Science and Astrology

You’ve probably noticed I bang on about Science a lot. I’m going to do so again today, but with more astrology than last time. I think. Why do I bang on about it? Probably because I’ve got Sun in Aquarius, which gives a natural interest in science. But also because I have Sun opposite Pluto, which makes me acutely aware of anything I find disempowering. I struggle against it until my head emerges above the water.

Some people find it difficult to understand that one can be critical of something without being agin it. I find science to be a beautiful and useful creation. But I am strongly against its tendency to usurp its place, its evangelical tendency to oppose anything in society that does not see truth in its own narrow terms. And the collective brainwashing that comes with it, so that many people feel, maybe despite themselves in many cases, that scientific reality IS reality.

I don’t think views are that important. It’s the way you hold them that matters. A failing of the ‘alternative’ section of society can be to assume superiority because of the views they have adopted, usually green, left wing, ‘spiritual’ and often anti-government.

In my experience, these views can sometimes be rigidly held, not thought through, and adopted as part of a package. Much more impressive to me might be, for example, a wealthy Tory-voting businessman who has come in his own way to feel a degree of responsibility to society.

My job as an astrologer is to help people develop and trust their own judgement, rather than foist my views on them (which are many!) Human development has nothing to do with whether your political views are left or right wing or the degree to which you believe in green energy or alternative medicine. It is the degree to which you have made your experience your own that matters, and the degree to which you are able to observe and use, rather than unconsciously take on, trends in the collective.

So this is why I bang on about Science: because I feel it has a collective power over people’s minds that is not healthy, that is a form of brainwashing (just like Christianity was in the Middle Ages) – the Enlightenment idea that everything needs to be reduced to reason, and reason in the particularly narrow, lab-rat form that science takes for truth. Don't get me wrong - as an Aquarian I am in love with reason. But it has its limits.

This is why in my piece last Friday I was expressing delight that the speed of light appears to have been broken. Because it meant a foundation stone of modern science had been undermined, an 'immutable' truth was slipping away.
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What I wanted to do was to look at some of the astrology around current developments in Science.

First of all, Einstein’s chart. Charts of famous dead people continue to work because their influence continues. Einstein’s Mercury, his mind, is still around.

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Saturn can make you old for your years (or the opposite: you may need to wait till you are old for that aspect to come to fruition.) In Einstein’s case, his Mercury-Saturn conjunction gave him a precocious intellect (that became Saturn in the negative sense – conservative and closed to new ideas – as he grew older.) And this conjunction is in Aries (fresh and groundbreaking) and in a yod with the North Node in Sagittarius (universal vision) and Uranus (radical and original science).

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And what do we find now that his idea about the absoluteness of the speed of light appears to have been proved wrong? By transit, Uranus is conjoining his Mercury, and Pluto is squaring it. By Progression, Mercury is moving up to conjoin his natal then prog Uranus! And the Prog Node is moving towards opposing his Prog MC.

All this suggests to me that indeed the speed of light has been broken, and there is more to come over the next few years as the progressed aspects become exact. More of Einstein’s thoughts, so fundamental to the way modern science sees the world, will unravel.

Uranus is the planet that rules Science, and at present he is in Aries in a square to Pluto in Capricorn, which will continue for at least another 4 years. So this is the bigger picture behind the breaking of the speed of light: the destruction (Pluto) of established (Capricorn) science (Uranus) and the creation of a new vision (Aries).

But Capricorn is also about limits. Science is a model of reality, rather than reality itself. This gets forgotten. Maybe Pluto in Capricorn will have a lot to do with science realising its limits.

It is not just the speed of light that has been broken. In the last few weeks the evidence has started to go against both dark matter and supersymmetry, theories which are foundational to our understanding of the macro and micro universes. This is happening again under the Pluto-Uranus square, which suggests it is not just one or two theories being proved wrong, but something more fundamental that is happening.

To me, it is obvious that Science must sooner or later start to find its limits, because apart from being a mere a model of reality, it also confines itself to rationality. Maybe this is what is starting to happen. You push a model to extremes – in this case to the extremely large and the extremely small – and it starts to break down, it becomes harder and harder to make progress.

That said, in the ‘middle-ground’ where Science works very well and will no doubt continue to work very well, we are seeing a string of developments brought on by the creation of superior instruments. There have been a series of new space telescopes, and the building of the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest ever atom-smasher, at Cern.

As I have said before, my dream is that every schoolkid will learn the wonders of Science, but will also be taught that it is just a tool that eventually breaks down, perhaps when faced with the extremely large and the extremely small.

For most of last year, there was a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, which is particularly associated with scientific advance and breakthrough. This conjunction overlapped with a Saturn-Uranus opposition, the time when these new instruments were being built.

So Uranus as Science has been considerably activated over the last few years: firstly by Saturn, a time of planning and building; then by Jupiter, when the new instruments started functioning and results – such as lots of new exo-planets - started coming in; and now by Pluto, suggesting a radical overhaul of our scientific understanding, as well as an empowerment of Science.

The Jupiter-Uranus conjunction took place at the end of Pisces and at the beginning of Aries, the last and first signs of the zodiac, suggesting the beginning of a new era. If we were to find signs of life on other planets, now would be the time: the incredible newness of Jupiter-Uranus at the beginning of Aries, followed by the transformation of vision under Uranus-Pluto that would result. And the new, cosmic dream of Neptune in Pisces.

Some would say they know there is life out there anyway, because aliens have been visiting for years. I tend to think these experiences are real, no less real than material reality, maybe even more so, but they belong to Neptune. An Indian friend once told me that when you have a visionary experience, it appears at the time as just as real as everyday experience, and it is often only afterwards that you realise what it was. I think experience of aliens falls into this category. Otherwise it’s like why do they ALL play hide and seek?

It seems to me just a matter of time before we scientific evidence out there of life-as-we-know-it, as we are now finding so many new exo-planets. What you need to find is light that has the signature of complex organic molecules. It’s going to be inference, rather than actual sighting.

Dreaming the Land

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in North Wales on an event called Dreaming the Land. The place we were staying, Cae Mabon, is an oakwood on a hillside overlooking a lake; it has a fantastic rocky stream tumbling through it, and all sorts of structures to be in: a roundhouse, a hogan, a hobbit hut and so on.

Eric Maddern, who has created the place over 25 years, is a storyteller and musician, and in those few days we were visiting ancient sites in the locality, listening to stories and writing poetry. Below is an interview from 2009 with Eric at Cae Mabon.


Cae Mabon from dobraidea on Vimeo.
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Call Me Mr Fahrenheit

Hurray! Einstein’s Law, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, appears to have been broken. Physicists at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, designed to discover the ‘God particle’, the Higgs Boson, have found neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light.

This is all the language of some arcane wizardry. These various particles are essentially mathematical entities, and no-one has a clue what one would actually look or feel like. Instead, by way of compensation, they are given attributes such as strangeness and charm. For me, they bring up ideas around what it means to exist. Something that exists for a few billionths of a second and can only be described by an equation, does it have an inner life? What does it feel like to be a quark? Or a tau neutrino? Or a gauge boson?

Is it all some kind of joke that just about holds together mathematically, enough to convince these modern wizards that their world is real? I’m serious. The powers of a real wizard come from a dynamic balance, from harnessing and harmonising the elemental energies of Earth, Fire, Air and Water. On an inner level, this means paying attention with all the faculties – Sensation, Intuition, Thought and Feeling respectively – in order to know and in order to act. Let’s chuck in Imagination as well, just so the scheme’s not too neat. Wizardry is quite natural, it’s just that most of us aren’t very good at it.

But these modern wizards are one-sidedly using a rational model of reality. And what has happened? It long ago exploded into irrationality. That’s what I mean when I say there’s a joke being played. A joke that any psycho-analyst would understand. It’s like trying to function in an orderly manner around a Piscean. The more you try and organise them, the more will events occur that subvert those attempts. You are going against the nature of a Piscean, the sign that is the summation of all the other signs, and that operates in an intuitive and free-flowing manner. (You see the hideous mess Pisceans get into when they try to live in an organised way!)

Reality, even material reality, is like this. Yes, it can be labelled and organised by processes of thought. Up to a point. Go too far and it will explode back at you, just as the quantum world has done. There is a place for science, for rational modelling. But it also has its place in a wider scheme and these sorcerers apprentices, for that is what they are, mistake the book of spells for the actuality.
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The Pisces Albert Einstein never accepted quantum physics – relativity and the macro universe were his forte – but for the wrong reason, for the reason that “God does not play dice.” In other words, that the universe is governed by immutable laws, and everything is therefore in principle predictable. In the quantum universe, events happen by probability, and things lose their thingness – on alternate days of the week, these particles are waves of energy.

Einstein had a brilliant imagination, yet his instincts were that there were immutable laws. Sun in Pisces (Imagination) widely square Moon in Sagittarius (the law-giver.) Laws are useful – up to a point. The conflict between Einstein’s Sun and Moon was a conflict between creative imagination and a need for certainty. The latter won out, to the extent that his only significant achievements were in his twenties, and thereafter he lost credibility as a research physicist. Mercury conjunct Saturn in Aries gave him a precocious (Saturn), groundbreaking (Aries) mind (Mercury), which at the same time became very conservative (Saturn again.)

That nothing can travel faster than the speed of light was a brilliant insight couched in terms of immutable law. Perhaps Einstein’s Jewish background, rooted in tradition and the Old Testament, contributed to this temperament, because Moon in Sagittarius does not have to be like this (though it is the classic signature of religious fundamentalism.)

Be that as it may, a pillar of 20th century physics seems to be crumbling. The scientists have tested and re-tested their results to the extent that their findings would normally by now be called a discovery. But they remain too controversial.

I have several thoughts. Firstly, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light is counter-intuitive. You just press the accelerator a bit harder and you go faster. Secondly, whose laws are these? They are purely human laws. We the sorcerers apprentices invented them, not nature. They are essentially mathematical abstractions, yes with a beauty and relevance of their own, but they are still abstractions. To say they are immutable, unlike all other products of the human imagination, seems absurd.

And finally, here’s my thought for the day. Maybe the ‘laws’ of physics have changed over the last century. 100 years ago, nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. But this theory has been so insisted upon, made such an immutable foundation stone of the way we think about the world, that there has been an equal and opposite reaction. Just like the quantum world exploding into irrationality. Reality cannot be pigeon-holed like this. You try to put it in a box, and it will do something contrary.

Again, I’m serious. Reality is fluid, not fixed. And it is vast compared to our tiny human brains. How can we have the presumption to proclaim universal truths? You do that in an insistent sort of way, and sooner or later something contrary will happen.

"Imagination is Reality", said the poet William Blake. We imagined a Christian universe, we felt it to be real, and people had visions of God and Angels and the Virgin Mary. Miracles occurred. Reality conforms, transfigures according to human mythologies. Being a product of the Imagination, the Christian mythology eventually started to lose its power, maybe after centuries, but this is what happened.

Then again, you imagine a rational universe with truths based on empirically-tested theories, and what do we find? Reality conforms (maybe it humours us), and the universe appears to obey scientific laws. For a few centuries, maybe, until that paradigm, that mythology starts to lose its hold over our minds. The law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light is breaking down, at a time when science and its offspring, modern technology, have become inimical to our survival. What laws will begin to break down next?

Humanity Enters the Dreamtime

Neptune began to change sign earlier this year, from Aquarius to Pisces. Neptune governs the underlying myths, the underlying dreams by which we live. This is not just an overlay on ‘objective’ reality: these myths ARE the objective reality. They generate it. It requires a certain amount of subtlety, however, to see this. Naïve literalism, with black and white values, is a much easier and more certain way to live.

A simple example would be the experience of space as a real 3-d box within which everything happens. If you think about it, 3-d space is just a way in which the brain builds relationships between the objects it experiences. It is not literally there, it is just a story. It is a story which, to us, is real.

When Neptune changes sign (about every 14 years), our dreams, our mythologies change. They change anyway as Neptune moves through a sign, they gather momentum. But particularly when Neptune enters a mutable sign, and particularly when it is Pisces, the 12th and final sign of the zodiac, old dreams and mythologies fall apart. Humanity collectively enters the dreamtime, the land where all things are possible, but where all is spirit and it can be hard to manifest.

Humanity is embarking on a big bit of dreaming for the next 14 years, but we will not be properly ready to live it until Neptune enters Aries, the 1st sign of the zodiac, the place of new vision, in 14 years time. 

Neptune is leaving Aquarius, the sign on a collective level of Science and Democracy. And what do we find? In America, the home (as they see it) of Democracy, the system is ceasing to work. In July and August, at a time of financial crisis, the government was paralysed by partisan dispute, and as a result America for the first time had its credit rating reduced. In Europe, another proudly democratic continent facing a financial crisis, the collective government is also paralysed, not this time by partisanship, but by a system that was a product of political idealism that got carried away with itself. The system that is working and that is on the rise, and which is anything but democratic, is Chinese totalitarian government.

As Neptune leaves Aquarius, so is the dream of Democracy starting to fade. With Neptune’s dying breath in Aquarius, we have this year seen the ‘Arab Spring’, the widespread and sometimes successful revolts against autocratic, secular leaders. But as in the Iranian revolution 30 years ago (which took place with the Sun in Aquarius), the eventual outcome seems just as likely to be theocracy: you don’t even need a majority vote for this, just a determined minority, and the Islamists are certainly determined.
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Only yesterday on BBC News there was an article entitled ‘Dark matter theory may be wrong’. A few days ago there was an article in which the idea of supersymmetry was brought into doubt. In both cases the doubt came as a result of experimental evidence. These theories have become fundamental to the way science sees the universe at the galactic and quantum levels respectively. Science has been stuck for some decades now in trying to develop theories, backed up by evidence, as to how the universe works when faced with the extremely large and extremely small.

I have always doubted the existence of dark matter. You could say Dark Matter is a projection onto the universe of our own ignorance: there’s lots of it – 96% of the universe – and it’s impossible to detect. It’s a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

It’s been as though any theory that will explain major gravitational anomalies, however outlandish, is better than no theory. It’s based on a primitive need for certainty.

As Neptune leaves Aquarius, so it seems to me is the dream of Science as in principle able to explain everything, fading. I, for one, am delighted!

There is a difference between ignorance and not knowing. Not knowing is a wonderful place to be: the Universe opens up as a ‘Great Mystery’, and wisdom flows from it. Socrates claimed to be the wisest man in Athens because he knew he didn’t know. In the West, we have become addicted to certainty, whether through the claims of Christianity, or latterly through Science and political ideologies. And this is ignorance, which comes from the word ignore, suggesting something wilful: it’s obvious when you think about it that there’s very little, if anything, that we really know. But we don’t think about this, we feel about it, and it feels uncomfortable and insecure. So we ignore it, we choose to be ignorant. Ignorance is thinking you know.

So this is where Neptune is starting to take us as he enters Pisces: into the place of not knowing which, for humanity as a collective beast, is a very uncomfortable place to be. I think this is why the prophecies around 2012 are so popular: they provide a sense of certainty and even hope in a world which is increasingly uncertain, and in which we are rapidly destroying the environment and resources we need in order to have a future.

To this extent I think the 2012 mythology is a cop-out, a collective delusion. To sort a situation you need to head straight into it, taking the time to re-dream it as you go, on an individual level. There are no inevitabilities in either direction. 2012 mythology is not mainstream, it belongs to the ‘alternative’, more ‘enlightened’ culture, which in this respect is showing itself to be just as superstitious as any collective is in times of insecurity. Some 2012 mythologies are apocalyptic, others describe collective spiritual transformation. In either case, they produce disengagement from the actual problems while we wait for the causeless big event that will change everything.

All the big ideas of the 20th century are failing: communism and democracy as political absolutes, scientific knowledge as metaphysical underpinning, the inevitability of economic progress. Neptune in Pisces is underscoring this. The Great Recession, which seems about to double-dip, and the rise of China, have given the West a tremendous blow to its self-confidence, and this has not fully played through yet by a long chalk. We are still hoping that things will go back to what they were.

Pluto is usually considered to be the planet of ‘power’. And he is that, he gives us the power to live and the power to transform and unfold. His power is basic and raw. But Neptune has his own power, which is the mythologies we live by. People will live and die for them, they are that real to us. There is something human about Neptune that Pluto does not share, because animals and plants do not live by mythologies: they just live, they know what they are, and they get on with it. Pluto lives in the Underworld, he is not human (though he still has a very important role to play for us.)

Neptune, in a way, is also not of the human realm, because he is god of the ocean. But while we cannot visit the Underworld – not, that is, if we hope to return – we have always sailed the seas, we have always visited the life-giving waters of the Imagination which Neptune represents. For humans, Pluto alone does not enable us to live. Without Neptune, we will die of a different kind of thirst.

So Neptune in his own sign of Pisces is tremendously powerful. It is a cauldron of the Imagination. His Ingress into Pisces represents the old certainties failing, and that creates much collective anxiety. We can inevitably expect a retreat into right-wing governments and fundamentalist religions as a response, for now, to that anxiety and insecurity (as well as into millenarian, 2012-type prophecies.) And that is described by the Uranus-Pluto square which is occurring concurrently: the empowerment (Pluto) of radicalism (Uranus), whether of a left or right wing variety. Uranus is an archaic god, and can describe a collective retreat into primitive, less conscious forms at times of insecurity: look at the rise of Fascist regimes under the last Uranus-Pluto square in the 20s/30s.

Rick Perry, Mr Texan Death Penalty, who is starting to lead the Republican race in the US, is an appropriate expression of this.

There is an issue of survival which has not filtered through to the collective yet, blinded as we are by advertising and politicians. The survival issue is of course based around environmental degradation and the profligate consumption of limited resources. Perhaps the larger a collective is, the stupider it gets. Any intelligent individual can see the danger, but what can they do? Preach to the converted? Any ‘primitive’ tribe would have acted by now.

And unfortunately, the party isn’t over yet. There are still enough resources left so that when a humbled West picks itself up again some years down the line (as Uranus finishes its square to Pluto around 2015), it can continue for a while as before, albeit less sure of itself, less dominant in the world. This shift in the world balance of power, away from the West and in favour of the BRIC countries, seems to be much of the meaning of this Uranus-Pluto square.

But all the while Neptune will be in Pisces, a subterranean collective re-dreaming on the part of what is now a global tribe. Uranus-Pluto will come to an end in 4-5 years, but Neptune will remain in Pisces for a further 9-10 years. The party will be continuing, but not with the old certainties: they will be in Neptune’s cauldron.

Interestingly, Neptune’s passage through a sign, 14 years, is about the same time as Saturn takes to complete half a cycle round the Sun. Saturn is the opposite of Neptune, he is the planet of manifestation. When he is opposite himself – opposite where he was when Neptune entered that sign – then there is a strong impulse to manifest. In this way Saturn brings Neptune’s dreams into reality, makes his visions grow corn.

Uranus-Pluto is not just about the shift in the world balance of power. Its influence will be felt at many levels, locally as well as globally. And the empowerment of Uranian radicalism, which is so central to the meaning of this transit, will feed into the re-dreaming of Neptune in Pisces, in the progressive sense of Uranus. Pluto is about survival, and while one response to the current crisis will be a retreat into right wing governments and fundamentalism, another will be a growing awareness of the real threat to our survival.

So there is this other, more hopeful, side to Uranus-Pluto which is kind of inevitable, because Pluto is there to ensure our survival. He is the life-force. You put that together with Neptune in Pisces, and you can see a growing current in the collective, determined that we should survive (Pluto), open to radical solutions (Uranus) and quietly dreaming the sort of world in which this is possible (Neptune.) As I said earlier, there are no certainties, and if we do build a slightly saner world, there is no knowing at this stage what form it will take. But if the outer planets teach us anything, it is that there are powers beyond us, creative depths to nature that in our hubris we overlook. The present situation is certainly an outcome of hubris, and you cannot avoid the eventual cost of that; but the outer planets, nature itself, has a way of surviving, and humanity is part of nature.

We are not just another species, we are a new development, and maybe we won’t last, or maybe most of us will be wiped out, only to repeat the same mistakes, as in Battlestar Galactica, some millennia down the line.

But what we have forgotten is that there is a deeper knowing within us, that knows where to go from here on a collective level, and Neptune in Pisces can take us there. It comes down to whether collectively we are prepared to listen. We ain’t there yet, but as we emerge from the Uranus-Pluto reckoning of the next few years, and as Neptune – as we collectively - have time to dream deeply from there on, a way forward will gradually present itself. Neptune is, after all, the planet of redemption.

The chart for Neptune’s first entry into Pisces, on 3/4 April 2011 (depending where you live) is quite remarkable, for it has 6 planets, including a New Moon, in Aries.

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It sends a strong message that out of the collective re-dreaming, the search for new ideas/mythologies, of the next 14 years, something very, very new will be born. As if to underscore this point, the Ingress chart for Neptune into Aries in 2025 also takes place under a New Moon in Aries. Spooky!

I want to be fanciful for a moment, but I have talked about Neptune in Pisces in terms of the Dreamtime, which is an Australian aboriginal idea. And Uluru, or Ayers Rock has come for us westerners to most symbolise that dreamtime. So what was happening at Uluru when Neptune entered Pisces?

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As you can see, the Ascendant was at the midpoint of Pluto and the North Node, both of which were within 5 degrees of the Ascendant. This suggests the power (Pluto) and significance (Node) of the idea of Neptune in Pisces as humanity's Dreamtime.

The Crisis Season (Part 5)

Uranus and Pluto have been moving away from their square for a few weeks now, so I was expecting the sense of crisis to ease, but it hasn’t. The crisis over the Euro continues under that most ruthless of taskmasters, the markets. It is nominally over the threat of one small country, Greece, defaulting. If it does, then the bond markets will turn on Italy and Spain, and that will be a much bigger crisis. It is a world crisis, because the EU is the world’s biggest economic block, and the world is threatening to tip into another recession.

As I understand it, governments regularly borrow money to keep functioning, and eventually have to pay it back. They borrow in the form of government bonds from international markets. If the markets are not confident in that country's ability to pay back its loans, then it has to borrow at a higher interest rate. That makes it all the harder to pay back, because there are higher interest repayments along the way. It can be a vicious circle, because the higher the interest, the less is your ability to pay back, so lenders then want even higher interest. Without the ability to simply print more money (and devalue your currency), which is the usual way out, you are stuffed. And member countries of the Euro cannot do this. Greece is, to use the technical term, stuffed.

There will be deep financial restructuring over the next few years as Uranus and Pluto start to make some exact squares to each other. For now, the inevitable is being put off. It would be nice if part of that restructuring included restrictions on short-selling: this practice involves making bets on a price of a share going down. It’s like betting that the health of a hospital patient will get worse! And the worse they get, the more money you make. And if they die, well it was dead wood anyway that needed to go, and the betting probably helped. It is exactly like that. It encourages investors who don’t care about anyone or anything.

A few years ago, a rich English investor made a large bet on a referendum in Ireland going a particular way. He then donated money to an Irish political party that was pushing for the referendum to go the way that investor wanted. In the end, he lost the bet. But this investor is treated as a wise man in the City of London, a financial guru, famous amongst other things for making tens of millions out of the collapse of Bear Sterns. It’s a grisly way to earn a living when you think of the human consequences of a company collapsing. And the short-selling creates a climate where collapse becomes more likely. And it’s not even about earning a living, which has some merit. It’s about money for its own sake.

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When Pluto first entered Capricorn in Jan 2008, it was conjunct Venus and Jupiter in Capricorn. This says to me that the economic transformation that we are being slowly and painfully dragged through will involve Venus and Jupiter issues: that is, values and ethics. And in a Capricornian way: that is, values and ethics that also make long-term practical and financial sense. Short-selling is about short-term gain, and it can easily damage or kill companies or even whole economies unnecessarily. It was banned outright in England in the 18th century after shorting led to a major banking crisis.

Off my soapbox. The journalist John Pilger has a saying: “Don’t believe anything until it is officially denied.” Well it has now been officially denied that the EU will let Greece go to the wall and be pushed out of the Eurozone. This would not have been said unless it was strongly in Europe’s interest to offload Greece, and unless the possibility was being discussed in political circles.

It’s an impossible situation, because you have a common currency yet no central control over the individual Eurozone economies. A course of action cannot be plotted. Creating that central control is politically out of the question. In the meantime, German voters are increasingly against their country supporting the weaker economies. The only possibility indeed seems to be to let Greece go. But then the markets will turn on say Italy, which is also hugely indebted. And there’s no way the Germans, Europe’s paymasters, would be prepared to bail them out. So Italy will have to leave the Eurozone. And then Spain.

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The EU was founded as an organisation on 1st Jan 1958 at midnight. The Angles were at 29 degrees of the Mutable signs, which is the worst time to begin something, because it is a time when things are falling apart in preparation for the start of the Cardinal signs. The Iraq War began with the Angles at 29 degrees of the Mutable signs. Moreover, the EU Moon (the member countries) is natally square to Uranus, showing on the one hand a progressive idea, but also inherent instability, a fissiparous nature.

Later this year Uranus will station one degree away from hard aspecting these Angles, concluding a transit that has been going on for a few years, a period that has seen Uranian instability within the EU as the world financial crisis worsened. The Angles are actual, they are our basic connections to the world, and the EU has been shaken and loosened. As Uranus finishes his transit, we are likely to see the EU starting to split apart.

Next year, Uranus will move on to within 2 degrees of a square to the EU Sun. As the EU unravels, so too will the governing body of the EU (the Sun) start to fragment. The EU is not just a trading bloc: it was founded also on political ideals of a united Europe, beginning with a trading agreement between war-weary France and Germany. It is that political idealism, which was never going to be practical beyond a certain point between such different cultures, that is at the root of Europe’s problems, because any economist could have told you that the Euro could never work.

The chart above is for the EU as an organisation. The EU (or EEC) began with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

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The Fire and Air emphasis of this chart shows the idealism – Sun in Aries opposite Libra Asc, Moon in Aquarius opposite Uranus. What is notable is the lack of earth. There is only Jupiter retrograde in Virgo in the 12th House, which for an earth placement is about as unearthy as you can get! The EU, on the other hand, is about as earthy and practical as you can get: Sun in Cap, Virgo Rising, Moon in Taurus. But the ideals behind it, arising out of the treaty of Rome, were never very practical.

The Euro itself, the cause of all the trouble, was formally launched in Frankfurt on 4 Jan 1999 at 4am. Because it is money, we need to look to the 2nd House, where sure enough we find an ambitious Sun in Capricorn. But the ruler of the House is Jupiter, which is in Pisces, square to 2nd House Mercury in Sag. This strongly suggests an idea that is inflated, that has got beyond itself.

Rupert Murdoch’s Balls

Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s young Chinese wife, recently revealed that Tony Blair became godfather to one of their children earlier this year. The baptism took place on the banks of the river Jordan, at the spot where Jesus was said to have been baptised. Further, Tony Blair is said to have been robed in white for the ceremony, but I think that bit of the story could easily be someone taking the mick.

You can see that Blair could have been behind the river Jordan idea. There’s nothing wrong with the idea in itself, but when Blair is involved, you start thinking of his visit to the Pope to try and get a blessing for the Iraq War. Only the best will do for someone so spiritual as Blair.

I think that Blair’s religiosity is described by his Mars-Jupiter Rising. A pronounced Jupiter or Sagittarius (which Jupiter rules) is likely to give a religious/philosophical temperament. The US, a nation which is more religious than most, has Sag Rising. What the chart never tells you is the level on which that attribute will be expressed. Is this the chart of a subtle philosopher or a fundamentalist bore? Or is it the chart of a sacrificial chicken?

What were Rupert and Wendi thinking of? Wendi is Chinese, and there is no mention of Christianity in her wiki bio. The daughter, Grace, was 10 years old. What did she make of this strange occasion? Let’s hope she has a sense of humour.

All these relationships are based on power, whether between Wendi and Rupert or between themselves and Blair. Even the daughter’s baptism seems to be part of some PR stunt. OK, who am I to comment on the Murdoch’s marriage, but when you read Wendi Deng’s relationship history, you get the impression she uses men. And Murdoch needed an entry to the Chinese market. I’m not condemning them, because this is perfectly normal behaviour for many people. And the real motives remain hidden. At least, in earlier times, people didn’t have to pretend it was romance. It was because the wife brought a big dowry. Or, as the young Genghis Khan was advised, choose a wife with sturdy legs. It was a practical approach for practical people.

 In his memoirs, Blair says that he came to like and admire Murdoch, despite disliking many of his views, because “he was an outsider and he had balls.” Well, Hitler was an outsider (Austrian) and had balls. These monsters can be impressive. You have to admire the Israelis, particularly the way they fought off invading Arab armies immediately after they were founded. You have to admire Thatcher for her ruthless determination. And the Terminator. And Roy Cohn in American Angels. But would you invite these people to dinner?

When you sup with the devil, use a long spoon. The reason these people are so impressive is that they will stop at nothing to get their own way. Monsters are fascinating, and any good story needs one.

It is clear that what Tony Blair really admires is power. He is drawn to it, and the possessors of it are no doubt charming enough to convince Tony Blair that he likes these people for their personal qualities. His ‘friendship’ with George Bush was an example. What is it in Tony Blair’s chart that gives him this fascination with power (and which is totally at odds with his professed Christian convictions?) It is Pluto, which forms a t-square with his Sun and (widely) with his Moon.

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Whenever you see a prominent Pluto in a chart, you are looking at issues of power, that can come out in a number of ways. It can come out as submission to others, or as a need to dominate. And it can come out, more consciously, as genuine power – as a connection to something real that other people instinctively respond to, and that transforms. And, if you have a prominent Pluto, it can be any of these at different times.

Pluto connects us to what one might call instinctual power, or simply to life itself. A wild animal wouldn’t need to distinguish Pluto like we do, because they simply are what they are. They are not separated from themselves by human self-consciousness and all the complexity and judgement that comes with that. And so they have the power to live their lives, to be what they are. Pluto gives them that.

Humans are the animals that do not know who they are. With a prominent Pluto, there is a need to forge a new relationship with the side of us that, on a simple level, has the power to live. But, as humans, it needs to become conscious, and it can get twisted along the way. And when it does, you get monsters and victims. The sheer energy of the monsters is a testament to the power of Pluto.

So the need to create genuine power is fundamental to Tony Blair. So far, he has seemed quite unconscious, as we can see in his choice of friends. He seemed quite unconscious of the submissive relationship he had with George Bush. We can chuck in the North Node as well, which is also fundamental to what we need to learn. Blair has it in the 10th in Aquarius conjunct the Moon. You can see him groping towards it in his international networking with the aim of saving the world. And who knows, he may have done some good (though in Iraq it led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people.)

I find it fascinating when I see people who are clever and talented and who ‘achieve’ a lot, and yet who are unconscious and stupid in quite a basic way at the same time. It’s probably part of my prominent Pluto to see these people as they are, rather than feeling dazzled and disempowered by all they seem to ‘achieve’.

Iran's Nuclear Reactor

The reversal of Iran’s nuclear ambitions used to be central to US foreign policy. It was a major crisis in the making. By invading Iraq – the wrong target – George W Bush lost the necessary political and military capital to invade Iran and stop its weapons programme.

On Saturday Iran connected a nuclear reactor to its national grid, and there has been barely a squeak from the US. Of course, Iran says it is developing its nuclear ability for purely peaceful purposes, and of course this is not the case. There would not be many countries one would believe in these circumstances, but particularly not one with a Mercury-Mars conjunction in Pisces in the 8th House square to Neptune. There the issue is being deceptive even when you don’t have to be.

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In his Presidential campaign, Obama said he would do everything in his power to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, which doesn’t sound like someone who thinks you can just invade. It seems clear that the US, faced with so many other difficulties, has given up on this one.

In its natal chart, Iran has Venus at 3 Pisces in the 7th. Venus and the 7th both describe relations with others. Neptune is starting to cross the Iran Venus.

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The chart for the reactor being connected has Neptune conjunct the MC, square the Moon in Scorpio and opposite Mercury (communication.) It seems to be Neptune wherever one looks.

Of course, with Neptune one never quite knows. All you do know is that the situation is not what is being presented. But it would be very odd if Iran’s ‘peaceful’ programme were not also to be used to build up weapons grade material as a by-product.

The chart for all nuclear activity is based on the first man-made controlled chain reaction in Chicago in 1942. This chart has the Sun in Sag opposite a Saturn-Uranus conjunction: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn). This opposition, particularly 8-10 degrees of Gemini-Sag, is what has come to be known as the Nuclear Axis, and it has proved very sensitive to transits.

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The early 60s, when Pluto in Virgo squared this axis, was at the height of MAD, or Mutual Assured Destruction, which involved the advent of ballistic missile submarines that ensured a 'second strike capability'.

In the early to mid seventies, Neptune in Sagittarius crossed this axis, and this was the time of the SALT I & II talks, which for the first time limited the nuclear arsenals of the USA and the USSR.

In the late nineties, Pluto in Sagittarius crossed this axis, and this was the time when India and Pakistan came out as nuclear powers, beginning a new era of proliferation.

Now we have Neptune coming up to square this axis, exactly in about 5 years: sometime during that period, we can expect Iran to develop nuclear weapons, hugely shifting the balance of military power in the Middle East away from American/Israeli domination. If we look further ahead, to 8 years time, then we see a Progressed Moon-Pluto-Asc conjunction in the nuclear chart, and transiting Pluto hard-aspecting the Angles on the Israeli chart. We also see Uranus starting to conjoin the Iranian MC, and Neptune starting to conjoin the Iranian Mars. You don’t need to know much astrology to see trouble brewing here.

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The thing about Iran is that its Uranus in Scorpio conjoins the Scorpio Mars of the nuclear chart. So it is likely to behave in a very unpredictable, threatening, and at the same time secretive, manner once it possesses nuclear weapons. So while we may not see an actual exchange of weapons, Iran is likely to use its possession of them to keep everyone guessing as to whether it would use them, and to keep the Middle East in a state of instability.

It’s quite possible that Iran may in the meantime join the ‘Arab Spring’ and have a new government through popular protest. It did this before, in 1979, when it had its theocratic revolution. There are 2 charts for Iran: the chart for the February Revolution, which is a chart that expresses the will of the people. And the chart for April 1979, when the new state was founded, and this is a chart for the government. It is the government that has been making the nuclear decisions, and that is therefore the chart I have been using for its nuclear matters.

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But the chart for the people suggests that they are not happy, that there is a lot of unrest. There were protests earlier this year as Mars in Aquarius (the signature for these uprisings) passed over the Aquarian Sun-Mars of the Feb Iran Chart. But bigger change would seem to be in the way, because of the Moon Rising in early Aries, and MC in early Capricorn. With Pluto and Uranus already hard-aspecting these 3 points (Moon, Asc and MC), I’m surprised more has not happened. I expect a big change in government in the next couple of years, an outcome of popular protest.

But that doesn’t mean a change in nuclear policy. I think any country in Iran’s position vis-à-vis America and Israel would do the same. That doesn’t mean I support them in their ambitions, it’s just realpolitik.