Friday Bite: 3 May 2024

Conflicting Opinions

WHEN I THINK back over the main events of the past seven days, anger and frustration are common factors. Daily, via our newsfeeds, come reports of violence, seemingly for no good reason in some instances, and in others levelled at the actions of governments and institutions.

Last week I mentioned the protests on university campuses across the United States and compared them with the 1968 student protests in Europe and America – a period similarly presided over by a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction – and this week those demonstrations have intensified. Two thousand pro-Palestinian protestors have been arrested thus far. Calls for President Biden to address the situation were answered on Thursday when he announced at a press conference “There is a right to protest but not a right to cause chaos…order must prevail.”

America is not the only country to be experiencing mass pro-Palestine student protests: Canada, Australia, France and England are others.

In Georgia, the government’s “foreign influence” bill has propelled thousands into the streets of Tbilisi to protest. The bill, which passed its second reading on Wednesday, forces NGOs, civil rights groups and media to register as foreign agents if 20% of their funding comes from abroad. Georgia’s bid for membership of the European Union and NATO is enshrined in its constitution and supported by 80 % of the country but such legislation would mean that membership is off the table. The ruling party, the Georgian Dream, seems bent on moving the country closer to Russia.

By contrast, it seems the conflict in Gaza is poised for a breakthrough – something I referred to as a potential outcome of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, which fell on Israel’s natal Sun. A deal is on the table, it remains for Hamas to agree to it. The most promising signs of an agreement appear on and around 18 May, when Venus and Uranus will be conjoined to Israel’s natal Sun while the Sun and Jupiter will square the country’s natal Mars. Then again, these transits could just as easily preside over Israel’s ground offensive on Rafah. Jupiter expands the revolutionary properties of Uranus, whether in a welcome or not so welcome way.

Here in the United Kingdom, a thirty-six-year-old man ran amok in a quiet suburban street, wielding a sword and killing a fourteen-year-old boy on his way to school. In Sheffield, a seventeen-year-old boy was arrested on charges of attempted murder for attacking a child and two adults.

And so it goes. An endless litany of mindless violence and devastated lives.

In last week’s Friday Bite, I looked at the chart of Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf to explore what possibilities there were for him to ride through the crisis he himself had created. With the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction on his natal Mars and opposing his Moon, I suggested it was “going to be difficult for the first minister to remain in place. The cosmic lords have spoken!” And accordingly, on Monday, Mr Yousaf announced his resignation.

Events moved quickly thereafter and by Thursday it was a one-man race for the position. John Swinney, former deputy leader of the Scottish National party (November 2014 – March 2023), is expected to take over next week. Like Yousaf, he is a Sun Aries, but he has Pluto currently squaring his natal Jupiter, and presiding over a rise to power. Swinney is considered to be a “pair of safe hands”. How he manages power against such political turmoil remains to be seen.

AT 17:27 IN WENCHANG, China, a rocket to the far side of the Moon took off. Here is a picture of that moment.

I am slightly disappointed. No angular Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, which would have fitted this world-first, nor is Pluto on an angle. Instead, we find Chiron on the descendant, conjoined to Mercury, Mars separating from Neptune and the Moon applying to Saturn. At best these influences underpin a journey in knowledge, which, of course, is the purpose of the mission, but at worse, there could be technical problems and possibly challenges getting the probe back from the far side of the Moon.

The above chart also serves as a picture of the times.

The shape of a chart is an immediate, simple and enlightening means of extracting information about an individual, an event or a country. As you can see from the above image, all the planets occupy one section of the horoscope. (The part of fortune and the nodes are not included in a horoscopic shaping.) In a natal chart, this Bundle shaping indicates an individual who is highly focussed – a specialist – someone who tends to be inflexible, tightly wound up and likes to be in control. All of which is going to be very helpful if you have given birth to a baby in the past few months or are about to do so.

What I am also discovering is the part such a tight group of planets plays in the way people respond to the situations in which they find themselves. The wave of anger and frustration which is fuelling protests and random attacks across the world is almost palpable, and from a distant perspective, if you’re not involved, it can seem as though people are being very unreasonable, if not completely irrational.

Take for example what is happening in a New York courtroom. A former president is on trial for criminal acts alleged to have taken place before the 2016 election. His posts on Truth Social have already led to his being found in contempt of court, and while a good part of the country is wondering why he isn’t already behind bars a whole other part believes him to be their saviour, the hope of America. One of the potential jurors who was excused from serving on the jury, has received death threats, despite not being involved in the trial.

Events in and of themselves are extreme and polarizing and they evoke extreme behaviour. And this trend will be apparent in all our lives to a greater or lesser extent.

We live in interesting times.

Friday Bite: 26 April 2024

 Metamorphosis

Mike Johnson – SCOTUS – Humza Yousaf – the Great Awakening

Where do we begin? So many epoch-making developments in seven days, almost all of them resonating with the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, it is hard to choose which to prioritize. However, I am going to open with an event that can truly be said to be epoch-making.

For the first time in at least a billion years, two life forms have merged into one organism. View Article Here  The last time primary endosymbiosis happened, Earth got plants! A giant leap for mankind, no less.

You may recall Neil Armstrong uttered these words when he became the first man to walk on the Moon. And when did he do that? On 21 July 1969, the day Jupiter and Uranus met on the same degree of Libra.

Jupiter and Uranus are a fairly combustible double act, historically presiding over revolutions and bloody conflicts – freedom, liberation and independence being something of a theme. 1968-69 (Jupiter-Uranus in Virgo/Libra) saw mass student demonstrations across Europe over the Vietnam War and currently huge protests are taking place on US college campuses regarding the government’s support of Israel and the suppression of free speech.

By and large, Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions usher in new eras of the most positive kind. They inspire and fortify man’s quest for progress and enlightenment, hence the groundbreaking scientific developments that occur on or around the time of these conjunctions. The first artificial life form was created in May 2010 when Jupiter and Uranus were conjoined in Pisces. And in 1941 (Jupiter conjunct Uranus in Taurus) Konrad Zuse (now, there’s a synchronicity) completed development of the first computer. And on it goes.

Incidentally, the merging of two life-forms was not the only scientific breakthrough of the past week: a potential cure for certain cancers was also announced.

I’ll return to Zeus and Ouranos at the end of this Friday Bite but first some other sources of shock and awe.

ON TUESDAY, THE US Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve $95 billion of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The breakthrough in the six-month-long deadlock came on Saturday after speaker Mike Johnson put his career on the line and negotiated a bi-partisan deal. He made the choice for “the greater good”. Rather than appease the extreme arm of the Republican party, he decided that going down in history as the speaker who led America’s retreat from the global stage and left Ukraine to fend for itself against the Russian aggressor, was not for him. “I want to be on the right side of history.”

Almost immediately, Ukraine started to deploy the Atacms long-range missiles sent to them on Biden’s behest. This may turn out to be the breakthrough so badly needed in Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty.

I COVERED Mr Smith’s unexpected rise to power in my Friday Bite of October 27. He was elected speaker on 25 October last year, three days before a lunar eclipse in Scorpio. People who come to prominence on and around an eclipse face an uncertain future. The decision he reached over the aid package could have gone either way but he chose to go with his conscience and thus retained his job and acquired gravitas in the process.

Mr Johnson’s chart serves to show us the role eclipses play in our destiny. We do not have a time of birth for the speaker, but even without one we can see he was born on a lunar eclipse (Sun Aquarius-Moon Leo) and people born on eclipses are not only destined for an important role but they are more responsive to eclipses throughout their lives, (Mr Trump is a case in point, also being born on a lunar eclipse, Princess Catherine and Prince William are two more.) The recent total solar eclipse fell on Johnson’s natal Mars in Aries. As for the future, Uranus is still some distance from his natal Saturn, but it will be a little close for comfort during the late summer, so his tenure as speaker is by no means a long-term prospect.

ON THURSDAY, as Mercury turned direct, a fleet of noteworthy developments took place. In Washington DC, the supreme court heard arguments regarding Mr Trump’s argument that presidents should have blanket immunity from prosecution. I listened to it all. And what I came away with is the belief that there will be no final decision over presidential immunity in the immediate future because the court will send it back to the lower courts for refining.

In so doing, the nine supreme court justices have handed Mr Trump a life-line. The federal case brought by Jack Smith against the former president for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election (originally set for 4 March this year) may well be delayed until after the November election.

This delay raises the prospect that the trial will never take place at all because, if Mr Trump wins the election, he will order the justice department to dismiss the case. However, such a scenario is a moot point. If we trust the astrology, the former president, for one reason or another, is unlikely to return to the White House and may never even participate in the election.

THURSDAY WAS THUS a momentous day in American history. Specifically in regard to the supreme court’s actions (or non-actions), we are not only witnessing constitutional change in motion but beginning to understand that unless America honours its promises as laid out in the Declaration of Independence, it is on the way to no longer being the country we admired, respected, emulated and relied upon to be the bastion of democracy.

The above chart, set for the full moon in Scorpio from the perspective of Washington DC, says it all. The full moon flanks the Ascendant-Descendant axis and squares the US nodal axis, and conclusions are being drawn. On the one hand, the end of the Congressional deadlock and on the other the possible end of a fair and unbiased SCOTUS. The United States is also experiencing its Chiron return and thus reopening wounds that have never fully healed.

Whether or not the overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction by a New York appeals court falls into the category of justice being delivered depends on your viewpoint, but if a trial is not deemed fair, even on a legal technicality, the conviction should not stand.

Just saying.

By contrast and also on Thursday, in Arizona, a grand jury indicted eighteen individuals, including Rudi Giuliani, Mark Meadows (former White House Chief of Staff) and Kelli Ward (former Arizona state senator) on charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery. It also implicated Donald Trump as an “unindicted co-conspirator”.

THEMES OF JUSTICE are playing long and loud the world over. Here in the UK, the inquiry over the Post Office debacle continues to reveal the extraordinary level of corruption at the top of the organization. Executives in the hot seat struggle to deny complicity in the miscarriages of justice that have seen hundreds of sub-post-masters imprisoned.

In Ireland, the sight of former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife, Lady Eleanor arriving at court on charges related to historical sexual allegations was beyond shocking.

I have talked about Saturn in Pisces* having much to do with atonement on both a collective and individual level, and we are seeing this process accelerated by the powerful cocktail of eclipses, Pluto in Aquarius* and the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction*.

NOT SO MUCH a case of Saturnian atonement as eclipse hubris, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf shocked his fellow parliamentarians by suddenly sacking his Green party partners and ripping up the agreement that had been in place since 2021, which had been hailed as “a new era in consensus politics”

With this unexpected – some might say uncalled for – action, Mr Yousaf appears to have shot himself in the foot, which Arians are prone to doing, but we can clearly lay the blame for this self-serving and self-immolating action at the feet of Jupiter-Uranus and the total solar eclipse.

Mr Yousaf was born with 21 degrees of Scorpio rising and the Moon at 23 degrees of Scorpio opposing Mars in Taurus. The Jupiter-Uranus conjunction took place at 21 degrees of Taurus, thus triggering this fiery configuration. Add to this, the solar eclipse at 19 degrees Aries (conjunct his natal Sun), and in terms of a fateful, if not fatal, set of developments was set in motion.

I think it’s going to be difficult for the first minister to remain in place. The cosmic lords have spoken!

WHICH BRINGS ME back to the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and the belief that it has consciousness-changing properties. The late Charles Harvey considered this conjunction to be a motivating force in “the purposeful extension and awakening of human consciousness”.

However, this does not mean it is behind some kind of wave of new consciousness sweeping the planet.

Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions occur roughly every fourteen years, which is not a large slice of time, and while they evidently preside over great leaps in knowledge, which in turn promote the advance of civilization, a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is not in and of itself indicative of a mass change of consciousness – the “great awakening” or “ascension” so many people are talking about. At best, Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions represent times of accelerated development.

In the same way that Uranus could only be discovered when we had the wherewithal to spot it – when we had achieved a level of knowledge and awareness to be open to its properties and develop the necessary tools – the huge advances in technology which have allowed us to travel to outer space and create the internet are similarly expanding our awareness and leading us to change our perception of ourselves and our world.

In simple terms, we could say that thought gives rise to reality.

The ideas of philosopher Peter Russell have a lot to tell us about this “great awakening”, this “ascension”.

“The interlinking of humanity that began with the emergence of language has now progressed to the point where information can be transmitted to anyone, anywhere, at the speed of light. Billions of messages continually shuttle back and forth, in an ever-growing web of communication, linking the billions of minds of humanity together into a single system… As a species, we’re advancing to the point where it will be possible for our minds to link together to create a collective human consciousness.”

While it is compelling to think humanity is indeed receiving divine energy and being prepared to enter a new age of enlightenment, history would tell us differently. Consider the Renaissance, for instance, an era that took mankind out of the Dark Ages, it did not take place over a matter of months or years but three centuries. And in the same way that it took more than a billion years for two life-forms to merge into a single organism, a new and enlightened species of homo sapiens is going to take a while.

Since the nineteen-sixties there have been several alignments predicted to inspire a mass expansion of consciousness and provide a gateway to a new world. There was the Dawn of the Age of Aquarius (5 February, 1962), the Harmonic Convergence (15 August, 1987), the end of the Mayan final world cycle (21 December 2012) and the annual Lion’s Gate Portals among them. None of which appear to have done very much to help humanity act in a more enlightened fashion. It’s going to take more than sixty years and a lot of work on our chakras!

In the same way that all the above were based on extraordinary alignments, the current line-up of planets in a tight little bundle could be among that number. What this alignment is most certainly doing is intensifying events, inspiring extreme reactions and presiding over some of the most transformational events in our history.

Believe me, I want to believe in a new world, but I think we have to go through a lot of turbulence and purging before we get there. Metamorphosis is a big job…

*See my video Saturn in Pisces   See my video Pluto in Aquarius.  See my video Jupiter/Uranus conjunction