Uranus-Pluto Across the World

The sense of crisis in the Eurozone has eased since Christmas. But you never quite know with that one. It lurches from Greece to the more problematic Italy and back again, with many soothing words along the way from the leaders of France and Germany. In the summer, it seemed to go away altogether as the world’s attention focussed on the USA’s inability to pass a budget. Once a deal was reached, the Euro crisis returned, and peaked before Christmas, with the major concern being Italy, which was seen as unbailoutable.

The crisis has recently focussed again on Greece, which can be bailed out, provided its debtors agree to major write-downs on their loans. This has been made more difficult because many of the lenders have sold on their loans at cut rates to speculators who, by using brinkmanship, hope to make large profits on their investments.

With Uranus moving up to its first exact square to Pluto in June, we can expect the sense of crisis to keep coming back. The times are about crises and their resolution, rather than about normality. No effective solution has yet been provided for Italy’s problems. I don’t know quite what governs the timing of the crises around Italy. Sometimes it seems like a background problem, sometimes like a crisis that could bring down the whole world economy. But the fundamentals remain the same.

You can always read different explanations as to why these southern European countries are in trouble. But it seems that neither the Italian public nor the Italian government have been particularly reckless with their spending. The problem seems to be an economy that is poorly regulated and lacking in modernisation. Investors are therefore not confident that Italy can grow its way out of its current levels of debt.

It is very hard to know what is going to happen. It really could go a number of ways, all described by the symbolism of Uranus-Pluto. Ultimately, we can expect a renewal (Pluto), with many shocks and unexpected turns (Uranus) along the way. It may be that Italy goes under, followed by Spain, the Eurozone breaks up, and there is a banking crisis that plunges the world back into recession until the end of the Uranus-Pluto crossings in 2015.

Or it may be that the Eurozone, having faced the abyss, spends the next 3 Uranus-Pluto years building a tighter, more integrated economy. It has been make-or-break time for Europe: either you pull this loose alliance into a proper union, or it will fall apart with unimaginable consequences. This is a classic Pluto decision, which is often not a decision at all: it is fate, you do what you have to in order to survive.
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I was writing before Christmas about how the EU was displaying the classic signs of a Pluto transit in its first stage, of the life-energy having been drained from a status quo that was no longer tenable, and that the EU was now going through the motions of a vision no-one believed in any more. I drew the conclusion that the EU would fall apart. That may still happen, but also possible is a renewal (the later stage of a Pluto transit) based on stronger foundations. It has been the provisional vision of Europe that has been taken apart, the Europe that wanted economic union without political union. That has been the meaning of this transit.

Before Christmas, the break-up of the Eurozone was seeming inevitable. With the current lack of pressure on Italy, the resolve to bail out Greece, and the decision to seek closer union at the end of last year, Europe may indeed come out of this stronger. It has to, or be walked over by the other 2 big economic blocs, the US and China. It is a survival issue, and it is remarkable what people and nations are capable of when faced with a threat to their survival. Pluto helps us draw on a power to live that we never knew we had.

It will still be a rocky, Uranian path. And there are further crises to face. But I’m starting to think that the outcome of this crisis will be renewal rather than dissolution. It will still be a while before the world is properly out of the Great Recession. But a collapse of the Euro would lead to something much worse, and I don’t think that would do any good, however much we may dislike the present system, and however unsustainable it may be in the long-term.

You just can’t tell with these outer planet transits. You know the overall shape of the transition. With Pluto, you know there will be a dissolution of that which does not have strong foundations, and possibly renewal afterwards. But you don’t know at what point. Quite often, the major events in a transit occur before any exact crossings, and the rest of the transit is about processing those events. So it is quite possible that we have seen the major destructive events of Uranus-Pluto as far as Europe is concerned. The rest of the transit will be the difficult path of absorbing those events.

Looking at the big 3, China is not in recession and never was: Uranus-Pluto seems to be describing the rise and rise of the country. The USA is not in recession and there are encouraging signs, like the reduction in unemployment last month, and like General Motors regaining its place as the world’s largest car-maker. It is just Europe that remains in trouble, but I think the world can handle that (even though Europe is the largest of the big 3) providing it continues to sort the debt problem.

Politically, the picture is something else. Pluto and Uranus are hard-aspecting the Suns and other significant points of all the major powers, including the EU as a body. To survive economically, profound political change is needed in Europe, particularly in the form of surrender of individual sovereignty. It’s only the UK and Hungary that are not prepared to go there.

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It is interesting what may happen here in the UK, because Scotland may vote in favour of independence in 2 years time. The 1801 chart for the UK shows an inherently unstable union, with natal Uranus conjunct the Asc and square Sun and MC, all in early cardinal, which is where Uranus and Pluto are now hitting. This is so powerful that it is almost a test of whether astrology is actually real: of course the UK will split up. And where will that leave once mighty England – without its Empire, without Ireland and unable even to hang onto Scotland? England has a strong financial industry, and the fear is that in joining the Euro much of our business will drift to Frankfurt. But the world is changing, England’s power is diminishing all the time, and Europe is becoming a much less provisional place: you will be either in or out. England’s sense of who it is will be going through a big change in the next few years, and Europe may come to seem the natural option.

In the Middle East, the Arab Spring continues, with the battle for Syria still being fought. The rebellion against dictatorships, while starting in the Middle East, has spread like a virus over the world, and we are also seeing the beginnings of reform in countries such as Russia and Burma. Rebellion and Revolution is classic Uranus-Pluto territory. As with Europe, it may be that the most dramatic events are largely over (remember the Occupy protests?), and the actual crossings of Uranus-Pluto may represent a deeper working through of those initial events. The Arab Spring may result in extreme Islamic governments in some countries. I used to call that Islamist, but the press is now labelling as Islamist the moderate Islamic government that has, for now, been elected in Egypt, so I will need another word for it.

I think it is a mistake to call Pluto ‘evolutionary’, though it certainly can be so, and often is in the case of personal transits. Pluto, if you like, is the life force, and that urge of something living to move onto another stage. If the people of a country wants one thing, and the government another, then that government is blocking the life-energy of the people, and a Pluto transit (with a helpful dose of Uranus) can bring it down. Life ultimately triumphs. But what the people want may, in the case of some Arab countries, be very traditional, even extreme, Islam. Pluto enables a person or a body to become more authentically who it is, sweeping away outdated structures. And that, I think is a good thing, because there can be no progress without authenticity. The Iranian people in 1979 needed to sweep away their western-backed Shah and replace him with a theocracy, because that is what they had become. In the West we tend to think that political progress equals democracy, and if you view Pluto as evolutionary, then it becomes the eventual goal of all countries, aided by Pluto, to become democracies. Sounds daft when you write it out.

So what we are seeing with the Arab Spring is the sweeping away of long-standing political structures that no longer express the will of the people. But it would be blinkered to assume that what people want is western-style democracy. It may, in some cases, be like that. But we don’t really know, they are a long way away and they think differently to us. What we CAN tell, from the astrology, is that these people are re-birthing themselves, that something very new (Uranus in Aries) is ready to come into existence. And there is probably a common pattern. But we won’t really know for a few more years, as there is a lot more change still to come as Uranus and Pluto do their 3 years of exact crossings.

In the USA, there is a Presidential election this year. Uranus-Pluto is not a time for moderates, and for that reason Newt Gingrich (who uses facts and reason more than you might expect) seems more likely to be the eventual Republican candidate than Mitt Romney. We do not know Gingrich’s birth time, but he has his Sun and Moon between mid and late of the mutable signs, which will not be subject to major transits (square from Neptune) for some years yet. The same with Mitt Romney, who has Neptune squaring his Asc this year, but not much after that.

I expect to see major transits in the chart of a leader, that power them through their time in office. Barack Obama has had Neptune squaring his MC and will go on to have Neptune squaring his Moon over the next few years. So providing nothing happens to him (and with Uranus starting to trine his Sun, and having been sworn in under a Void Moon, something could happen), he would seem likely to again be President, which doesn’t mean it won’t be a tight race.

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But what about Uranus-Pluto more generally in America? You expect some sort of systemic change. As with Europe, the change may be political. The US has a fault line that caused its credit rating to be downgraded for the first time last year, because the agencies did not trust that the US had the political capacity to sort out its budget shortfall. The fault line seems to be caused by the right wing of the Republican Party’s determination to push its own agenda at the expense of the country being able to function.

It is interesting that Newt Gingrich has re-surfaced at this time, because it was under his tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1990s that attempts were made to impeach and remove from office Bill Clinton, a Democratic President. Gingrich stands for this fault line, this Republican extremism that will not let a Democratic President be President.

It is exactly this sort of instability in the foundations of an institution that Pluto transits address. The US Sun at 13 Cancer is 4 or more degrees on from the Cardinal degrees of the sensitive points in Europe (eg the UK with Asc/MC/Sun at 7-10 degrees). The US is therefore a couple of years behind Europe with its pressure for Uranus-Pluto change. Europe has it now, whereas we can expect the US issues to have that sort of intensity in 2 to 3 years time.

If a Republican is elected President this year, then the fault line will not be exposed. If Obama is re-elected, then we will almost certainly see the Republican right wing making it as difficult as they can for him to govern. But they will go too far, and it will result in a constitutional crisis. It will be a Pluto survival issue, for America has to be able to govern itself. This, from the present standpoint, seems to be a likely meaning of Uranus-Pluto for America.

America prides itself on being a democratic country, but this Republican extremism is deeply authoritarian. It is my way or the highway. But it is not like something separate from the rest of America. It is a part of the national psyche that comes out in its foreign policy, in its way of forcing other countries to do business with it. The US has historically been quite prepared to support, or even create, dictatorships that serve its economic desires. The country was founded on slavery and genocide as much as it was founded on the Declaration of Independence, and it has not yet come to terms with that.

So you could say that the Republican right stands for the barbarism behind the democratic, civilised facade. In this way, Uranus-Pluto could involve a soul-searching for the US, brought about by a clash on the national stage between these 2 elements. America's ideals are real, and the election of a black President shows that. But the barbarism is also real, and if this coming election is Gingrich vs Obama, then you will have 2 candidates who stand for this divide. More than most elections, it will reveal America's conflicted nature, and it could get ugly. But it is exactly that sort of clash of extremes that Uranus-Pluto produces, and that because of its intensity can eventually result in some sort of resolution. Last summer's battle over the budget, while nothing new, came at a very significant time, and could be the start of a bigger political war in the coming years.

The Insanity of Anders Breivik

The alleged insanity of Anders Behring Breivik is under review. Breivik is the man who murdered 77 people in Norway last summer – 8 with a bomb, 69 on a shooting spree. He did it for ideological reasons, fearing a Muslim invasion of Norway.

At the time I thought he reminded me of someone, and after a few days it became clear who it was: Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. That might seem an appalling thing to say about Assange, but I’m not trying to say he is a murderer. What Breivik and Assange have in common is the ability to do for ideological reasons things that most of us would not do, and at a scale that shocks.

In Assange’s case, he released 250,000 US diplomatic cables, with little thought for the damage that might do to fragile international relations, and the lives that might be endangered. Newspaper editors were shocked by how cold he could be on these issues.

Breivik is a right-wing ideologue, Assange is from the left wing – anti-authority, and convinced that if present governments can no longer function because their secrets are out, something better will replace them. This is delusional, though Assange expresses it coherently and intellectually. Breivik has also written a manifesto and, it goes without saying, he is delusional.

Astrologically, they have in common Sun in square to Uranus. This is a classic signature for someone who puts ideals before human feeling. Uranus is the ideals, and the square is the unbalanced, hard – but also dynamic - way in which they can be expressed.

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Breivik’s chart is considerably more extreme in this respect than Assange’s: he has a Sun-Mars-Mercury conjunction in Uranus-ruled Aquarius, and Moon in detached Virgo. Without knowing the person, you would say there is likely to be an issue around detachment and aggressively (Mars) putting ideals before human feeling.

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Assange is actually very watery, with Sun in Cancer trine Moon in Scorpio. Scorpio, however, can have its own kind of coldness, born of a hatred of self and others. As a child (Moon), Assange’s mother and partner were involved in a secretive cult, and there is an obvious connection here with his later desire to expose the secrets of authorities.

The trine from the Sun to the Moon can, paradoxically, be quite an unfavourable aspect. Such people often expect life to go their way, and lash out when it doesn't: there can be a lack of empathy.
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Is Breivik, however, insane? There is political pressure in Norway for Breivik not to be labelled insane, because he could be released after a relatively short number years. And people understandably need what they call justice. I’m old-fashioned, and I call it revenge. You see relatives of a murder victim unable to rest until the culprit has been found and put away for a long time. I repeat, it is understandable and I would feel the same. But I can’t see how it is different from revenge. What does it actually solve?

If someone is insane, then they are deemed not to be responsible for their actions. And, crucially, it puts them in a safe category where we no longer need to attempt to understand them. They’re just nuts, and what’s more, there is something wrong with their brain chemistry, which proves it. We actually understand very little about brain chemistry, and we certainly don’t understand the biochemical effects of the drugs we give to nutters. Psychiatry, however, has a special place within science that doesn’t need the usual standards of proof and theory.

I don’t think that the category ‘insane’ helps us understand someone. In Breivik’s case, and in Assange’s to a lesser extent, you can see from the astrology, and from their actions, that the problem is ideology combined with a detachment from human feeling; and that the feeling is unconsciously fuelling the ideology, or even you could say the rebellion, another way of describing a hard aspect to Uranus.

Uranus has its positive side: it can be associated with a strong desire to help humanity. Both Assange and Breivik were known as kids for helping children at school who were being bullied. So it would seem there is an idealism, but twisted.

Whether or not Breivik is deemed insane, I don’t think it will have much to do with his actual mental state. The massacre he carried out was so horrifying that in a way it is easier just to call him insane: a wild animal was on the loose, an irrational force, Grendel, and some people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the darkness in him is a darkness in everyone: we could all kill. Scandinavia particularly, so controlled and conservative and respectable and successful, has had a swathe of literature and film in recent years dealing with serial killers. With Breivik, there is something for the Norwegians – the Vikings – to understand about themselves.

People want him to be insane so they can distance themselves from his behaviour. And they want him to be sane so they can put him in a cage for a long, long time.

There may be another factor that eventually comes into the equation, which is that when an event occurs that traumatises a nation, a simple explanation is not good enough. Princess Diana did not die because of the incompetence of her driver, JFK was not killed by a lone gunman, and 9/11 was not caused by a bunch of Islamists catching the US authorities napping. Labyrinthine conspiracy theories proliferate. Of course, the simple explanation may sometimes indeed be a cover-up, but that’s not the point. It is as if the meaning is knocked out of existence if a traumatising event occurs for too simple or random a reason, and people want something bigger, equal to the scale of the event, to blame, to hate. Princess Diana carried a huge collective projection as a caring, nurturing goddess. People couldn’t believe it when she died. What sort of cold, meaningless universe do we live in if someone like that could die so randomly and so young?

In the case of Breivik, if you look on the net there are plenty of conspiracy theories out there blaming e.g. the Israelis or the Freemasons, and some wondering if he is a closet Muslim.
But of course there are also people who genuinely want to understand why Breivik did what he did. I don’t think he is ‘insane’. I think he did what he did for reasons that can be understood. And as they say, “to understand all is to forgive all.” Conspiracy theorists are often fixated into blame, as are people (most of us) who are satisfied simply by finding a culprit and locking them up. It’s far harder to look at the people and societies surrounding the perpetrator and to understand the complex of conditions, because we are part of those conditions – it connects us to the pain of the events, gives us a responsibility. It’s much easier just to call Breivik insane.

But maybe also it is to do with stages in grieving. To start with, Breivik’s crimes were too difficult to deal with, so society in the form of the psychiatrists labelled him insane. 6 months after the deed, there is a bit of distance, and the country is starting to feel ready to take a peep at what happened, so there is a move to have their monster returned to sanity.

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Norway has a Sun-Pluto conjunction in Gemini. Gemini is the polarity between light and dark, and the need to balance both – if you like, to confront the shadow. This is part of the Gemini path. The presence of Pluto confirms this, suggesting that if it does not, dark events will occur to force the issue. The lack of aspects to Sun-Pluto, and it's interceptedness, also suggests a kind of autonomous shadow.

At the time of the shootings (July 22nd 2011) transiting Mars at 22 Gemini was conjunct natal Pluto, and by Progression there was a Moon-Pluto conjunction in Gemini in the 8th (Pluto’s) House, also conjunct tr Mars. So the astrology adds up quite remarkably to give a picture of a society that probably thinks it has it all sorted (light side of Gemini) to a bit of an extreme degree, calling forth an equally extreme response from the Underworld. The wider meaning for Norway of the shootings probably lies in this sort of area.

Mercury and Venus

Today there are exact conjunctions between Mercury and Pluto in Capricorn, and Venus and Neptune in Aquarius.

I don’t usually try and interpret the inner planets in a general way. It seems more the forte of women astrologers. In fact I don’t usually even notice, but Melody’s Facebook entry
today got me thinking. I’m usually more at home trying to tie the outer planets to specific events.

So let’s see what happens. It is quite a striking pair of conjunctions, particularly as they are both drawing in the power of an outer planet.

Mercury and Pluto together in Capricorn give Douglas Adams’ computer Deep Thought. This computer spent thousands of years (Capricorn) working out the meaning of existence and eventually came out with the answer 42. The real joke is that perhaps there is something in it, for in Western Hermetic sphere work, "42 is the sum of the values of the 'true' spheres, 3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 each of which represent one aspect of the body of God through which we observe the world."

Non-joking apart, the few days of this conjunction are a time when you can do some serious thinking, particularly if it involves putting a lot of thoughts together into some kind of structure. Lay out a plan for that book you’ve always been meaning to write, or think about starting that course of study you’ve been meaning to undertake.

Neptune and Venus conjoined in Aquarius is the relationship between Dr Gaius Baltar and the blonde robot Caprica Six in Battlestar Galactica. It is also a good time for cultivating your Facebook friends and finding true love through an internet dating agency. __________________________________________________
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Academics have begun researching the data that these agencies have been collecting, and some interesting results are starting to come through. For example, the type of person someone may end up dating may be very unlike the sort of person they claimed to be attracted to in their list of likes and dislikes. There are strange statistical results such as people who say they like beer are more likely to have sex on their first date, and people who say they like horror films are more likely to form a relationship that lasts.

Most importantly, and this is what I find fascinating, the data increasingly reveals what relationships are most likely to work, who is really suitable for who, which of course is probably quite different from who we think is suitable for us.

Of course, a lasting relationship may not be what someone needs right now. They may not know it, and usually don’t, but they may have something to learn by being with the ‘wrong’ person for a while. Or even a long while. It’s a complicated area.

But Neptune and Venus are in a fixed sign and in Aquarius. So this is about enduring relationships, and those that are maybe a bit unlikely. And being Aquarius, it is also about friends.

Neptune and Venus are also the imagination and creativity respectively, and Aquarius is networks of friends, so it’s a good time to write a blog about the meaning of Neptune and Venus in Aquarius. Or any creative activity that connects people.

Pulling Mercury and Venus together, what is powerful about these two is that they are both conjoining an outer planet simultaneously. Outwardly, communication and relating are empowered, something can come through you when you simply communicate what’s on your mind. Inwardly, it is a strong time for contemplation, thinking your life through (Mercury) and re-assessing which are the important bits (Venus.)

Astrology iphone apps; Altered States

First of all, here is a piece from astrologer Lynn Hayes on astrology apps for iphones that sounds very handy:

The Time Passages free app provides everything you need to cast your own birthchart, and even gives you a real “horoscope” showing the effect of the current planetary positions on your own birthchart. This is a great way to learn about astrology and the effect of the planets on our personal lives. If you want the option to show a transit wheel or progressed chart, you can purchase this and other options for a very modest fee ($.99). (more...)
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And then we have a great piece from dream consultant June O'Brien:

In the early morning when I wake and before I turn on the lamp, I sit in the half-light for a while. It helps me unreel the night’s dreams. Sometimes as I wait, other images come. They aren’t dreams strictly speaking, but they aren’t daydreams or fantasies either. These dream-like states use the same metaphoric language as dreams. The messages are often abstract but apply to very specific situations that I can pinpoint during the course of the day. The images chosen, the method of communication seem far more intelligent than I am. More artful.

These are not visions, not three-dimensional representations, but they send me into long thoughts about altered or expanded states. I learned something about these early in life because my father had a wealth of spiritual gifts. Before he was an adolescent, he had a vision during a near-death experience; it was a vivid, beautiful visitation. Afterwards he was spiritually gifted. At times he predicted events to the hour, details exact. If he was distressed for someone he loved, he’d go to the woods in the evening or the early morning. There he argued with his god; even yelled. Their relationship was passionate, fierce.

Living with papa’s gifts was demanding. If he said we had to get in the car and leave – we were out of the way when the tree fell; if he said we had to go see Harvey, trust me, Harvey was in crisis. Miracles happened in his presence. His faith was absolute, tangible. (more...)

Astrology in Wikipedia

I don't know if anyone knows much about editing Wikipedia. I don't. A year ago there was an edit war in the Astrology section, and eventually some of the astrology friendly editors were banned.

I put in an edit this morning, which I don't expect to last. This is how the introduction to Astrology concluded:

While astrology may bear a superficial resemblance to science, it is a pseudoscience because it makes little attempt to develop solutions to its problems, shows no concern for the evaluation of competing theories, and is selective in considering confirmations and dis-confirmations.

I changed this to "some consider it to be a pseudoscience" and added the following:

Astrology, however, pre-dates modern science. Its truths lie in the skilful reading of symbols and in the observation of human behaviour, in much the same way that a psychoanalyst or novelist would glean his or her insights. These kinds of human truth are not easily testable by the very particular methods of science.

It is not for astrology to show that it stands up to the scientific method of testing; the onus is on science to show that its methods are applicable to astrology.
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The US Election and a Warning for Obama

It’s starting to seem a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama will win this year’s Presidential election. Not because he has been spectacularly good, but because the Republicans haven’t got a candidate they can unite behind, and the primaries have started. Obama is not just a sitting President, he is also a superb showman, a vital quality in modern politics.

You can usually tell well in advance who is going to win an election: it’s the one with the charisma, the showmanship, the one who can make the crowds go woo! That was why George W Bush won 2 elections, and Bill Clinton, and Reagan, and Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi. I don’t know if France’s Sarkozy has enough of it: he tries a bit too hard to be sexy, and it doesn’t work like that. So he may not be re-elected. President Putin also tries a bit too hard, and he is looking set for a downfall.

A lot of people seemed not to agree that George Bush had charisma because they thought he was a bad lot. But charisma is not a virtue or a vice in itself: it is just an attractiveness that inspires a following. You didn’t need to like or agree with George Bush to see that he had the ability to connect emotionally with certain types of people. Making a folksy virtue of his own ignorance was part of that appeal. And that was why his father did not get a second term: he did not have what he called ‘the vision thing’. The same with Gordon Brown in the UK.

The outcome of leadership elections is often that simple. Sometimes substance wins the day, when there is enough of it. Angela Merkel of Germany has looked like one of them from the start.
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In the 2008 US election, the North Node at 13 Aquarius had crossed Obama’s Ascendant 2 months earlier, and opposed his natal Node in March that year. In the 2012 election, the North Node in Scorpio will have crossed Obama’s MC and squared his natal Node 2 months earlier. So there is continuity of themes there, as well as in the Neptune transits: he was elected under Neptune conjoining his Ascendant, it went on to square his MC and is now in the early stages of squaring his Gemini Moon.

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What I have noticed with leaders is that they are usually elected under hard outer planet transits, and they stay in power until those transits end. Tony Blair, for example, won his first election in 1997 with Neptune conjoining his MC. Neptune went on to hard aspect his natal North Node and then his Moon-Sun-Pluto t-square. When it was done, Tony Blair left power. Neptune put him there and kept him there, just as Pluto put Margaret Thatcher there and kept her there till he’d finished transiting her chart.

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So Obama is likely to stay in power until Neptune has finished with him, which will be well into his second term. With the Nodal emphasis at the election shifting from his Asc to his MC, he will need to make his appeal less personal (Asc) and more based on his achievements in office (MC) to win the 2nd term, which is what you’d expect.

On a grimmer note, Obama will need to be careful from summer 2012 onwards as Uranus in Aries comes up to trine his Leo Sun. Presidents Kennedy, McKinley and Lincoln were all assassinated under Uranus transits to their Suns, as were Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Moreover, Obama was inaugurated under a Void Moon: as I showed in my piece on 21 Jan 2009 and then again on 29 Jan 2009, Void Moons have historically been associated with major disruption to the Presidency.

For this year, Uranus only comes to within 4 degrees of trining Obama’s Sun, so it is may be too soon to worry. On the other hand, with this Presidency being Void Moon, and with Uranus exactly squaring Pluto this year, we are likely to see extremism and major incidents that change the course of events in the world. I think it would be bad for the world if Obama was assassinated. I’m not predicting it, and it feels like bad taste to even say it. But it is astrologically possible over the next 2 years, so if there are any astrologers left in the White House, please take note!