Important Points of Reference (for astrologers):
Feb. 4, New Moon at 15 degrees Aquarius conjunct Mercury and sextile Jupiter; Feb. 19, Full Moon at 00 degrees Virgo trine Mars; Feb. 8 Mars in Aries squares the North and South Nodes and is conjunct Uranus on Feb. 13; Mercury in Aquarius is sextile Uranus Feb. 9, enters Pisces on the 10th, is conjunct Neptune on the 16th, is sextile Saturn on the 20th, is sextile Pluto on the 23rd, and is trine the North Node on the 26th; Venus goes into Capricorn Feb. 4th, is sextile Neptune on the 16th, is conjunct Saturn on the 17th, is conjunct Pluto on the 22nd, is conjunct the South Node on the 25th, and is square Uranus on the 28th.
-Uranus/Mars conjunction at the end of Aries –
Shock and Awe:
The transit of Uranus in Aries since 2011 has coincided with a “revolutionary” landscape here in the U.S. and throughout the world, resulting in civil wars, global alliances and negotiations breaking up, polarities in politics resulting in “extremes” battling with each other, and an advent of “populism” at war with itself.
Unfortunately, Uranus has mimicked its previous transit in Aries during the 1930’s, congruent with the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and widespread racism and xenophobia, extreme nationalism, and ethnic hatreds that ushered the world into war. There has been an escalation of war and division between Shia and Sunni Islamic nations, led in the region by Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Iran (Shia). There has been a re-emergence here in the U.S. of “white supremacy,” anti-immigration movements here and in Europe, and a rise in autocratic governments that include Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela and Brazil.
The recent battle in the U.S. over Pres. Trump’s desire to finance a giant physical wall between Mexico and the U.S., claiming that it is a “national emergency” leading to a government shutdown and no paychecks for 800,000 government workers, bears no resemblance to the kind of compromise it takes to work with the legislature and run a government. His relationship of accommodation with dictator Vladimir Putin, along with the Mueller investigation into Russia’s hacking into America’s social media to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, raises questions more about Trump’s imitating Putin’s absolute rule in Russia, than representing the interests of democracy and the American people. So far, Trump has threatened to make all Putin’s wishes come true. He has threatened to pull out of NATO, is pulling out of the Nuclear Disarmament Agreement made by Pres. Reagan and Gorbachev in the 1980’s, has already left the Paris Climate Accord, and has announced that he is pulling out of Syria leaving the nation to be ruled by Putin’s ally, Assad. Pres. Trump has arguably increased and highlighted the previously existent polarization and historic racial and ethnic hatreds that shatters this nation’s cohesiveness. All this reminds us of the old adage that history does not necessarily repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Aries, at its worst, is self-serving, infantile, aggressive, warlike, and impulsive. At its best, it is enthusiastic, energetic, pioneering and willing to take risks that lead to great innovation; even venturing outward into space. Like Star Trek it “goes where no man has gone before”. Its last transit saw the splitting of the atom, leading us into the nuclear age. During this current cycle, we substantiated the existence of the “God Particle” and proved the theory of “entanglement” that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”. Presently, our ventures into space and extraterrestrial planetary exploration are accelerating through Space X, NASA, and, recently, China’s successful effort at landing a vehicle on the Moon.
This has also been a period of significant earthquake activity and volcanic eruptions; not necessarily more in numbers, but more intense and destructive. Climate related emergencies have escalated during this period including hurricanes and typhoons, droughts, and fires in areas most vulnerable.
As transiting Mars goes over this final placement of Uranus in Aries from Feb. 1st through Feb. 13th, we will have the opportunity to witness a highlighting of all these types of events, especially violent and destabilizing on the 1st as Mars is square Pluto and on the 8th when it is square the Moon’s Nodal Axis. Mercury will sextile Jupiter on the 3rd and sextile Uranus on the 9th, emphasizing notable scientific discoveries and breakthroughs.
The sextile to Uranus could give us hope of passing a budget rather than facing another disastrous ‘shutdown.” Another shutdown could paralyze our governments functions, especially our airports and do long term damage. However, the Trump administration will likely continue its aggressive posture, emphasizing and increasing the polarization of our political system, demanding his “wall”, and continuing to proclaim the press as “an enemy of the people.” Recently, our own highest intelligence agencies have proclaimed the president has been wrong in his proclamations about ISIS (alive and well), Russia, Iran, and No. Korea.
Sadly, since 2004, 20% of all major newspapers have closed. Radio and television stations are owned by giant corporations, pushing products more than content and abbreviating stories that would require critical analysis. Many truth-telling online newsletters are fighting to survive by asking for donations, and some have disappeared. In January, it was announced there will be 1000 layoffs in the news business.
Our political landscape is all over the place! Multiple Democrats have announced they are running for president and even Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks has announced he may run, throwing everything up in the air. The most promising announcement astrological chart, so far, happens to be Kamala Harris (Jan. 20, 2019 at 7:20 AM EST, New York, NY). Expect the unexpected!
Mercury in a fogbank:
Mercury goes into Pisces Feb. 10th, will retrograde in this sign March 5th, goes direct March 28th and goes all the way through the sign until April 17th. This placement tends to be uncertain, confused, and is like a driver navigating at midnight in a fog! Mars will go into Taurus Feb. 14th through March 30th. These transits will make hard angles to the president’s chart that could be translated as confusion (squares and inconjunctions), highlighting conflicting components of his personality, and leaking information that he will want nobody to know. Pluto will also be in opposition to his Venus/Saturn conjunction from his 5th house to the 11th house, involving revelations of suspicious activities around his “friends” and his children. Although I do not expect he will be impeached, this period may be the most difficult for him since he came into office.
Venezuela (chart: September 22, 1830, 12:00 Noon, Caracas, Venezuela) is especially affected by this transit, as Maduro’s disastrous dictatorship is being challenged by Juan Guaido, who the Trump administration has announced we will support. He is not the only American president who has done something like this as we have “interfered” multiple times in Central and South America throughout the 20th Century. Russia has declared its support for Maduro. Some may argue that this resembles the Cuban crisis we confronted with Russia in the Kennedy administration of the early 60’s. The crisis in the Ukraine a few years ago is similar in that we sided with the government there who is fighting Russia. The Cold War has revived itself and is alive and well, especially as Russia, China, and the U.S. have placed satellites in orbit around the earth with the explicit purpose of spying on each other and being prepared to use nuclear weapons. China and Russia are allying with each other as they did in the Cold War years.
The Economy:
Financial markets may look better the first week of Feb. as Mercury is sextile Mars and Uranus. This looks like an upswing in companies who manufacture airplanes and weapons of war. This is also good for tech industries. When Mercury in Pisces is square Jupiter on the 18th, there may be some excessive selling. This precedes the March through May period of wild fluctuations that will make our collective heads head spin! I think gold and silver will make a “comeback” this year as a safety play.
We are witnessing severe downturns in retail industries, especially the “brick and mortar” stores, as Sears has declared bankruptcy, and J.P Penny and Macy’s are in serious trouble. The retailers that continue to be successful are Walmart and Target who have also tapped into the online part of this business , competing with giant Amazon. P.G. and E. has filed for bankruptcy because they cannot afford to pay for the law suits against them connected to last year’s California fires and repair their infrastructure. However, it has been found that it was another company that may have been liable.
≈ Not so easy to understand but very important! ≈
A major area of concern in the financial world that has been, in my opinion, purposefully “neglected” is the derivatives trade. One of the major causes of the crash of 2008 that threatened the banking system, was caused by the digitalization of finance, turning positions over to computer generated algorithms, leading to an explosion in computer-generated Derivative financial instruments that drove the global system to the edge of collapse. Does anyone remember “credit default swaps”? Following the tax payer supported bank bail outs, absolutely nothing was done to correct or regulate these practices, that, when there is so little human intervention, could take trillions of dollars down a “black hole”. Regulated or unregulated derivatives, some highly complex and varied, are largely a gigantic highly leveraged “bet” on a stock, commodity, that it will go up or down and each placement needs another counter-party gambler to bet in the opposite direction. In the case of Unregulated Derivatives, the nature of the “bets” are in most cases unknown since they are not required to be publicly reported. When there is a huge loss on one side, the loser may not be able to pay the winner so everybody loses. The public-at-large knows little or nothing about these dealings. The total estimated notional value of these regulated and unregulated derivatives is in the vicinity of a quadrillion dollars… that is more than all the money in the world! Back around 2004 Warren Buffet called derivatives “Financial instruments of mass destruction”. More recently almost nothing has been mentioned about derivatives… especially the unregulated type.
Risk is no longer spread out among many and varied financial institutions. Black Rock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity have the largest investment and retirement accounts. In the U.S. and around the world, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank hold and control trillions of dollars. This leaves everyone vulnerable in the event of a serious downturn.
Inequality of wealth has not been this wide since the early 20th Century. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck and few have more than $400 in their checking accounts. Why? The cost of housing is so high, salaries have been kept so low, and families have gotten themselves into the highest personal credit card debt in history. We also have a “gig” economy in which many are working part time or temporary jobs just to keep their heads above water.
l have predicted in many issues of this newsletter that by the end of this year, we are in for an economic crisis not seen since 1929. With all the craziness in Washington, the massive government, corporate, and private debt at all time highs, there will be no more doubts in the period between September and December, that our economy is in major trouble. The global economy around the world may be even worse. China has suffered a major downturn since the imposition of tariffs. Major Chinese corporation, Huauei suffered the arrest of their CEO in Canada, and the Chinese have been accused of the giant Marriott hack invasion and may have been behind the giant Equifax hack. They have accumulated major amounts of sovereign wealth debt. Many Central and South American nations are already failed states and suffering collapsed economies. Some have been taken over by drug cartels, which accounts for thousands of refugees coming to the U.S. to escape all this. Brexit in the UK is, undeniably, a catastrophe since they cannot agree on how to accomplish the feat. For some time, I have been predicting a possible “falling apart” of the European Union.
While we are witnessing an escalation of enormous gaps in wealth, funneling most of the money into the coffers of the 1%, recent research tells us all this has led to an escalation of “deaths of despair” such as suicide and opioid overdoses. The so-called high rate of employment includes about half of the nation’s population that lives at or below the poverty line and excludes the millions of homeless families. What shocked me, personally, were the recent interviews of suspended government workers during the shutdown that are living paycheck to paycheck and have no savings as a bridge against losing everything!
The present administration in Washington has done absolutely nothing to address the global casino controlled by the banking/corporate cartel that has been in control through multiple administrations and both political parties from the 1980’s until the present.
There will also be major storms and weather events, past and future that will strain our already troubled budget, as there will be very little money to repair the major infrastructure damage.
What Next?
I am of the opinion, as I have said in past newsletters, that there will be vast reforms and changes in the structures of economies in the 2020’s. This great recession will likely last until about 2024, during which there may be a huge “jubilee’ or debt forgiveness and it is possible we may “start over” using an all- digital dollar and use block chain technology to create it. Since about half of the jobs available today will likely be eliminated by technology, we will have federal single payer health care, an income for life that will prevent destitution between jobs, and a “Green Revolution”, concentrating housing in cities and moving organic gardening and farming close to these metropolitan areas. Local governance will outweigh federal governance in many areas. All this seems remote and unlikely at this time, but as planets move into Aquarius, there will be a major shift in consciousness, especially as climate emergencies will initiate a global wake up call.
Recently, the push for the Equal Rights Amendment has been revived. There will be opposition to it at this time, but I think it will eventually be passed. Women’s movements and rights have been strong for the past couple of years and I do not think their supporters are going away soon.
It has been reported that a Transnational Alliance Green New Deal has been formed among many European nations. They are moving forward without the support or leadership of the government of the U.S., but their efforts are encouraging. The urgency of all this is highlighted by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists statement in January that the Doomsday Clock remains at two minutes to midnight, “the closest it has ever been to apocalypse.”
Nature and the Environment:
(I wish to apologize for a mistake I made in last month’s newsletter. The Alaskan earthquake was not a 9.1 but a 7.1 on the Richter Scale.)
The transit of Mercury in Pisces from Feb. 10th through April 16th (because of the retrograde from March 5th through 28th), plus Mars transiting Taurus from Feb. 14th through March 30th will likely result in massive storms – snow, rain, sleet, and massive flooding. As I have reported before, I think we will see an increase in earthquakes, particularly those under the ocean, that will likely produce tsunamis, especially in the Pacific Ring of Fire, which includes California, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Indonesia has suffered these catastrophes for the past several months and I am concerned about something like this hitting Japan.
Final Thoughts:
So many people have been revealing to me that they are feeling overwhelmed: that they are only one person confronted by so many challenges in our world today; that there is so little that can be done. I think all of us have faced these seemingly insurmountable barriers and felt burnt out and worn down, especially while dealing with the many personal issues we have with our health, our families, our financial solvency or the lack of it, and a society that has “run away from us” and become depersonalized to the point it is unrecognizable.
This is the point at which I am so grateful that I have been a “stargazer” for most of my life; have lifted my eyes to the heavens and recognized grand constellations that portend a vast sea of possibilities for the human presence on earth. We have been “created” out of a possibly conscious universe. Its divine potential is accessible by our going within ourselves and experiencing something very mysterious – the “peace that passeth understanding”, and a love that is so great that it created all of us out of itself.
Will we fail? I think not.
Blessings to all.
