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.

Embarrassment in High Places

There have been several important and interesting stories in the news recently but the most interesting came on the very last weekend of November in exact correspondance with the Last Quarter Moon at 6 plus degrees of Virgo and Sagittarius. This was the most recent Wikileaks scandal – the simultaneous publishing to several news services of 250,000 State Department documents and cables to foreign embassy personnel. This event has been termed a major diplomatic crisis and condemned by the U.S. government. Some of the cables were signed by Hillary Clinton personally.

In order to assess the meaning of this event, and to get a clue as to how significant this leak of information is in terms of this country’s evolving history, in advance of seeing how it plays out over time, we can check the transits to the U.S. chart for their general import.

This was a very significant set of transits. First of all, Saturn at 14 degrees and 22 minutes of Libra is within half a degree from U.S. Saturn, or in other words, the United States is experiencing its Saturn return – which happens only once in every thirty years – just as this event transpires. Saturn, located in the U.S 10th House, represents the executive branch, which is the part of government most embarrassed by the incident. Three exact hits in all will eventually take place, on December 3rd of this year and in March and at the end of August, 2011, nine months from now. We might therefore very well expect to see some of this event’s repercussions surface by next spring and summer. Secondly, when the Last Quarter Moon took place a little after 3 PM on the East Coast, the Sun was exactly trine this country’s North Node, located at 6 Leo 35. This also speaks to the significance of this event for the future, especially since the natal U.S. North Node is located in the 8th House of transformation, or death and rebirth. The Sun’s position also formed a sesquiquadrate to both U.S. Chiron and to U.S. Mercury, which are square to each other in the U.S. chart. There is national shame involved (Chiron) and also of course the media (Mercury). The Sun also opposed U.S. Uranus, which speaks to the sudden (unexpected until a few days ago) nature of the leak of the documents, which had the State Department scrambling for damage control. Transiting Mars and transiting Jupiter also strongly aspected the U.S. Mercury degree, and Mars opposed U.S. Mars as well, representing the military. U.S. Neptune was strongly aspected by these planets also, by square and by opposition, so that the fog of illusion and disinformation that we have frequently commented upon comes into the picture now as well. Pluto and the transiting North Node are also exactly opposed to U.S. Venus / Jupiter, located in the U.S. chart’s 7th House – representing relations with foreign governments – and these relations are sure to be very much impacted by the revelations contained in these documents. Finally, transiting Neptune and Chiron in exact conjunction are conjunct the U.S. Moon, representing the public, within one degree.

The Neptune emphasis is very pronounced, and symbolizes the equivocal nature of the event. Is this a case of “truth will out” for a positive spin or is it actually a mistaken zeal for truth that will make things more difficult for those attempting to keep the world running smoothly? Only time will tell. Right now these are all parts of the picture, various illusions that the leakers represent, and perhaps none of them is the real “truth” of the matter.

It is very interesting also to examine the parallel to the Pentagon Papers scandal from the sixties. Astrologers have been saying for years now that the teens will markedly resemble the turbulent sixties, and here is one more example. Once again, an interminable war is being fought on foreign soil for dubious diplomatic purpose, in this case in two different countries. Again these are seen as a morass that the United States cannot extricate itself from without losing face in the court of world opinion. Once again there are many who are opposed to this war, although the level of public protest certainly has not reached that of the marches of the sixties. And once again there are leaked documents which might gain in significance as the war continues on. The stated intention of the Wikileaks project was to present evidence of torture and other violations of international law and of civil liberties that were promulgated by both the Republican administration of George W. Bush and by that of his successor, President Obama. In regard to the latter assertion, an interesting story was published by Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, on November 9th, just after the Scorpio New Moon of early November, which also strongly aspected the U.S. chart. It ran as follows:

U.S. Defends Right to Assassinate U.S. Citizens

The Obama administration argued Monday that the White House should have unreviewable authority to target and assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world if they pose a threat to the United States. The argument was made in federal court in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The groups are representing Nasser al-Awlaki, who brought a lawsuit in connection with the government’s decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric now living in Yemen. Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU said, "If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."

We live in perilous times, not only for the threatened individual, but for the threatened democracy that we cherish. All we can do at the moment is to keep our heads up and our eyes open and pitch in where we can. We also serve the eventual and inevitable evolution of our society by staying as alert as possible to the deeper meaning of events as they unfold.