for Stockholm.

So for me the Nobel Prizes are actually the "Spica Honours".

Whether we agree or disagree with all the different people who are honoured with these awards, we can, as astrologers, step back and recognise that at least once a year, the establishment world of power and politics actually listens to the golden voice of the goddess, the silent powerful rain of wheat that fertilizes and feeds.

Wolf

From the BBC News Site: A picture of a hunting wolf has won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award

Sabotage from the Future?

The Large Hadron Collider is almost back in commission after its accident last year. It is the biggest atom smasher in the world and it is not American. It has been designed to discover the Higgs Boson, the current fundamentalest particle of all. For the super-conducting magnets which contain the stream of particles to work properly, it has to be very cold, and it has just been announced that it is now colder than deep space.


The quantum world does not obey the usual rules, and Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of quantum physics, said that if you are not shocked by the laws of the quantum world, then you haven’t understood them. In this world, for example, certain events can only be explained by time going backwards.

I haven’t got too much of a problem with that, because if you look at neuro-pathology, you start to realise that the 3-D ‘external’ world, together with time, are created by the brain to create order out of our sensory input. As a model, it works pretty well, but that doesn’t make the external world real in a hard and fast way. Astrology also works, a lot of the time, at any rate. But it’s just another model, which is why it doesn’t always work. Just like our senses aren’t always reliable. And even if they are reliable, if you ask 2 people to describe the same event, you’ll probably get different accounts.

Anyway, the Large Hadron Collider. It was just starting to get up and running last year, amid a lot of publicity, when it had an accident. There was a liquid helium leak and it’s taken over a year to sort. And 2 physicists have seriously suggested that the damage may have been caused by Higgs Bosons (which of course have yet to be discovered) travelling backwards in time from a future experiment.

I doubt it is the true explanation, but I liked the idea that real physicists were suggesting it. Of course, the LHC doesn’t ‘know’ that it is going to be used to discover Higgs Bosons. Otherwise it could just as well send back some other particle. Which means that human intention must also be playing a part in creating this future that has not yet happened and from which Higgs Bosons could be travelling back in time to upset our plans.

I don’t know if the scientists are thinking that way. But it makes complete sense to me. Because so much of what we call reality is the product of people’s imaginings, if not all of reality. There is a deep way in which the world is a product of consciousness. Our culture, for example, gradually developed the idea that reality is material and follows empirical, rational laws and sure enough, reality obliged and we find ourselves in such a universe. Some ancient cultures developed the idea that there is a relationship between the movements of the stars and human affairs and sure enough, reality obliged and we find ourselves in an astrological universe.

I don’t mean all this in a superficial way, like reality is simply what you think it is. It’s to do with the imagination. The imagination seems to connect what is ‘in here’ with what is ‘out there’. So that when an idea about how the universe works stirs our imagination, it is because it is in some way real, and it’s probably hard to say which came first, reality or our idea about it. The fact that quantum physics is, properly understood, shocking, says a lot in its favour. If it is shocking, then it touches us, and that gives it reality.

Neptune is starting to station very close to my natal Sun, completing a transit that began around the time my blog began in 2006. My desire to write is still there, but kind of stuck, hence very few blogs recently.

It's like I've had 3 years of going through the news, commenting astrologically, and that's been great. But I don't want to do that so much now, and I'm starting to repeat myself. The less I write, the more congested and tetchy I start to feel, so I'm hoping things will sort themselves when Neptune begins to move forward in early November.

During last year’s US Presidential contest, the Republican ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped in and backed Barack Obama, saying he thought he could be a transformational President. These transformational leaders, the ones who change the country, are the ones we remember, for better or for worse. Like Margaret Thatcher in Britain. Cherie Blair, Tony’s wife, is convinced history will put him up there as a top Prime Minister, but I don’t think he was transformational. He ran with the boom times, and put more money into public services, like Labour does, but nothing underlying changed. To date he is mainly remembered, and hated by many, for the Iraq War, and this seems to baffle him. Blinded by self-importance and religion, he is convinced he is a good guy.

All Obama has to do to be transformational, in a way, is not to mess up too badly, because the fact of him being black and managing to get elected was transformational in itself. What seems to be happening with healthcare, however, suggests that Obama is going to transform the country further. The guiding stars for this process are Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron, forming their triple conjunction in Aquarius for most of this year, and making a conjunction by transit to the American Moon (the people). And the people seem to be far more in favour of the new healthcare provisions than the politicians. So much for Democracy.

Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron have all been Retrograde for a few months now, and this has been a time of thrashing out a healthcare solution that will get through Congress. As the planets turn Direct, we can expect to see legislative progress, the enactment of laws. Jupiter has been the first to turn Direct in the last few days, at the same time as the proposed healthcare laws got passed off by a Congressional Committee, and a Republican, Olympia Snowe, said that at this stage she could back the legislation. Jupiter brings good fortune, and that is what we have seen.

Over the next few weeks both Chiron and Neptune will turn Direct, bringing further crucial progress.

Olympia Snowe was born on a New Moon in Pisces (21/2/47), so how could she not support healthcare reform? With Mercury in Pisces square to Uranus, she is prepared to break ranks with her party. It wouldn’t surprise me if her Moon was also square to Uranus, but I haven’t got a birthtime.

On the subject of lots of Pisces, I did a brief reading for someone at a festival in August, and she was suffering from what is known medically as Ondine’s Curse. This is a very rare condition in which when you go to sleep, your breathing is liable to stop and you will die. So this person has to have a full-time carer in case she nods off, and a respirator for night time.

It was fascinating to encounter such an unusual condition that is named after a Greek Myth and in which astrology also has a take. In the myth, a water nymph called Ondine marries a mortal, meaning she will lose her immortality. Her husband, however, vows to love her and be faithful to her forever. One day she catches him in the arms of another woman. Ondine curses him, stating, "You swore faithfulness to me with every waking breath, and I accepted your oath. So be it. As long as you are awake, you shall have your breath, but should you ever fall asleep, then that breath will be taken from you and you will die!"

The person I met with this condition had Sun in Aquarius in the 12th House, with Moon and Ascendant in Pisces. Venus-Jupiter was rising in Pisces. Pisces and the 12th House are associated with sleep and dream. And what a chart for a water-nymph! She struck me as not very engaged with life, and over-identified with her condition. The only earth in the chart was Mars, so finding the drive to do something practical seemed to me the way forward. And, of course, there is a huge imaginative/compassionate/ psychic ability in the chart, and a wonderful ability to relate to people.

She wanted to leave her husband, so there is the Ondine myth reversed. In one version of the myth, these nymphs can only gain a soul through marrying a mortal. All that Pisces is extremely soulful, but it is unrealised unless they engage with life, symbolised by marrying a mortal. This person in a way was doing the opposite by wanting to leave her husband, a practical man. It was mythologically unsound for someone in her condition!

She was one of those people with such a strong story about herself that it was hard for me as the astrologer to see outside of that until afterwards, when I have time to reflect. The same also happened to me recently when I did a reading for a triple Aquarian. I find myself being more convinced than I should by their story, due to their conviction, and afterwards I kick myself!