Liquid Moon

 

August 11, 2006 (with charts)

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/aug11.html

 

Dear Friends, Near and Far:

 

MI5, the British intelligence agency, said Thursday that it had foiled a major terrorist plot to blow up airplanes mid-flight from the UK to the United States using explosives contained in fizzy drinks.

 

Home Secretary John Reid confirmed that there had been a plot "to bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions causing a considerable loss of life," BBC reported Thursday morning.

 

When the UKs airports reopen, carry-on baggage will be banned for the first time, and only bare essentials such as passports will be allowed in the cabin, contained in a transparent bag.

 

Twenty-one arrests were made. The chart, which I will go over in a moment, suggests that when those details are available, we will see a domestic plot of some kind, much like with the Underground bombings of the summer of 2005. [Note, just after I typed this, news came out that all those arrested were indeed British subjects, of Pakistani descent.]

 

Though the bust has already been made, the alert level has been raised to "critical," or imminent attack expected -- it's being reported that two plotters are still at large. It has been reported that part of this plot involved the potential use of "liquid explosives," in the form of hair gel. In what will be devastating news to many, styling goo has been banned from flights.

 

Indeed, BBC News was reporting Thursday that all liquids, including insulin and contact lens solution, are banned. In a slightly conflicting report, it was also reported that mothers were being required to taste baby milk in front of security agents.

 

Nobody is missing that this event occurred on the Aquarius Full Moon, conjunct the planet Neptune, right? That is a LOT of liquid. Neptune is also the great astrological question mark in the sky, often representing foggy situations where the truth is never known.

 

As discussed last week, we are in the midst of a major planetary event, the long opposition of two planets, Saturn and Neptune. This is the opposition or full phase of a conjunction that occurred in 1989. The Full Moon yesterday occurred with the Sun conjunct Saturn and the Moon conjunct Neptune, hence emphasizing the opposition in a personal way.

 

As I wrote in last week's Planet Waves Weekly:

 

"Solar and lunar activity often serve to emphasize existing astrology. As we've been discussing, we are in a global threshold indicated by the opposition of Saturn and Neptune, which is also working on the level of a psychological and emotional process for each individual. While the aspect reaches the exact alignment August 31, the Full Moon on Wednesday [Aug. 9] will pull it into focus and precipitate events that are involved with the larger process...the presence of the exceptionally personal Sun and Moon will do something else -- draw many people into the situation, through awareness, experience, and feeling. The Full Moon is like being near the water when the tide is rising. If you're on a boat, you go up. If you're on the beach, you get wet, or you go to higher ground."

 

Hmmm, more liquid yet.

 

The fact that locally, the Full Moon it occurred at about noon (summer or daylight savings time) means that the Sun was high in the sky. This gave the aspect considerable emphasis in England and much of Europe.

 

However, we do have an event time we can use -- the Security Service raised the alert level at 2 am Thursday. Here is the chart:

 

So let's see what we get. Cancer is in the ascendant. Cancer rising puts great emphasis on the Moon. Now, in any event or horary chart, the Moon is important, but particularly when Cancer is in the ascendant. When we look at the Moon, we find out: 1. Its last major aspect was to Pluto; 2. It is technically void of course, but also applying to a quincunx or inconjunct to Venus and Mercury.

Whether to use the quincunx or inconjunct aspect is a question (which is why it's called an "inconjunct" -- in the old days it was considered a non-aspect); let's leave the question open. What matters more is whether the ruler of the ascendant and the ruler of the house representing the question make an aspect, and what it says.

 

What is the house for this question? Hmmm, I say the 12th -- secret enemies, and big secrets in general. The 12th has Taurus on the cusp and Gemini intercepted (stuck in the middle with no house cusp going through it). This gives us two rulers for the 12th -- Mercury and Venus. We find these situated: 1. In the sign Cancer, meaning domestic and 2. In the 2nd house: money. Lots and lots of money. Resources. Wealth. The wealth of nations. In Cancer, the wealth of the planet.

 

Interestingly enough, the Aquarius Moon makes its next aspect, an inconjunct, to that very Mercury and Venus.

 

Is it just me, or is there really something quite annoying when we get a news chart for a big dramatic event where lots of lives may be lost, but were saved -- and then the chart is talking about a big pile of cash?

 

Whether you follow the old rule and don't count the quincunx/inconjunct as an aspect, or whether you do, a fairly weak Moon to Venus contact is not the kind of thing that would signify foiling the biggest terrorist plot in the history of the empire, where many lives have been saved, and the president of the United States was being briefed on the phone all night.

 

From last week's Planet Waves Weekly: "Neptune in Aquarius represents a kind of mass delusion and media haze, which is being used to pump an aggressive agenda into the minds of people in countries with the most resources."

 

In modern terms, usually psychological, the quincunx/inconjunct is an aspect of "adjustment." What, associated with money, might be getting adjusted? The Moon is in Aquarius, the sign of the people. Aquarius is the 8th sign from the ascendant; the 8th is the house of death and taxes. I think that somehow or another, England is going to have to pay for all the wars it's participating in, and the way you do that is, of course, taxes. You skim some of that wealth from everyone to pay for the mess -- and you keep on fighting.

 

The film "Wag the Dog" has trained us all to be skeptical of big news when the careers of politicians plunge to all-time lows, and when so much else is going amiss in the world. Let me be the first to remind you not to pay any attention to Iraq and Lebanon, or the man behind the curtain.

 

Fidel: Newborn Octogenarian

 

Now for the original lead to today's edition.

 

On my birthday a few years back, when I was living in Miami at the same time Elian Gonzalez was there, I hired a car and drove down to Key West, the last little island in the Florida Keys. There, I stayed in a motel that claimed to be the closest one in the United States to Cuba. You could walk out the door, go half a block to this rocky shoreline, and there was the famous sign: 90 miles to Cuba.

 

Indeed, that little piece of the world had an ominous feeling, for whatever reason, with the wild ocean there dropping off like an abyss, and the fog, and all that Cuba stands for. Cuba is an island that holds a place in Earth mythology second only to Atlantis. In the political history of the modern world, Cuba holds a very special place for anyone who feels global domination by capitalism is neither right, nor necessary, and who accepts that countries are sovereign and have a right to manage their own affairs.

 

But most of all, since the revolution of 1959, the United States has tried every dirty trick in the book to mess Cuba up, including hundreds of attempts on the life of Fidel Castro by the CIA. There have been plans to invade, create fake attacks and blame them on Cuba, and then "retaliate," and plenty of other plots and schemes. None of them have worked.

 

Castro is the world's longest ruling current head of government.

 

It's Castro's 80th birthday this week, and I would like to take a brief look at his chart. Castro is not somebody who is usually celebrated in our neck of the woods -- but they love him a lot of places, most of which are where Spanish is spoken. Castro has been in the news because he just underwent intestinal surgery of some kind, and handed over power to his brother Raul.

 

Castro remains a controversial, despised figure in much of American culture, particularly in the mainstream media, which takes many jabs at him. Any American politician who calls Fidel Castro a dictator is the ultimate hypocrite -- we need to fix our national election system in the States before we can claim to have a democratic country. To borrow from a recent quote on Cuban TV, it's tin pan rhetoric. Canada has long taken a more warm-hearted attitude toward Cuba, purchasing more than a third of Cuba's exports, including shellfish, sugar and nickel.

 

There are four potential birth charts for Fidel Castro. This is not a typical problem when doing astrology, but it happens often enough that it's worth commenting on. Most sources cite Aug. 13, 1926 as the date of birth. Two times are circulating; 2 am and 1 pm. This is the usual kind of problem you have. But now it gets more interesting when you factor in some sources saying he was really born in 1927. That makes a potential of four charts.

 

The first time I ran into this question, I checked the Chinese year to see if that gave a clue. If he was born in 1926, he was born the year of the Tiger. If he was born 1927, he was born the year of the Hare (or the Cat in Korean astrology). Castro has elements of both. But Tiger gives you assertive leadership qualities like a Dragon or Horse, and someone who is not afraid of conflict. While Castro now wears a suit, he began his career as an armed revolutionary, probably a little more like a Tiger than a Hare. If you take 1926, you get a Libra Moon; if you take 1927, you get Aquarius. Both are air signs, and both are plausible.

 

Two elements help me lean toward the 1926 chart. One is the Mars-Chiron conjunction -- strongly emphasizing a kind of spiritual warrior, with the placement in Taurus, the sign of values. This conjunction makes a loose square to a number of his planets, including Mercury, and those squares to Mars and/or Chiron (in this case both) are extremely strong.

 

The second element is Pluto exactly on the North Node. If you are wondering how the lunar nodes work, here is an example. They focus, magnify and anchor us to realty. When you factor in all that we know about Castro, how long he has endured and against what odds, that Pluto exactly aligned with the node is very compelling. And if being a Tiger makes him care less about popularity, Pluto in Cancer on the node gives him an intense mass appeal that's based on a lot more than charisma. That node points to a kind of unalterable mission in life; if anything says destiny, that is it.

 

The third element that convinced me was the progressions to the chart. Progressions are a way of advancing a chart one day per year, such that the chart for one's 30th day of life is associated with one's 30th year. Usually, when you have a working chart, you get strong synchronicities in the progressions -- and the 1926 chart was ringing bells all over the place, particularly the 1 pm chart.

 

However, to be on the safe side, we ran the whole issue past Ursula Fugger in Toronto, who is something of an astrologer's astrologer, and not surprisingly, she had already been hard at work rectifying Fidel's charts when we contacted her. She, too (after a ton more work than I did) landed on the 1 pm chart for 1926, but using Castro's life events, utilizing transits as well as progressions, she rectified the time to 11:42 am. This preserves Scorpio rising of the 1 pm chart, with Saturn in the 1st house. Here it is:

 

Three houses in this chart are very strong, and stand out to express Castro's character in astrology. There are many other subtle factors -- perhaps you'll pick up on them. For those new to this game, you start counting houses below the left hand horizontal line, which is the 1st house. That has Saturn in it. This was not one of the strong houses I had in mind, but go figure -- it definitely is rather powerful. People with so much Scorpio, so emphasized, can walk on coals without the full-day workshop; they can juggle knives; if they go skydiving and their parachute doesn't open, they still make it. Hence, we have a picture of someone who slept next to a guy sent to kill him, who had the gun and all, but the guy couldn't do it.

 

As for those other houses: in order, note the 6th, with Chiron and mars in Taurus. The 6th is the work house, which also represents well-being, healing, and service. This says you work for what is important to you. Chiron is a spiritual influence if anything is; it grants an element of struggle, and also an element of sacrifice. Mars needs to fight for a cause, and Chiron says it's going to be the right one; that the male energy will express itself 'differently' (Chiron always does things 'differently'). But in the 6th, once the revolution is over, the real work begins.

 

One interesting thing about Mars-Chiron contacts, particularly the conjunction, is that they tend to favor the underdog. (The link points to an article explaining just how that plays out. Here is another. Both originally appeared in Planet Waves Weekly.) Castro is certainly an underdog, and someone or something favors him. Western powers have messed with every country in Latin America since the Cuban revolution -- except Cuba.

 

Next is the 9th house, up on the top right. This has Cancer on the cusp, and is occupied by Pluto, the North Node and Venus. The 9th house is international in nature, and Castro has had a stunning impact on the larger international community. Despite dogma from the United States spouted by nine presidents (Carter was friendly to Cuba), that Venus in the 9th suggests he is a deeply loved figure in the international community.

 

Last, we come to the 10th house, that of leadership, government, high office, and honor. It's not surprising that we see someone of Castro's stature with a strong 10th -- and no matter what time he was born, a strongly aspected Sun. We get an interesting arrangement here, which is the Sun conjunct Neptune and Vesta, two planets which at their best speak about doing things for the greater good. The Sun is one's glory; both Neptune and Vesta say, yes, but it's not really for you, it's for everyone, and you'll need to make personal sacrifices to have that power, visibility and influence.

 

Cuba is a country that has done a lot on very modest means. The country's gross domestic product for a year amounts to about three weeks worth of current borrowing by the United States. The frugal nature of Castro's chart -- whose personality makes up a great deal of the national identity -- is suggested by Saturn in Scorpio rising, but more eloquently by his 10th house placement: Neptune and Vesta conjunct the Sun suggest strongly that he has been personally willing to do what needs to be done to get the real work done. In essence, this chart is saying that he has been true to the revolution, setting an example for others, not just putting out words.

 

Cuba itself has a low infant mortality rate, high life expectancy, many doctors, and excellent literacy. The country and its people do not live on debt. They may not share capitalist values, but they do a lot with what they have.

 

Honestly, I don't think we'll find an American Express card in the guy's wallet.

 

I see his Neptune-Sun in the 10th house as being something suggesting he is an adept or a mystic. Whether this is through some formal training, or through a talent he was born with, he seems to be intuitive and alive on many layers of reality.

 

Happy birthday, Fidel.

 

This week I'm going to take two questions -- a bit shorter than usual, the past few weeks have been a knockout. Have you noticed? But definitely a time of big changes, progress and, thankfully, Mercury is direct for a while. Next week I'll preview the approaching season of eclipses that we're heading steadily for.

 

Daily updates and photos continue at Planet Waves. If you like this column, remember that Astrology Secrets Revealed is sponsored by your subscriptions to Planet Waves Weekly, which offers lots of horoscopes and original and excellent astrology materials every week. We give you personal astrology -- and nice juicy articles about what's really going on in the planets, and down here on the planet. Cainer.com readers love it.

 

See you there!

 

ERIC FRANCIS