Révolution Tumultueuse…

An awful night. I slept very badly because of a series of anxious dreams about flooding. At one point I was in a pedestrian plaza that I did not recognise: there were tall buildings on either side and I had to run to reach a footbridge before a great swathe of dirty water reached me. At some other point I was driving in my car and turning out of a junction I saw that the road was a river! I was stunned, it was raging, covered with debris and I was really worried about the car being washed away, and about some piece of debris taking the exhaust off. When I woke up I was quite intrigued because I thought that it was one of those emotional dream cues, until I saw the news this morning and there I watched the same scenes as I’d been dreaming all night on the screen…

Suffice to say that nothing quite so psychically compelling has happened to me before, I am actually quite unnerved by the experience because the scenes were identical in every detail and it was terrifying.

Before I knew about the Sendai City tsunami though I lay in the dawn murk thinking about the ingress of Uranus into Aries. I did not know at that point that my oil tank had run dry, although it was uncharacteristically cold in the bedroom, a sure sign that the heating hasn’t been working. For the last 7 years Neptune in Aquarius has been lent considerable dignity by Uranus’ passage through Pisces, the two planets are in mutual reception, so Neptune has gained power, support and comfort from Uranus, but tomorrow night, only 24 hours after the Sendai City earthquake hit, Neptune will lose that support. It is no surprise that my heating oil has run out too. My world is, these days, almost entirely metaphysical in apprehension, so I cannot hide from reality in “reality” and pretend it’s a coincidence.

I fully expect therefore to see the current oil crisis continuing in a fluctuating but broadly deteriorating spiral until Neptune moves into his own sign Pisces, and will be immeasurably more potent than he is in the decidedly unlubricated sign of Aquarius. Oil was “discovered” in August 1859 (See Monica’s fascinating article on this subject for more), and Neptune returns to that same point in April 2023 through Feb 2024. That’s oil’s Neptune return.

I would say that oil will probably run out in around 2024, and until that point we can assume that the egress of Uranus from Pisces will have a disruptive effect in the interim and we are seeing that influence quite clearly already. After all, in Aries, Uranus is operating in service to Mars, and since Uranus tends to make sweeping changes and challenge outdated structures, he’ll be working for that agenda under Mars’ direction. Armed revolution is the order of the day. Under Neptune’s influence Uranus will have been trying to transcend, and perhaps revolutionise indirectly, a révolution tranquille, a whispering campaign. Under Mars, things will become, and already are becoming, far more direct. Indeed, the transit of the Aries’ Point is especially potent because the energy shifts from oppressed, voiceless victim to assertive, fighting energy overnight. At the Aries’ Point we, the people, are done with it.

There is still some protection now because while Mars is in Pisces there is a short chain of receptions lending Neptune power (Mars = Neptune = Uranus = Mars etc.), but as soon as Mars moves into Aries we can expect further and more committed disruptions on the world scene. April 4th ought to be especially potent as Mars contacts Uranus in Aries.

I would say that Uranus energy has been quite affected by the mutual receptions with Neptune over the last few years, and perhaps the Uranian type has been subject to a general malaise as a result, Neptune themes will cloud the effectiveness of the Uranian type under such influence – of course in good ways – but also in difficult ways, and the Cardinal Cross of the last 2 years has simply exacerbated that tendency. Pluto will increase the revolutionary pressure over the next 5 years or so as well, and I fully anticipate the world becoming a much scarier place (especially for Western societies) as a consequence. Having said that though, the world has had ample opportunity over the last few years to devalue Uranian energy, and those who have got onto the Saturn bandwagon in a big way are going to start reaping their ‘rewards’ in the coming days and weeks.

This isn’t just typical Neptunian apocalyptic thinking either: we are seeing it happen on our TV screens. When we oppress innovation, difference, even craziness, we run the risk of gradually narrowing focus, until societies serve only the interests of those who toe the line and the unconventional is stigmatised until it has become deviance and weirdness.

Such are the symptoms of the decline of empires.

Tales of Fallen Reception: Sun in Libra, Saturn in Aries

The astrology of Carole Lombard has a raft of fascinating factors; born in 1908, she was arguably the template for comedy acting; despite her deliriously dreamy good looks she was never much enamoured of the screen-siren mantle that could have been hers for the taking; she was a fast-talking, strong willed dynamo who swore like a trooper and knew her own mind. Her nickname on the studio circuit was “the Profane Angel” and Howard Hawks said of her: “Marvellous girl. Crazy as a bedbug.” She died in 1942 aged only 33, when the aircraft she was travelling home in crashed into the summit of Mount Potosoi, south west of Las Vegas.

No surprise then that her forté was Screwball Comedy, nor that Hawk considered her to be “crazy”, her astrology is as screwball and crazy at it gets. Far from evincing a single pointed focus, her astrology is a dizzying, confusing maze of indications and contraindications. But let us consider a few of the extant themes:

1. Chiron rises in Aquarius, crazy but sensitive.
2. Moon also rises, but in dreamy Pisces.
3. Moon opposes Venus conjunct Jupiter, giving (according to Ebertin) “Film Star mannerisms”, this on Regulus too, and forming the basis for a tee-square to her Midheaven.
4. A grand trine: across the 1st/5th and 8th/9th houses that includes Pallas! Why am I not surprised!?

And finally, consider the debilitated mutual reception in opposition of Sun in Libra with Saturn in Aries. Both these planets are in fall and thus considered weak, but by mutual reception they are placed in the signs of each-others exaltation, in opposition they are difficult to balance, but how else explain Carole’s enormous determination to succeed in comedy? Saturn in Aries is a strange placement, it ought to in theory be more or less the most debiltated of positions for Saturn, but somehow the stubborn, wilful nature of Aries seems to suit Saturn in a manner that the other fire-signs simply do not. There is no smooth sense of persistence with it, rather, like the Ram the Saturnine Arian will butt against a problem out of sheer bloody-mindedness for a while and then give up, but importantly, it rankles, so he or she will be back eventually and butt away some more, and again, and again. The truth is that Saturn in Aries gives astonishing, if intermittent persistence.

Traditionally the placement gives a high level of entitlement without the necessary humility; Saturn in Aries wants your respect but doesn’t want to serve his apprenticeship to earn it, but when he does eventually learn that he’s not getting your respect he’ll persist.

Sun in Libra is equally indifferent to solar qualities which demand a sense of entitlement too, the Libran is always expending effort on ensuring the other person feels at ease, only to realise that he or she is the only person that feels dissatisfied with things; all the energy has been spent on everyone else!

So then, consider the reversal; Sun in Aries gives a real power to focus exclusively on one’s own needs; subjectively it is a great position for the Sun – even though the downside is that you can appear to be very selfish – but by its very nature Aries doesn’t actually care all that much about what the other person thinks, so where’s the crime? Similarly, Saturn is very comfortable in the sign of Libra, which rules the serious business of justice and gives a weighty consideration and an element of gravitas in the demeanour that usually commands the respect that Saturn in Aries feels is his divine right.

The mutual reception then, especially one where the planets see each other in aspect (thus by quincunx, quindecile or most powerfully, by opposition) gives the potential to realise the very best potentials of the interchange of energies by mutual reception, but only after the lesson of Saturn has been learned. Now Carole Lombard may have been considered ditzy, but she certainly displayed a great quality of persistence and other factors in her chart allowed her to experience great success even before Saturn had transformed. Intriguingly she married Clark Gable at the time of her Saturn return, just as the mutual reception would have been raised a notch or two in her psyche.

Another notable actor with the same debilitated mutual reception is Guy Pearce, who although ostensibly Australian, was actually born in Cambridgeshire, England. The release of his most critically acclaimed movie Memento in 2000 saw Pluto transiting his tenth house whilst Solar Arc Sun applied to conjunction with radix Neptune, the actor’s high-point therefore; although no doubt the sense of confused, continually dissolving real-world conditions that were at the heart of that movie’s plot were reflective of some genuine sense of dissolution in Pearce’s life at that time. As above, so below and life imitates art, as any good astrologer understands. Similarly the movie dealt with the difficult aftermath of a head-injury, Carole Lombard suffered a serious scar to her face during an auto-accident early in her short career, and due to the polarity of Saturn with skin, the opposition to blemishless Libra and Aries of the head, Saturn in Aries very frequently gives scars, skin eruptions and injuries to the face.

Alan Leo said of the Sun opposition to Saturn (and he applied the same sentiment to the conjunction as well) that by it, “the native is frequently confronted with obstacles and delay, and unless in mutual reception, it is very unfortunate for all things signified by the two planets, bringing misfortunes in business, loss of public favour, likelihood of the father’s death, loss of father’s money or separation from or disagreement with him.” (from “How to Judge a Nativity” p249. LN Fowler & Co. 1928).

Rarely do the natives with this particular configuration manage to shine in early life, theirs is the task of having to learn to combine the best qualities of Sun and Saturn, Aries and Libra, and usually the work has to be done – as is Saturn’s timeless directive – the hard way.