The Fixed French Cross

 

November 11, 2005 (with two charts)

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/nov11.html

 

Dear Readers:

 

WITH EACH NEW edition of Astrology Secrets Revealed lately, it feels like we cover 10 years of history, and it's certainly a challenge trying to process and piece together what is happening.

 

We seem to be in some kind of celestial speedup, or a cosmic riptide that's accelerating the evolutionary process. The strange thing about the movement of time is that we usually stand with our backs toward the future; we typically look toward the past, see the past, and remember the past. The future seems to be an abstraction; the present is elusive; only the past is concrete, because we're surrounded by its debris.

 

Strange, isn't it?

 

Just after our last edition went to press, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, announced the indictment of Scooter Libby, a high-level Bush administration official. He was charged with lying to investigators and obstructing the investigation into who leaked the name of US spy Valerie Plame to the press in retaliation for her husband revealing that lies were told on the march to war.

 

As covered in the prior edition, the chart that predicted this event was the secondary progressions of the Inauguration chart. And per that same chart, we have mucho big news coming in late March, when the progressed Gemini Moon opposes the 8th house Pluto.

 

The indictment is truly monumental news, and the first serious governmental challenge to the credibility of the Iraq war or the Bush administration. Libby immediately resigned, and the investigation of the almighty Karl Rove (a/k/a Bush's brain) continues. Dick Cheney continues to be under some rather difficult transits, for someone in his position.

 

The chart for the indictment itself features Capricorn rising, and the Sun and Part of Fortune are conjunct on the 10th house cusp in Scorpio. Jupiter occupies the MC, conjunct to within 7 arc minutes. The Moon is in Virgo. There is a close Venus-Pluto conjunction.

 

The exact data for the indictment is: Friday, Oct. 28, 2005, 12:37 pm EDT, Washington, DC. Source: live television report from courtroom, via cell phone, as it happened.

 

And though it may not seem like much to some, particularly those who are used to hearing about people thrown in to Guantanamo Bay with no charges and left there four years, the British Parliament's House of Commons firmly defeated a plan Wednesday night that would have kept supposed terror suspects in jail for 90 days with no charges. That was at 4:56 pm GMT in London.

 

It is a defeat for Tony Blair who, like Bush, has developed the disturbing habit of making up the God's honest truth out of air. Living in the international world that we do, it's a good example for the Americans, who certainly need a little leadership at this point.

 

Rioting Across France

 

Dominating the news these days is, of course, the horrendous situation in France -- rioting initially breaking out in the housing projects of Clichy-sous-Bois, then spreading across the country.

 

In France, recent events were set off by the electrocution deaths of Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, on the evening of Oct. 27. Here is the chart. This was just a day before the indictment, so we have two crucial historical events emerging with Jupiter in very early Scorpio, and with a Venus-Pluto conjunction.

 

France is having some wild and ugly scenes. While the US media are turning the story into their usual blend of horror and entertainment, many thousands of cars have indeed been burned (sometimes more than 1,000 in a night) and businesses are being torched, all in what you could view as an enormous, violent, extremely expensive national transformational ritual.

 

The rioting has spread from the Mediterranean to the German border and even into the heart of Paris on one occasion. France is very fortunate not to be a gun culture like the United States; the cops pretty much do count on not getting shot at.

 

Something is definitely in the air -- particularly a fixed grand cross that was exact Monday as the Mars retrograde reached its peak. Mars retrograde in Taurus opposed the Sun in Scorpio, marking the exact midpoint in the retrograde process and making an exact square, along with the Sun, to Neptune in Aquarius. Saturn in Leo is nearby. Here is the chart for the grand fixed cross.

 

Under this energy, there have also been protests and riots in many places during the past week or so, including in Argentina, greeting Bush showing up for a summit of leaders of countries in the Americas, as well as election-related protests in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, and rather vocal demonstrations in London earlier this week, greeting the official state visit of China's President Ho.

 

The French situation that has surfaced is a very old story, dating back to something called the Algerian War of Independence half a century ago. To make a long story longer, I'm going to provide more than usual political background, because it's relevant to the chart, and because I'm not seeing it anywhere else on the Internet.

 

Beginning in 1954, Algerian Muslim factions in a French colony waged what began as a guerilla war against France, seeking independence, which evolved into full-on warfare that by some estimates killed 1.5 million people on both sides. Note that the war is having its Chiron return; the crisis began with Chiron in late Capricorn and proceeded through its duration with Chiron in Aquarius. Chiron is now in the process of making the change from Capricorn to Aquarius. So we are seeing unfinished business of the Algerian situation emerge, as is often the case with the Chiron return.

 

The setting where the riots began is where many Algerian and other North African immigrants and their descendants still live. The curfew laws being used now were originally created for the purpose of quelling crises in France associated with the Algerian war. And the housing projects themselves were created to provide a housing solution for hundreds of thousands of North African immigrants. So there are many throwbacks to one Chiron cycle ago. (But we must remember that this situation, like Iraq, is part of the long, violent struggle between the Christians and the Muslims that goes back almost to the beginning of both religions.)

 

We are by now familiar with the setting. The interior of Paris, with its grand boulevards, incomparable postcards and 10 euro scrambled eggs, is just one side of city life. The other side is the outside. Beyond the Peripheral, the highway that goes around the central part of the city, there are many little towns featuring housing projects called "Cités." This is an image of being beyond the boundary of Paris, much like Chiron orbits outside the boundary of Saturn. Living on the edge of society has appeared many times in the annals of Chiron. The people out there are indeed outcasts, another theme near and dear to Chiron.

 

The Cités resemble prisons where African and North African immigrants and their children live, with few jobs, little access to transportation and essentially nothing to do. They are ghettoes in the true sense of the word -- concentrations of certain categories of people. Those who live there are treated as outsiders, and in many respects they are forgotten, excluded members of French society. By all reports, it's a hopeless life, and the young men there are extremely frustrated and restless -- a feeling apropos of Mars retrograde in Taurus.

 

These young people say they are under constant police harassment, which led to the deaths of the two teenagers Oct. 27.

 

It has not helped the situation that, instead of offering his regrets over the deaths of the two boys (who feared they were being chased by the cops -- a typical scene), the French minister of the interior, someone of "conservative" persuasion with political aspirations, called Nicolas Sarkozy, referred to the residents of the Cités as rachaille and said he would clean them up with Karcher, a violent, abrasive cleaning system used to strip away extremely hard dirt, such as encrusted pigeon droppings.

 

There is no exact translation for rachaille, but it's a stupid and mean thing for a government minister to say, particularly when people are suffering from grief, and when the whole situation is so sensitive and volatile. Sarkozy is inflaming an old and unhealed wound, again recalling the Chiron return. In the United States, we call this race baiting: saying or doing something that stirs up racial trouble, and which looks all too intentional.

 

But true to the nature of Chiron in Capricorn, Sarkozy is playing all his cards and showing us what he's really made of.

 

The French National Horoscope

 

To begin understanding these events astrologically, let's start with the current chart of France -- called the Fifth Republic, a political entity created during (and in part, in response to) the Algerian war, and which changed the status of Algeria to a more independent relationship from the mainland of France. This chart goes into the Classic Example file.

 

First, take a look at the arrow on top of the chart. What is it pointing to? Gee whiz -- none other than THE ARIES POINT. You can recognize it by the ram's horns up on top, that are the symbol for the sign Aries, and the 00 next to it, meaning the first degree. The Aries Point never fails to make an appearance in this column, and it is making a stunning one today, in person, precisely on the 10th house cusp -- the house dealing with government. This is a permanent feature of the current French chart. France and its government are in a sense under the constant influence of the Aries Point, which gives their actions far-reaching effects and makes the actions of the government feel particularly personal to a lot of people.

 

Week after week, we have seen this point in action. It is "The Personal is Political" area of the chart, and that is the theme of our era. The Aries Point has been sparked off by a series of events going back to a total solar eclipse of June 21, 2001, covered extensively in this column and looked at closely in the Sept. 9 edition. We have also had a LOT of action on the Aries point over the past summer, particularly the first of two Capricorn Full Moons that fully activated the June 21, 2001 eclipse. (My article on Planet Waves, "Twice: The Capricorn Full Moon" also looks closely at this event.)

 

What is interesting is that the involvement of the Aries Point links the current situation in France to the Sept. 11, 2001 incident (owing to that June 21, 2001 eclipse), and many other modern events. When I say the words "Aries Point," that really means the first degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn -- the Cardinal Points. The four degrees (and their immediate surrounds) function as one energy system. It's also okay to refer to "Cancer Point" when dealing with the first degree of Cancer, or Libra Point or so on; the point comes across.

 

The French national chart has another super-weird connection to the Sept. 11 chart -- involving the Moon's placement at 28+ degrees Gemini. This was the exact position of the Moon when the World Trade Center was attacked; and, in another genuinely bizarre synchronicity, during the earthquake that created the Asian tsunamis late last year, which killed a lot of Muslims. There must be a Muslim connection to this degree, but I don't know what it is yet.

 

For reference, the Moon occupies one degree of the zodiac for two hours, 13 times a year. So, that's a total of one day per year, but divided over 13, two-hour appearances -- not so very often, and the Moon is moving fast. And this one particular degree keeps showing up.

 

The next noteworthy thing about the French national chart is that the most recent solar eclipse, on Oct. 5, was exactly conjunct the natal Sun of France. Notice that in the Fifth Republic chart, the Sun is at 11 degrees of Libra and 12 arc minutes. The eclipse occurred at 10 degrees of Libra and 19 minutes -- a very close conjunction. Here is the chart for the eclipse, to refresh your memory:

 

This chart is set for Clichy-sous-Bois. Remember that eclipse charts are among the very best predictive charts you can work with (assuming you look at them and actually make the prediction -- that's at least half the trick). Here is a fine example of why, and a revelation of how events help us understand astrology.

 

For those of you who are fans of the Centaur planets (Chiron and those in its group), the chart has the last degree of Scorpio in the ascendant. There is a planet near that degree -- Pholus, the second Centaur planet. The named Centaurs began with Chiron, discovered in 1977; then came Pholus in 1992, and Nessus in 1993. They are all intense, they accelerate the action of the chart, and will get in your face till you notice what they are saying.

 

Pholus has the property of release, opening, and emerging -- i.e., something gets out and you can't get it back in, such as when riots begin and you cannot stop them. Another quality of Pholus is anything involving three generations -- such as the three generations that have elapsed since the Algerian war.

 

Pholus also addresses issues that belong to the entire tribe, collective property, and group responses. The grief over the deaths of Traore and Benna, the two teenage boys, is certainly collective tribal property.

 

The connection between the eclipse and the France-Fifth-Republic chart emphasizes the point that the Libra planets in the France chart have been taking a lot of transits during the past year, culminating with an exact eclipse. In the fall of 2004, there was another peak of Libra activity, around the time that Yasser Arafat (another Muslim connection) was brought to Paris when he was sick and dying.

 

Here is how I reported it at the time:

 

"France has been big news the past week, with the death of Yasser Arafat near Paris and the Ivory Coast exploding into crisis. I thought I would have a look at the national horoscope of France, set for Oct. 5, 1958, 12:01 a.m., Paris -- the chart for the creation of what is called the Fifth Republic, under the leadership of DeGaulle. The Fifth Republic replaced a factional parliamentary government, and put in place a strong presidency. Interesting that this change came in the midst of a crisis involving Algeria, one of the last true French colonies, and with the Ivory Coast, now we're seeing a kind of colonial crisis emerge again.

 

"During the past week, we've had an enormous amount of intense astrology blow through Libra, and it turns out that Libra dominates the chart of France. With Venus, Ceres, Mercury, and the Sun all being in the sign of the scales, when we get a series of events -- like last week's triple eclipse of planets by the Moon -- you can be sure that things are going to get interesting."

 

Well, interesting is hardly the word for it. I have pondered a few times over the past year why France seemed so quiet, given the intensity of the transits the chart was taking. Like a lot of things in here, this situation took its time developing. But the cosmic trigger was an exact eclipse on the Sun of its natal chart -- which set off a decades-old colonial crisis. The people in the Cités are the legacy of France's colonial experiments in North Africa, which from time to time erupt into crisis.

 

Now, an eclipse on the Sun does not always spell disaster. But it does spell energy movement. What moves depends on what kind of energy you have. If you've had a disaster brewing for a long time, then an eclipse is the perfect way to let the pressure off. The problem with broadcasting this kind of information is that it gives eclipses a bad name, or rather, makes sure that their bad-name-of-old sticks.

 

Part of the reason that eclipses are so troubling to people is that they are all about change, and hardly anybody likes change. And that is why the world gets into so much trouble so often.

 

The Grand Fixed Cross

 

In considering the events of the past couple of weeks, we can't ignore the grand fixed cross that passed through this week. Once again, here is a link to the chart, set for Clichy-sous-Bois:

 

This aspect structure involves planets in the fixed signs during the past few months: the long Mars retrograde in Taurus; Saturn moving into Leo in July; and the Sun and Jupiter moving into Scorpio about two weeks ago. This aspect was covered in two places in the last edition of Astrology Secrets Revealed.

 

The grand fixed cross is going to be with us for a while. It reincarnates in Version 2 on December 5 (as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn come into contact, with Neptune close by) and then again Jan. 15, with the same four planets forming a more precise alignment. I will cover these aspects in the coming weeks.

 

The fixed signs are about transmutation; going beyond limitations; going to a new level; moving from the physical to the nonphysical; from ego to soul level of awareness. There is a quality of liberation. Certainly, it is true enough that the grand fixed cross can arrive with a lot of contention -- but the message, the project, the lesson, the idea, is rising above the battleground, resolving the strife, and meeting in peace, as friends.

 

Okay -- with the news out of the way, I can take some of your questions. Please tune into Planet Waves, and thanks for your subscriptions to our premium service, which supports the daily web page as well as Astrology Secrets Revealed. Thanks to the many Cainer.com readers who have become happy customers.

 

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Charts in this section were cast by Tracy in Solar Fire 5.

 

Tracy has been designing some astrology calculation tools of her own -- have a look at her web page.