Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Return of the Sixties

This political blog is back after a more than six-month hiatus - for which I apologize. Other priorities have intervened at an alarming rate and also I was waiting to see how the recent “Occupy Wall Street” movement, so redolent of the sixties, would pan out. The final results are not yet in of course, but the movement seems to definitely have legs, a fact that is encouraging in this time when so much in our society needs to be rearranged. I will have more to say on the topic of this important social movement later on in this article. Meanwhile another important protest is gathering momentum and giving the current administration fits as it tries to decide on its actual environmental policy, namely the dissent over the Keystone Pipeline, a project that will bridge Canada and the U.S. and create jobs but only at the cost of enormous environmental destruction in mining the tar sands of northern Alberta province.

This protest is unique in that it involves some very big and even moneyed names that have been staunch democratic boosters for many years. They are so incensed about the proposed pipeline and the threat of the Obama administration’s approval – which they see as caving in to Big Oil, Big Money, and a Republican agenda – that rather than attend a recent $5,000 per head Obama campaign fund raiser in San Francisco, they picketed outside it. At issue is the attack on the environment from Big Oil, which has been unremitting, including paying for so-called scientific studies that declared invalid the concept of global warming, a fact that is otherwise universally accepted by the scientific community. The Republicans are on board with this debunking as well, of course, whatever allows the oil companies to make more money. For an interesting take on what our economy really needs – see the book by Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire. In it he explains that by putting our money into retooling, oil and gasoline can be eliminate by 2050 and this achieved while saving gobs of money. His website is: http://www.rmi.org/ReinventingFire.

Keystone Pipeline Protest
The Keystone Pipeline protestors plan to bring 5,000 people to Washington on Sunday, November 6th to remind the Obama administration that people are definitely concerned regarding his environmental stand, or its lack. In the words of one environmentalist this will be an important test of character for the President. A look at the transits to the U.S. chart for that date is instructive. See chart. It is of note that transiting Mars opposes transiting Neptune that day, while Neptune is in conjunction with U.S. Moon representing the public, and also nearly exactly sesquiquadrate to U.S. Sun. Pluto opposes U.S. Jupiter, the chart ruler. An exact conjunction of Mercury and Venus aspects U.S. Jupiter also.

This protest will be a litmus test of where the administration is prepared to compromise its ideals and also of the will of the people in opposition, and is therefore one iconic flashpoint. The occupy Wall Street protests are another. These began in September and are showing no sign of going away any time soon. We had the Arab Spring of protests against living conditions across the Middle East, and we now have the American Autumn. Of course this is predicted by the Uranus-Pluto square, the first dynamic alignment since the sixties, when they were in conjunction, and when they characterized the revolutionary struggle of those times. Hence, astrologers have been saying for years now that there would be “people in the streets.” I myself have said it, probably in this very blog that you are reading. Last month’s issue of The Mountain Astrologer, in preparation over the summer, mentioned the Wisconsin protests from last March and the Arab Spring and asked the relevant question: Where were the massive American protests? By the time the magazine was out they had their answer.

Occupy Wall Street
Of course the relevant transits here refer back to the square between Uranus and Pluto, within 2 degrees of exact in mid-September when the OWS protest movement began, and in this regard it is interesting to note that Uranus was opposed at that time to both the U.S. Midheaven, and to transiting Venus, making a T-square with U.S. Venus, which is the Midheaven ruler. The United States had also recently completed its Saturn return, and Saturn is located in the 10th house. The position of transiting Pluto is interesting in that it opposes U.S. Jupiter, which is the chart ruler. Transiting Jupiter was contra-parallel to U.S. Moon, representing the public, while the Moon that day was in a forming square to U.S. Moon and Neptune is conjunct U.S. Moon, representing idealism.

A look at the current transits (for November 6th, see above) shows that Mars opposes transiting Neptune and U.S. Moon, as we mentioned earlier, while Pluto now even more closely opposes U.S. Jupiter. On November 6th, the date set for the Keystone Pipeline protest, the Moon aspects transiting Neptune as it conjuncts U.S. Moon and makes a dynamic aspect to U.S. Sun, a fitting symbol for idealism in action.

We cannot leave the subject of American protest movements in general without referring back to the most massive protest since the sixties against an American war, which was world-wide. I am referring to February 15th 2003, when over one million anti-war protestors took to the streets in advance of the invasion of Iraq. So many, across the Western world and beyond, were motivated to oppose this senseless war, a war that has of course proven to be extremely costly, both in money and in terms of lives lost. One would think that Uranus and Pluto were involved at that time, even before their square became close enough to count.

Massive Anti-War Protest
A look at the transiting chart is quite interesting. Transiting Uranus was indeed involved, at 28 degrees of Aquarius at the time, and conjunct U.S. Moon (again representing the public) while being also sesquiquadrate to U.S. Sun, the same position that Neptune now occupies. Meanwhile Pluto, about to station, emphasized the military by opposing U.S. Mars, while transiting Mars in the first house of the U.S. chart was exactly conjunct transiting Pluto. Pluto crossed into the U.S. First House of identity shortly after September 11, 2001, the 9-11 attacks. The Iraq War was, of course, a response to 9-11. Transiting Neptune is in this picture as well, making a sextile aspect to the U.S. Ascendant, while Jupiter, triggered by the Moon that day, opposed Neptune.

In regard to the protest movement that we are currently experiencing, understanding the Astrology is quite valuable, because it gives us an idea of the eventual scale of what is going on all across the country. We are at the very beginning of a series of exact squares between Uranus and Pluto that will take place through 2015, and through January 2020 when we consider the trailing 10 degree separation favored by noted Astrologer Richard Tarnas. Knowing this as we do, we can recognize that we are on the edge of even more massive protest and an escalation also of the conditions for protest. The “Turbulent Teens” are only just beginning!