NEPTUNE ASTROLOGY TRANSITS

14/12/2018

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Neptune Astrology

Neptune in Pisces

Neptune is currently in its own sign of Pisces; it is there for 15 years from April 2011 to January 2026. What does that mean?

Neptune astrology is all to do with illusion and delusion. It creates illusion by the use of glamour. We all have an image that we believe describes who we are and what the world is like. In Hinduism it is called Maya, in Sufism, Ishq. It is the illusion of desire, what we project onto the facts of outer life to give it personal meaning. Because we have or have not certain qualities or experiences some of us believe ourselves to be important, some believe the opposite that we are not important.

This can be physical strength or beauty, emotional drama, executive ability, teacher, leader, healer, wise man, fool…these are all examples of glamour; they are stories we make up about ourselves and the life we live. Just stories.

As Neptune moves through its 176 year cycle it glamorises different aspects of life – fashions in music, clothes, sexual attractiveness, political ideals, religious teachings and so on. None of it lasts forever and some of it passes very quickly.

Yet Neptune also has the ability to expose illusion, to dis-illusion us, and reveal the deeper mysteries beneath all the lies and false promises that life offers. So this transit is also likely to be the time for a seed to be planted of true spiritual liberation. When we know we are living in a dream, we can relax and enjoy the movie we have created for ourselves, without accepting the story as anything more than entertainment and symbolic guidance.

However, what is false is dissolved. We may therefore lose things we love and, even though they are unreal and temporary, that can be rather upsetting for the self-love of the ego. We must refocus to see that what has replaced the false is deeper, more precious and more real.

On a personal level, because it is so slow, Neptune is likely to cross any planet or angle only once or twice in a lifetime so we cannot refer back to earlier experiences to gain better insights, we must use intuition more and try to glean from historical events what Neptune does.

Some Neptune in Pisces events

47– 61
Paul begins Christianity
Buddhism introduced to China.

374 - 389
Nicene Christianity officially adopted by Rome

538 -552
Spread of Buddhism –official introduction to Japan.
St David brings Christianity to Wales 550.

701 - 716
Muslim expansion –Moorish invasion of Spain.
Muslim state established in modern Pakistan. 712.

1192 - 1207
Crusades. The 4th seen as final act in Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church.

1520 - 1534
Martin Luther condemned as heretic and excommunicated
Henry 8th cut ties with church of Rome.
Calvin starts Protestant movement in France.

1684 - 1698
Louis 14th bans all religions in France except R.C.
Salem witch trials.
Newton published “Principia,” most basic book in all science

1847 - 1862
Communist Manifesto by Marx & Engels.
Speed of light first measured
Darwin’s Origin of Species published

We notice a common thread…at these times the various belief-systems that dominate the world take important steps forward. Each of the movements that support these ideologies believes in them as though they were truth, yet Neptune doesn’t even believe in truth. Neptune wants us to know that the map we have of reality is only a story, only of local relevance, only temporary and never finally provable.

2011 - 2026
What about now? Can we yet identify Neptune’s current message? It is always hard to know about the transit that we are experiencing until after it has passed away. Objectivity is in short supply when we are in the middle of loss and confusion.

These ideas have come up among the comments:
1.      Binge watching of TV series
2.      Air B&B popularity
3.      Mindfulness apps' explosion in popularity
4.      Awareness of the oceans – too much plastic and melting icecaps
5.      Gender and sexuality questions

All of these relate to boundaries in some way. An Englishman's home was once his castle and is now taken over by paying guests; mindfulness has as its ultimate goal the end of all separation; oceans are being spoilt by the invasive force of consumerism, fish are dying off; women and men were thought once to have well-defined sexual orientation and now it’s a bit cloudier.

We could add a few more topics. For example Zuckerberg is answering awkward questions about privacy (at long last), and how about microchip implants? Scientist Mark Gasson whose team demonstrated how a computer virus could wirelessly infect his implant and then be transmitted on to other systems. Gasson reasoned that with implanted technology the separation between man and machine can become theoretical because the technology can be perceived by the human as being a part of their body.

Possibly the most poignant political issue of the day has to do with borders too – Brexit and the election of Trump. In both cases many lies were told and the result seemed to shock and even dismay the winners who had no sense that the need for strong borders was such an emotional question for the voters. When we discuss what dissolves boundaries, nothing is more obvious in astrology than Neptune in Pisces.

These main questions seem to dominate our sense of Neptune.
1.      How to find a working model of reality to explain what we hold to be of the highest spiritual and personal significance? This could well be religion, mysticism, communism or, for some people, keeping up to date with the latest fashion.
2.      Separation and boundaries
3.      The illusion of glamour and the glamour of illusion

All the other planets, even Pluto to a considerable extent, bring us into deeper relationship with normal everyday life, each in their own way, but Neptune’s focus is not that. It is deals with questions of reality and identity. What is real? Who am I? Am I real or an illusion? It is not only hippies and other druggies that are asking these questions; scientists at the leading edge of physics and technology have similar uncertainties. In Astrology, Neptune asks these questions of us and yet gives no answers. It is enigmatic in the extreme, it answers everything with the Zen wisdom “not this not that!”

Neptune astrology transits bring confusion and illusion – but also spiritual clarity and dis-illusion-ment. At first, gripped by, and gripping onto, our false sense of who we are and what is real, Neptune washes away all the anchorage points of our lives, and we lose traction. With Mercury we lose our sense of clear-mindedness; with Venus we become foolishly un-boundaried in the fantasy of romantic love; with Mars it disinclines us away from self-serving action towards the hidden self-gratification of altruism. Neptune-Sun connections rob us of the all-important definition of ego that allows us to operate safely in a dangerous world.

And these transits go on and on. As soon as we rebuild our lives another tsunami comes along and we lose all the structures of limitation again and yet again until we find within ourselves a place of surrender and willing acceptance. From that moment all is well – then we flow with the deepest mystery and ride the tides of change. The more we allow Neptune to carry us along the better it feels. There is a beautiful serenity, a blissful sense of sweet goodness and a tiny but spiritually-transforming glimpse of All That Is.

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URANUS IN TAURUS

13/12/2018

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Uranus Retrograde in Aries and Uranus Transit into Taurus

Planets in Retrograde
During its final retrograde period, it is a good time to consider what has been a planet's effect and, looking back at the headlines since 2011, we can see some very striking themes and quite dramatic Uranus-type events.

Uranus Astrology in Aries
Even on the very day of its ingress into Aries, on 11 March 2011, there was a massive earthquake in Japan that led to the greatest nuclear calamity the world has yet seen. Since then tornadoes, floods, hurricanes and wildfires have often dominated the headlines and caused a major official rethink about the reality, and the effects, of Climate Change. From a wacky idea to an accepted truth has taken but a few years.

Rebellion
Political rebellion was a major feature. There is always someone rising up somewhere, but this time the Arab Spring was noteworthy because it was pan-Arabian and era-defining. Some of the Arabic ways are seen as medieval (and Uranus hates anything outdated).

Another rebellious statement was made in Russia – Pussy Riot – and that resulted in the imprisonment of gentle singers. Russian also stamped down heavily in Ukraine when it looked as though their own uprising might diminish its influence there, an issue that still dangerously flares up from time to time; it is far from settled.

Yet possibly the most terrible example of rebelliousness was the shocking emergence of the Islamic State and its rapid ascendancy. It took Al Qaeda’s agenda to a whole new level, making enemies not only of the West but also of the moderate majority of Islam. However, it tried to punch above its weight when it took on Syria and therefore, with others, Russia. In Syria, Russia has found its role once again as a fearsome power, which it had lost in the 1980s.

Refugee Crisis
Except for the Indian partition in 1947, the migration of vast numbers of people escaping the war in Syria was the world’s biggest ever population disruption and has had an extraordinary impact on world affairs, quite probably including Brexit and the election of Trump, with xenophobia reawakening as racial violence and startling levels of Antisemitism.
“Me first!” is a rather Aries-type sentiment that Trump and Cameron both employed to gain political clout.

Never a rare event, shootings in the USA jumped to a whole new level since 2012 with the massacre of innocents, including children at school, and there have been unprecedented levels of police violence.
Most cities in the world are places of danger now, whether from terrorism, police violence or angry drunkenness amongst the youth. It is worse than at any time in living memory in its scale and widespread reach. And this extreme state of affairs has arisen very quickly indeed – there has always been rebellion and violence but the scale of it has accelerated very suddenly.

Police Brutality

China has stealthily claimed a strong place and now, for the first time, is able to be taken seriously as a longer term threat to American supremacy. Its technological focus is also a feature of Uranus. If reports are to be believed, there are plans to light the streets of Beijing with a man-made laser beam in space whose brightness is five times that of the Moon. They have also cloned monkeys. Elsewhere human microchip implants are no longer the fantasy of a sci fi writer. Their Belt and Road initiative is Taurus-like however; their time is coming now.

In summary, through technology and rebellion, Uranus has expressed itself very aggressively during its time in Aries, triggering violent crackdowns and making the world a much more dangerous place than a decade ago.

Uranus Astrology in Taurus
As it leaves Aries and enters Taurus we may hope that the calming effect of the fixed Earth sign may settle the world down – but it is doubtful. Uranus is fast and electrical; it is not inclined to take slow and steady Taurus as anything other than an obstacle to blow asunder.

We can expect more energy and attention channelled into money, trade and corporations rather than bullets perhaps – but sadly, in Taurus Uranus is almost certain to disrupt the status quo and suddenly move wealth around. Economic collapse is one of the principle contributors to instability and therefore the resultant conflict.

Uranus in Taurus Starter
Uranus has already had a brief sojourn into Taurus during 2018, between May and October, and we had good cause to expect some shocking news about Taurus things. What about Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran?
The deal was basically this: Iran will not take Uranium out of the Earth if the West removes sanctions (which allows more financial security to Iran). Uranium, Earth, Financial security...all appropriate keywords.

There was also the start of the major trade war with China. USA may find itself unable to win such a war, and in the end major military wars are decided on who has won the trade wars and can command the most resources. (We remember the Boston Tea Party, a trade war at first that led to a real one, and the Opium wars between UK and China)

Uranus in Taurus Main Course
Uranus enters Taurus for keeps on 6 March 2019, and will be there until 2025; during this period we expect to see manifestations of Uranus acting through Taurus, so keywords such as 'discovery', 'rebellion', and 'reforms' which relate to Uranus will be combined with those related to Taurus - 'money', 'land', 'banks', 'matter', 'possession', 'ownership'.
Although we might like to see Uranus act rather dramatically immediately upon its ingress, it does not always do so. Also we cannot see how small things lead to big changes, so even if something major has already happened we may not think it important until history shows us.

Uranus in Taurus History

1934-1941
1) The worst year of the Great Depression
2) The 'Dust Bowl' economic catastrophe
3) F D Roosevelt's economic reforms - the 'New Deal'
4) To pay for arms, Britain's gold reserves were required to be deposited into America’s newly created Fort Knox - the wealth of the world's greatest empire transferred to another country almost overnight.
5) Manhattan Project brings in the Nuclear Age (splitting matter itself - what could be a more telling image for Uranus in Taurus!)
6) Long March of Mao and Night of Long Knives of Hitler bring dictators to power to mark the seeds of a great Game of Thrones which changed who owned the gold and possessed the land for generations to come.

How did the US end up owning half of the World's gold reserves by the end of WWII?

1851-1857
1) Abolitionists got going in the USA...leading to a war that divided a continent and moved vast wealth from South to North
2) There was a gold rush in Australia
3) Europe suffered widespread economic crises
4) Technological developments gave the ability to cross oceans and continents with railways and steamships, changing world trade completely and forever.

1684-1690
1) China opens ports to trade with West
2) British East India Trading Co opens trade with India and becomes the dominant economic world force until USA takes over
3) Newton's Principia published - foundation of modern science, great revolution of physics, without which space travel (overcoming gravity) would be unthinkable - and practically all else in technology that we take for granted now.

1599 - 1607
1) Queen Elizabeth 1 reign ends (Will that of Queen Elizabeth 2?)
2) Gunpowder Plot - Plot to blow up the government of the world's richest empire
3) Settling of Jamestown, Virginia (Nobody could imagine where that would take us)

Uranus Transits in Taurus

The pattern is very clear; it is one of big shifts occurring in the field of money and land in such a way as to redefine the relationships between power-possessors. The combination of fiery Uranus and solid-state Taurus is devastatingly powerful in a way that truly makes its mark in the history books.

What seems very clear from the historical evidence of previous periods of Uranus transiting through Taurus is that international trade is often subjected to large scale unexpected shifts. I am interested to look beneath the surface of this, triggered by Jena's comment that we re-look at values when Taurus is transited.

Taurus is a no-nonsense sign especially when it comes to defending its core values of security and freedom, which it sees as invested in things that bring security and whose absence brings a feeling of insecurity - money, land and possessions. By extension this means food to eat and solid ground beneath the feet. It also implies freedom from oppression since oppressors threaten these fundamental life needs.

Uranus in Taurus The Common Thread

A common thread emerges when we consider previous comments about Uranus in Taurus times, both contemporary and historical - whether volcanoes, fascism, trade wars or imperialist monopolies - that basic human rights are in danger of violation through the threat to fundamentals: food and freedom.

The Great Depression, which led to terrible poverty and mass starvation, set the stage for war – as indeed did the reparations after WW1 that led to depriving Germany of its all-important income from coal, and the deeply unsettling hyper-inflation that resulted from this, and therefore the readiness of a people to submit more easily to fascism rather than to poverty and shame. The triggers were economic – the Wall Street crash and the confiscation of the Ruhr coalfields were both expressions of greed and pride.

The long-suffering patient bull will put up with almost any unpleasantness, but try taking away its food supply or invading its secure domain! All we need is Uranus to shock it out of its complacent reverie and you have the recipe for violent eruption. The once-in-a-lifetime rage of an angry bull is to be avoided at all costs. We might well see blind rage against the 'System' acted out as the hungry and dispossessed lose control and revert to their herd instinct mentality. If so the only thing to do is to get out of the way and hide, as some people are currently learning in France this very week.

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PLUTO

12/12/2018

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Pluto Transits - Global and Personal Perspectives

Pluto Astrology

Our discovery of Pluto expanded our sense of the mysteriously profound, the unknown and unknowable reach and depth of reality. This realisation applies as much to astronomy, and the physical sense we have of the universe, as it does to astrology and its insights into human psychology.

We have come to comprehend that life is very much more complex, hidden and undecipherable than we had ever thought. So this is the essence of what Pluto’s astrology points to in a horoscope – how do we experience transcendence? How do we cope with the fact that we are both powerful and powerless, light and dark, saintly and satanic? Pluto’s domain is beyond the beyond – as far out as it gets, at least within our current reach of comprehension; it goes beyond duality.

Pluto Transits in Recent History

Each generation faces existential threats. The Pluto in Leo age had to deal with megalomaniacs like Hitler, Stalin and Mao; in Virgo Pluto brought us electronics – a truly dangerous development in consciousness; in Libra, oil was the feature that divided the world into haves and have nots, producers and consumers; in Scorpio there were shocking exposures of long-held secrets to do with sexual misconduct and abuse of political, religious and corporate power; in Sagittarius religious wars were in high profile again; and now in Capricorn, corporate power has become quite awesome, and governments are losing their grip.

Pluto in your Horoscope

If you study Pluto Astrology in a horoscope you can see by house position and aspects in which areas of life a person will experience the greatest degree of power – as the bully or the victim – and typically in fact experience both roles.

So 10th house Pluto is boss or slave; 1st house Pluto can be the constantly fearful but nevertheless the most influential in their set; 4th shows a very powerful, all-consuming relationship with the mothering principle, whereas 8th house Pluto is the mysterious master who submits to the higher dimensions found in sex, prayer and magick.

If Pluto aspects a planet, then that planetary influence is profoundly intensified. With Mars there is ruthlessness, whether tyrant or surgeon, with Venus the mysterious, seductive charm of a sex goddess, with Mercury the ability and tragic compulsion to discover and express truth at all costs, with Moon a lifelong restlessness drives us to find our deepest sense of Nature, the only place we feel safe.

Pluto and Higher Aspects of Consciousness

Pluto is beyond our control, yet we can surf its turbulent waves if we open up our higher aspects of consciousness. Its function is to connect us to non-ordinary realities even if that requires us to let go of all aspects of life – and die. It is the seed of the future and therefore the death of the past. Like Scorpio it composts the useless and outdated into dark regenerative regions that support rebirth and renewal.

Pluto transits to planets in our horoscope bring these global and cosmic matters to our door; we cannot escape them. They approach slowly and ominously year by year until what was denied and hidden, rotting away in unconscious realms of the psyche, is brought into the light of consciousness, and accepted truthfully as being the truth of the matter in hand.

Personal Pluto Transits

Whether it is to do with our approach to relationships, how we project ourselves into the world, how we get our needs met, or how we sort out how to think, whatever issues we have not yet dealt with are forced forward into our circumstances as insurmountable obstacles. An irresistible force meets what we had previously thought was an immovable object. If, instead of Venus, Mars, Moon or Mercury it is the Sun experiencing a Pluto transit, then it feels like the death of self itself; potentially it is totally overwhelming.

A crisis occurs, a watershed is crossed, something dies and there is a resurrection. Then a slow process of recovery gets underway until the years have passed and we can look back proudly at our ability to have withstood such a challenge and still managed to have bounced back. These are life-defining times.

Pluto at Perihelion

During the period 1978 – 1999 it was at perihelion, the closest it gets in 250 years to both Sun and Earth, even closer than Neptune. Its power is extremely concentrated during such periods and, especially at these times, only those with a committed innocent spirituality are safe to handle its power.

As we have seen, the effects of trying to use that power for personal gain can lead to catastrophe. The greed of the rich has brought our species to the brink of self-annihilation. We have the power now; will we use it collectively for the good of all, or for selfish purposes? The astrology of Pluto’s position on this point is quite clear – there is only one right answer to this question and the penalty for a wrong answer is dire and permanent.

Pluto in Capricorn

We don't really know what's happening nowadays, but it feels like we've been cut loose and are awash on a great river of change. This is the feeling of Pluto in Capricorn – a bedrock shudder. Whenever Pluto went through Capricorn in days gone by there was a large scale shift of political power.

We think of the birth and death of Rome, the rise of the Pope’s role in politics, and the challenge against this by Henry 8th, we think of the Boston Tea Party more recently, which sets in motion the end of the extraordinary influence of the British Empire as the USA claims world dominance. These events took place when Pluto transited Capricorn. This transit is reoccurring now in our current era, between 2008 and 2023. During this 16 year period we can confidently expect global political power to be entirely reoriented.

It may be that another country becomes able to challenge US supremacy, perhaps following USA’s internal degeneration, but it could equally be that a new paradigm emerges and the corporation not the state becomes the dominant force. And then our allegiances to locations will be replaced by corporate loyalty. This type of thing is seen in a different form in today's world – where loyalty of faith exceeds loyalty of country of residence. `

During Pluto's passage through Capricorn we are likely to want to look at geopolitical shifts on an historical scale. Since Capricorn is to do with form and structure (Saturn's keywords) we expect our governments and societies to be transformed. We expect to see the dominant ruling bodies to lose their firmness of grip, despite extremes in their efforts to hold on.

Corridors of Power

It is very difficult to see beneath the veils of deceit to know what is actually going on behind closed doors within secret corridors of power. Such is Pluto. We must therefore read and study events and responses to get a sense of where Pluto is taking us next. It does seem that the USA has lost traction in the world during the last few years, and that the American Dream has had its day. But what is coming along to replace the failing model of capitalism and military might?

The major players in the world of corporations have become influential in world politics, as was the case recently in a somewhat similar way when oligarchs rose up to fill the power vacuum created when Gorbachev and Yeltsin supervised the total collapse of USSR influence. Today the corporate influence of Big Oil is being challenged by IT companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon. It is hard to imagine what will occur as these stupendously rich companies wield more and more influence over more and more aspects of our less-and-less-private lives.

We see now how nuclear war is more of a threat, how racism is on the rise along with firming up boundaries and accentuating national identity, and we also see growing stronger the corporate independence and supremacy that is arising out of this surge of the right-wing, the would-be fascists. Pluto is in evidence in all of this. It is a power-play at the highest level of statehood, nationality, religion and social structuring: it is in Capricorn.

Pluto Astrology and Trump

Is Trump a Capricorn figure? Yes. He is a businessman billionaire and he wants to sit on the highest seat and be recognised as the best. Is he Pluto too? Assuredly so, he is ruthless, effective and entirely indifferent to human suffering.

The process of his removal from office has been too slow, he has done irreparable damage to many lives and even perhaps the world itself . This is a profound indictment of our system of democracy.

A New Democracy

Perhaps it is time for a new over-arching governance principle; in its current form Democracy is outdated. It certainly was a good idea when compared to what it replaced, which was the tyranny of kings and such like, but now we have insufficient power to resist being taken over by the Corporate Dragon.

We need to transform what we think of as Democracy; it has so far proven itself unable to prevent a truly defective person like Trump being allowed to sit on the world throne, it must be replaced by something better – something that protects us better from the lies of power-possessors and the greed of corporations and, most importantly, defends the principle of Justice.

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