2016 has been a tough one. Tonight, fast-moving Mercury steps into the patch of the zodiac to be retraced in his upcoming backwards shuffle (he will be going retrograde from the 19th of December to 8th of January), which happens to be almost entirely in the sign of history-obsessed Capricorn. Hopefully we’ll learn something from this gaze at the rear view mirror.
For years, since the 2008 banking crisis, or as far back as 9/11, if not subtly since the early 80’s, there has been a rising tide of global discontent in all but the highest strata of society, with the way the power is distributed and used and the way ideals are mainly bandied about in the form of politically correct language rather than worked towards in practice. The relief of post-WW2 renewal and relative peace and stability via the cultural liberation of the 60’s and 70’s has faded. The new frustration has been more informed, thanks to emerging social media, than at any time in recorded history. Often in recent decades, there was a sense that the bubble of infinite economic growth must burst and yet the big institutions that hold the world together did their best, for good or ill, to patch up a rotten job and try to carry on as if it were business as usual. The stock market has not actually crashed in the way that it should have according to the laws of economics. But the pressure is reaching a point where, soon, even cold water might boil in the collective psyche.
In other words, the famous Chinese curse ‘May you live in interesting times’ certainly seems to apply now. There is also another, lesser known proverb from China, which could be worthy of consideration: ‘People get the government they deserve’.
Astrologically, it seems part of the problem was exacerbated by the lull of the mid 90’s. The [once-in-170 year] Uranus-Neptune conjunction which reached peak precision in ’92 -’93 brought us the internet and all sorts of other promising technology, idealism, good will, and a much-celebrated book, naively titled ‘The End of History’. What now appears complacent seemed like a natural assumption at the time, following the relatively bloodless dissolution of the Cold War tensions which had been the counterpoint to apparent peace in the liberal west. Armed conflicts here and there seemed relatively minor, viewed in the wide world context of accelerating globalisation.
Perhaps too many people took their eyes off the ball, being understandably convinced that we had really reached a steady state. Yet now we clearly have a problem, and the emergence of this realisation is reflected by Pluto grinding through Capricorn and sneaking right up to where that Uranus-Neptune conjunction happened over 20 years ago. Pluto doesn’t mess around. On top of that, Uranus is now square to that spot and has also been shifting into and out of a violent 90 degree angle to Pluto since 2007 (peaking precision 2012-15), and will not really break away until 2020. Uranus is a very tricky planet, the most associated with radicalisation, emancipation, revolution and explosions. Pluto is also a difficult figure, most associated with not mere revolution but rebirth, and all the terror and pain that can entail.
The first thing that stands out, looking through historical astro-specs, is that the last time Uranus squared Pluto precisely was from 1932-34 (and more approximately from 1928-37). Back then, Uranus was in Aries just like now, radically asserting The Self, and Pluto was in homely-nationalist Cancer, opposite to his current public outing in corporate Capricorn.
The media is already replete with historical comparisons of the present period and the years leading up to WW2. Overt Fascism is on the rise all over the world in response to advanced economic squeezing. Immigrants are being demonised to shift the blame from dodgy financial machinations. Except this time nationalist sentiment is being stoked by corporate lobbyists (!) in what seems to be laying the groundwork for something truly huge and unimaginably horrible. If we had read the headlines of this year’s newspapers in the mid 90’s, we would have assumed they were satirical send-ups. Like an episode of The Simpsons, perhaps. Many people have disconnected from the news, preferring to avoid upset and confusion. This is probably quite good, given that so much news is actually fake. Or it would be if people weren’t turning in droves to the fake news to escape reality.
This last detail may have something to do with foggy Neptune being emphasised in immersive Pisces, his home sign, having just been squared by restrictive Saturn in long-distance Sagittarius. Neptune is exactly opposite where he was in nit-picking Virgo in the 1930’s.
While the Uranus-Pluto square was peaking in precision there were lots of other planets interacting with it in difficult ways. There was a Grand Cardinal Cross in 2014 (planets Mars and Jupiter opposed to Uranus and Pluto, and so all of them square to or opposite each other in ‘cardinal’ signs), for example, which astrologers expected to blow the lid on things. It didn’t. Then, with a brief Grand Cross in mutable signs this year (which was less spectacular in expectations), the first rumblings were felt and the astrology world said, ah you see, it takes a ‘mutable’ thing to change stuff. All well and good. But where is the precise expression of the weird blend of inane violence, inane stupidity and inane inanity that has reduced the public conversation to less than the lowest previously thought of common denominator?
Unfortunately, several truly disturbing events this year have occurred in such precise coincidence with an astrological event as to reveal the significance of a minor aspect correlation:
12th June – The Orlando nightclub shootings (the deadliest terrorist incident on US soil since 9/11, and the deadliest homophobic terrorist incident ever);
16th June – Jo Cox, a pro-Europe British MP, was viciously killed by a supposed British nationalist who felt it necessary to shoot her several times and stab her repeatedly;
23rd June – The incredible shoot yourself and everyone else in the foot result of the UK referendum;
28th June – Unidentified terrorists attack Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, Turkey;
29th June – Rodrigo Duterte, who urges police and civilians to kill suspected drug addicts on sight (and later compares himself to Hitler and the mass murders to the holocaust), is inaugurated as President of the Philippines, sparking an immense spree of extra-judicial killings;
5th July to 7th July (starting one day after USA’s national solar return, ie. birthday) – Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, and Philando Castille in St. Paul, USA, killed by police. In both cases, video filmed by witnesses, who stated that the dead men had not been the ones causing trouble, went viral, sparking nationwide protests. Five police officers were killed, after a peaceful protest about those deaths, in Dallas, in revenge, by a war veteran.
14th July (France’s solar return) – Nice lorry attack, the deadliest terrorist event on French soil ever;
15th July – Attempted coup d’etat in Turkey. At first, foiled in a triumph for democracy, but then it was paradoxically used as a convenient excuse for the president to crush opposition and silence the media;
17th July – 3 Police officers killed in Baton Rouge, USA.
The aspect spanning the dates in question was not a major aspect, it was a but lowly quincunx: not something astrology pays much attention to in the grand scheme of things. The special thing about this one was that it lasted way longer than a quincunx between Uranus and Mars usually ever does because both planets were stationing (turning around) and therefore moving much slower than they usually do. Quincunxes only count when they are very exact (whereas the Uranus-Pluto square gets a wide orb and its associations can be seen to be slow moving too). So in the normal scheme of things, trigger-happy Mars would move through this difficult angle to Uranus in a matter of days. Not this time. It dragged on and on. Something shifted.
The last time Mars and Uranus had anything like as protracted a period of separation of 150 degrees as this year, happens to be for a month from early January to early February 1933 when Mars stationed retrograde just as Uranus stationed direct. When that quincunx was within mere arc minutes of exactitude, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany and swiftly proceeded to assume total dictatorial control.
Even curiouser, this particular combination of Uranus square Pluto and quincunx Mars is a fairly exact mirror image of the 1930s arrangement. Back then, Uranus was in Aries square Pluto in Cancer and Mars was in Virgo. This time Pluto is in the opposite sign, Capricorn, and Mars is in the other possible quincunx to Aries, Scorpio. Uranus had stationed direct in 1933, whereas Mars was going retrograde. This time, Uranus was the one stationing retrograde and Mars was going direct. Maybe it will reflect a difference.
While 1933 has many astrological points of comparison with 2016, there are a few reasons to be cheerful. In between the historical alignments and now, Uranus and Pluto have gone through a conjunction (in the 60’s) and started a new cycle, which has hopefully learned something from what went wrong before. Similarly, as mentioned earlier, Uranus conjoined Neptune in the 90’s. Neptune is in its home sign now – gooey, hypnotic Pisces – instead of viciously efficient Virgo, and whatever we may think of the delusional element of this potential, it is supposed to offer a lot of opportunity for harmony. Pluto is right now sidling up to where that Uranus-Neptune conjunction took place, and in addition to re-birthing should be digging out some of the utopian idealism out from under the complacency that the world was infused with in the 90’s. The young people born under that conjunction – their reaction to events is the hope we have. That generation is burdened with trying to sort out a decent plan for dealing with climate change and the crazy economic models that drove it. They are fighting for their lives and the future. While they were growing up, Uranus was moving through Pisces, and now through Aries. Soon he will go into Taurus, the first earth sign since that conjunction to firm up and establish, in the material sense, the implications of that conjunction.
Last week, Jupiter in Libra entered the fray to square Pluto and will be opposing Uranus (just as Uranus grinds to a halt again to turn direct) on 26th of December. This is called a t-square. It is known to be very tense pattern, so let’s hope that Jupiter in the sign of Libra will inject some beauty and justice into the proceedings rather than those Libran qualities being blasted to smithereens by the fading U-P square.
astrospection 