Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Egypt and Wisconsin

For years astrologers have been saying it: the sixties are coming back. With this oncoming Uranus-Pluto square approaching like a freight train in this penultimate year before 2012 and the first of seven exact hits in June of that year, astrologers have been saying that people would be out in the streets again, just as they were 40 or more years ago, protesting an inhuman set of economic conditions and an unwinnable war. And it’s happening.

For an example of what I’m talking about, evidence that the times indeed are a’changin’ check out Michael Moore’s appearance the weekend of March 5th in Madison Wisconsin. There, protests had reached mammoth proportions over on actions on the part of a Republican governor and state legislators that threatened the removal of collective bargaining rights from public sector employees due to one of many budget crises at the state level all across the country. Moore’s speech, entitled “America is not Broke,” electrified the crowd as he compared the ongoing protests to the successful people’s movement in Egypt that toppled long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.


Republic of Egypt
In this blog entry I would like to emphasize the connection between such different types of events as the Wikileaks release of U.S. foreign policy State Department cables, the demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, and the subsequent demonstrations across the Middle East and in Wisconsin. This might seem like a stretch but the charts tell the story. First we will need the chart for the modern Republic of Egypt. As found in The Book of World Horoscopes, an excellent reference work by British astrologer Nick Campion, the most appropriate chart is for the establishment of the Nasser regime on the evening of June 18, 1953. See Egypt chart. Mubarak took over the dictatorship when Nasser was subsequently assassinated.

Egypt's transits for 1/25/2011
When the demonstrations began in Egypt, on January 25th 2011, Saturn was stationing retrograde and therefore greatly emphasized, at 17 ¼ degrees of Libra, almost directly on US Saturn. The question comes up of where this stationing Saturn and the rest of the outer planets hit Egypt’s chart. The answer is that Saturn was within three degrees of a conjunction with that nation’s Saturn, indicating pressure on the government. See Egypt's transits for 1/25/2011. The US Saturn degree is 14 plus Libra, while Egypt’s Saturn lies at 20 plus, so that the midpoint of US and Egypt Saturn is at 17 degrees and about 40 minutes – with stationing Saturn only ½ of a degree away as the protests began there, ultimately affecting both governments. The other significant transits to this chart for the Republic of Egypt are to the Sun degree, as might be expected, since the leadership of the nation and the character of its people are affected. The Sun degree is 27 Gemini, and the transiting degree of Uranus (= sudden change) is 27 Pisces, exactly square. Meanwhile, transiting Neptune, representing in this case aspiration/idealism as well as perhaps media, and also Chiron, representing pain, embarrassment and suffering, was at 27 degrees of Aquarius, trining Egypt’s Sun degree. Of course it was the pain and suffering of the people, together with their aspirations for a better way of life, that lead to the massive and determined protests. These transits are significant and serve to confirm this chart as accurate.

Egypt's transits for 11/28/2010
Now it is interesting to see that in the transits for November 28, 2010, the date of the most recent Wikileaks announcements, which revealed in part the propping up of Egypt’s dictatorship by the US government, transiting Mercury was at 27 degrees of Sagittarius, directly opposite Egypt’s Sun, indicating that a message was received. There are many other connections between the transits for this date and Egypt’s chart, too many to go into in detail, including transiting Venus exactly on the 7th house cusp of foreign partners. See Egypt's transits for 11/28/2010.

It makes sense. The publication of the information regarding US foreign policy support for Mubarak was cited as one of the inspirations for the uprising.

USA's transits for 2/15/2011
Now I’d like to turn to events in Wisconsin, where another protest rages on, as of this writing, in spite of a ruling by the state legislature that that seems to deny the protestors their desire, namely that public workers unions not be disbanded and prevented from the right to collective bargaining. The attempt by the Republican governor and legislature to rescind those rights is particularly ironic, considering that Madison, Wisconsin, was the place where collective bargaining rights for public workers was first established, back in 1931. This protest began on February 15th and the transits to the US chart for this date are particularly apt. See USA's transits for 2/15/2011.

The Sun and Neptune were conjunct U.S. Moon, symbolizing the public. Neptune in this case could be seen to represent the idealism implicit in the protests. The Sun that day was in aspect with U.S. Neptune, the U.S. Ascendant, and U.S. Saturn as well – Saturn representing the government. This last aspect is a sesquiquadrate, or minor square (a stressful aspect). Also transiting Venus, the 10th house ruler in the U.S. chart, and ruler of U.S. Saturn, was transiting in almost exact opposition to U.S. Sun that day. The United States is still in the middle of its Saturn Return, a time of great change, with transiting Saturn only 2 degrees away, in forming conjunction to U.S. Saturn. In an indication of the fact that this was an important media event, and that these protests do indeed send a message, U.S. Mercury was also involved, representing the media in this country. The Moon conjuncted U.S. Mercury that day, while transiting Mars (militancy) was exactly quincunx. Transiting Chiron, newly in compassionate Pisces, made a bi-quintile aspect to U.S. Mercury; at the same time the transiting Moon was square U.S. Chiron. It was the painful and embarrassing place (Chiron) that Wisconsin public workers found themselves in that was the source of the outrage that fueled the protests.

How does this relate back to the situation in Egypt? The protest erupted in Madison just days after Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign, on February 11th. Moore referenced that successful public protest in his Madison speech. The world might indeed be quite a bit smaller than we once thought.

2 comments:

Socrates Thalassos said...

I check for new posts, but there are none-

Anonymous said...

Henry,

You are really a great astrologer. I love reading your interpretations of celestial influences on mundane affairs.

Unfortunately, some of your facts aren't correct. Nasser was not assassinated. He died of a heart attack. It was Sadat who was assassinated. It's these kind of little faux pas's that cause people to denigrate Astrology and your work, which is unfortunate.