Mercury goes retrograde, Mars settles into its long transit in Gemini (Mercury ruled).
Has critical thinking become obsolete?
As we all move through the effects of a global pandemic, climate catastrophes, inflationary prices of fuel and the Russian War against Ukraine, we have watched politicians who are frequently stalemated and a tax evading billionaire class that continues to profit at the expense of humanity-at-large. Most of us are flummoxed, bewildered, and confused. A sizable percentage of Americans think the current president and his administration can simply wave a magic wand and fix problems that have been developing and escalating under the management of both political parties for over 50 years. Solutions that make sense have been explored by only a small fraction of the population. Political rhetoric and hatemongering have obscured efforts to rescue ourselves. Those of us in the business of forecasting future events, who predicted most of these trends, are truly saddened by the many failures to address the trends and act to alleviate the headwinds.
The Ancient God, Apollo, gifted Cassandra the art of prophecy with a contingency. Nobody would believe her!
Escaping into drugs and alcohol, accompanied by overdoses, is at an all-time high. On top of all this, young men are shooting people en masse in schools, parking lots and places of worship; persons whose personal histories are filled with personal failure, poverty, and hopelessness. A large portion of the population is confused since they have not studied years of political and corporate decisions that have been made over the years, in plain sight. Consequences are playing out over the vast landscapes of America.
However, the recent bills that have been passed in Washington are encouraging. These bills include salvaging healthcare benefits in the Affordable Healthcare Act, subsidizing Veterans for injuries inflicted from burn pits, giving Medicare the right to control prescription drug prices. The gun regulation bill is limited, but the best we could expect at this time. The biggest investment in history has been made in green energy and national infrastructure, and the Chips Bill will subsidize and support bringing chip manufacturing back into the US, creating at least 40,000 jobs. Corporations will pay a 15% tax on profits that is hoped to create budged surpluses rather than deficits. The President has announced a $10,000 debt forgiveness on student loans. All of this suggests we are moving in the right direction.
How did we get here?
What we can observe playing out is the “Greed is good” philosophy, the “financialization” of the economy by the one percent into stocks, hedge funds, and real estate companies. They have succeeded in lowering wages, moving many into poverty. What has followed is an unrestrained “globalism” that led to outsourcing manufacturing abroad, a slow failure to expand and improve public education due to lack of funding, a backlash of a religious fundamentalist culture to societal liberalization, and a betrayal broadly of the mass media to hold itself to high standards of journalism. Hedge funds and corporate interests have “bought out” local radio stations and newspapers, devastating truthful reporting on events all over our nation. All this has contributed to this historic period that may be referred to as “the long emergency.” How can we, as a people, use critical thinking when the capacity itself has seemed to desert us?
Is there reason to hope?
The answer is yes! Just as very few people believed my forecasts contained within three books and multiple newsletters in years gone by, very few believe my outlook for the future now, as the slow-moving planets will be moving into new signs between 2023 and 2026. Pluto is going into Aquarius, Neptune into Aries, and Uranus into Gemini, all forming supportive aspects with one another. These new signs are optimistic in both their intrinsic meanings and their relationships to each other. We will still be unable to avoid the consequences of global climate emergencies and many millions of humans will have to migrate to areas where they can survive, often overwhelming the resources of the nations at their destinations. This cannot be reversed, but solutions, technologies, and human social evolution will likely appear within the context of modern history that only a few visionaries think are possible!
Will the curse of Cassandra still play out, or will Apollo finally reappear and say: “Now they will listen!”
The Economy:
Mercury goes retrograde on Sept. 9th and will go direct on October 2nd. It rides back and forth in an opposition with Jupiter, sea-sawing from optimism to pessimism and back again. Financial markets will likely take a dive under the Mars/Neptune square in mid-October. With Venus in Virgo and Mercury going direct in Virgo, both trine Pluto, healthcare companies will be in the limelight. I think new vaccines for COVID, and its variants will be coming out in early Oct. under the Mercury/Pluto trine. The Saturn/Uranus square continues through the middle of November, still tending toward pessimistic thinking by the public, even though inflation is falling.
Politics:
The FBI invasion of Trump’s compound in Florida, preceded by a request for a warrant by the Attorney General and granted by a judge, has further polarized the political climate of the nation. They got the order from a federal judge since they had evidence Trump stole or destroyed top secret documents that could threaten the security of the nation. The Jan. 6th Congressional Investigation committee continues to uncover evidence that Trump contributed to the invasion of the Capitol. The State of Georgia investigation into Trump trying to throw the 2020 election in his favor intensifies. Trump’s chart is getting hit from so many tense planetary aspects, it is possible there may be many mental and physical health issues. Trump’s employees and sidekicks are getting convicted and going to jail.
Pres. Biden, who is not a young, glamorous figure, has accomplished so many of his and the Democrats’ goals, we have to recognize these achievements, whether or not he is personally liked or not liked. Inflation will be subsiding in many sectors of the economy. This, plus the backlash at the Supreme Court’s undoing of Roe v Wade, leads me to suspect the Democrats will do better than expected on election day. The astrology of Nov. 8th, containing a Lunar Eclipse conjunct Uranus and square Saturn is filled with upsets, technological instabilities, bad weather, and surprises.
Weather:
My opinion is that there will be extremes in the US Sept. through Nov., especially with hurricanes likely in October and severe winter storms coming early in November. I would avoid air travel under the Mercury retrograde this month into early October.
Science and Technology:
In the August Issue of Scientific American, there is an article entitled: “Healing Waters – Compounds that sea creatures make to defend themselves could yield lifesaving medicines.” by Stephanie Stone.
Research has been ongoing for decades to find cures for human diseases in ocean organisms. The article reports: “By 1990 PharmaMar had isolated a compound from the A.albicans specimen that was active against both cancer and virus cultures. PharmaMar pursued the cancer angle because cancer drugs tend to be more profitable than antivirals. After decades of research and testing, in 2018 Australia approved plitidepsin as a treatment for multiple myeloma. When the COVID pandemic hit, company scientists quickly proved that plitidepsin was effective against SARS-Co-2 in both laboratory cultures and mice, and it outperformed competing antivirals in preclinical, head-to-head trials. In 2020 PharmaMar launched a phase 1-2 clinical trial for hospitalized COVD patients that concluded in 2021. The results were dramatic 74 percent of the patients with moderate disease recovered fully within a week of their first dose. The phase 3 trial is due to finish by December.”
It would be worth your time to read the whole article which is very encouraging for medical breakthroughs.
As you all know who read this newsletter, I am hopeful that Nuclear Fusion, the “Holy Grail” of energy will manifest in time for us to save the earth’s climate and enjoy infinite amounts of energy to sustain and expand our technology. Recently, news was released that “ignition” was attained last year at California’s Livermore Laboratories Fusion site. Even though it lasted only a few seconds, progress is moving rapidly toward sustained ignition.
Other Nations:
I think that the Mars in Gemini and Venus and Mercury in Virgo will likely activate tensions in No. Korea’s astrological chart, especially under the Full Moon of Sept. 10th. They may threaten to launch another nuclear weapon. COVID has taken a terrible toll in this nation, whose people are already in the edge of starvation.
The war in Ukraine will take some new “turns” this month through the end of the year. Russia will find itself increasingly depleted of both military weapons and willingness of their people to be conscripted into the conflict. Putin may feel pushed to escalate the conflict, committing even worse atrocities. They will eventually have to make a deal.
Things are stirring up in China. Xi Jinping’s policies have angered his people, who are “under his thumb” and experiencing far more suppression since relations between China and the US are worsening over the status of Taiwan. Their debt is enormous, their economy is suffering, climate extremes are increasing, and there may be other people waiting in the wings to compete with him for power.
Final Thoughts:
“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.”
From “Burnt Norton” by T. S. Eliot
As a student of astrology for nearly half of my lifetime, I am continually surveying cycles and chains of events as they occur within what we experience as “time”. Observed as unfolding within the motions of the earth, the moon and the sun, we create clocks and calendars and place our multitude of experiences – scheduled and unscheduled – within these contexts. However, we also have been told by Dr. Albert Einstein and his descendants that time “slows down” the closer we travel toward the speed of light.
This is the way we make sense of “change”, which is an inevitable and ongoing process we all see and feel throughout our lives and even afterward! I see life as part of a magnificent, eternally moving cosmos and to which we are connected – even out of which we were created. This suggest that the multi-verse may be consciousness itself, creating and destroying and recreating out of itself. We may be of this very substance and among the very few creatures that are open to this possibility.
I speculate. If this is so, we have the power to summon an awareness greater than times gone by and change the past as well as the future, by deciding to do so in the present. This would lead me to believe that we can solve seemingly unsolvable problems, no matter how large they loom in our lives.
As we observe through the Hubble and the James Webb telescopes, we are looking at the wondrous universe as it was billions of years ago as we have to wait for light to travel here for us to see. Our capability to actually experience this through the technologies we have invented within a very small segment of “time” leads me to have hope for the future of human life and the human experience.
We must never give up, give in, or capitulate to the darker recesses of our psyche. The continuum will continue. The potential is endless.
Let’s get going!
Blessings,
Linda
Important Points of reference for astrologers:
Full Moon at 17 degrees Pisces sextile Uranus Oct. 10; New Moon at 2 degrees Libra opposition Jupiter Oct. 25; Mercury goes retrograde in Libra opposite Jupiter on Sep. 8th and goes direct trine Pluto Oct. 2nd; Venus goes into Virgo Sept. 5, is square Mars and is trine the No. Node Sept. 16, is inconjunct Saturn Sept. 21, is trine Uranus Sept. 21, is opposition Neptune Sept. 3, and is trine Pluto Sept. 25; Mars in Gemini is trine Saturn Sept. 27.
