This weekend’s astrology features an unusual confluence: two inner planets stationing within hours on either side of the Pisces New Moon. Eric dives into the astrology’s implications within the context of the week’s world events — and how it’s all feeding into the cardinal grand cross on April 23. That event lines up directly with the USA Sibly chart, the most commonly used natal chart for the United States, and it’s all riding on the back of the Uranus-Pluto square.
The full issue includes astro-news briefs (including the astrology of the Venezuelan protests) plus special, extended horoscopes by Eric interpreting this weekend’s rare astrology. You can read it all through a single-issue purchase, or else try a one-month free trial membership and receive our twice-weekly mailings automatically.
Kosmic Mind and Len, slowing down is essential. I’ve been simultaneously feeling an anxious need to act and peacefully swirling in Pisces energy. Everything feels foggy and vortexy; how and where to act isn’t clear.
Eric, thanks for Glen Greenwald’s article. I haven’t yet digested all the acronyms and sci-fi connections, which are abundant.
Kosmic wrote, “While many of us here on Planet Waves are really quite aware already, there’s always more to become conscious of.”
Yes, always, and I keep thinking, “If you’re aware and you’re not acting, you’re not aware.” I read this somewhere last week, I think. I say, I think, because I can’t find it anywhere.
I wonder if we are building toward something with the Uranus Pluto square or just living in it in a different way.
I absolutely agree with you, Eric. In addition to providing potent astrological perspective on national and global events, Planet Waves brings us the voices of direct observers in Ukraine (Anatoly), Japan, Egypt and elsewhere.
Complex political, historical, cultural, economic and geostrategic factors underlie the current conflict in Ukraine. The largest country entirely within Europe, Ukraine is a prime gateway to Asia. Its importance in the region must be recognized. As Napoleon and Hitler understood all too well, the road to Moscow passes through Kiev. The people of Ukraine have every right to be wary of anti-democratic machinations and saber rattling from the east (neighboring Russia) and the west (United States and EU nations). In any event, Russia cannot afford to abandon its vital strategic interests in the region.
There are problems with all kinds of analysis. I think that any report close to the scene, by someone observing for their whole life, is at least worth listening to. Analysis from afar is most likely to lack that kind of cultural sensitivity. I say this fully aware that the U.S. has installed more right-wing regimes than anyone can count.
Analysis by anecdote is risky because of confirmation bias, the tendency of our minds to gravitate toward confirming our existing opinions and perspectives. We also tend to be persuaded more easily by compelling images or entertaining stories than by facts.
The fact that the United States’ has had central role in the overthrow of a democratically elected government is nowhere in dispute. Top U.S. diplomat Victoria Nuland announced that the United States had invested $5 billion dollars in regime change in Ukraine. Svoboda, Ukraine’s extreme right-wing nationalist party, is Washington’s dog in this fight. As recently as three weeks ago, Nuland met with both Svoboda Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok and banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is now Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister. In a leaked phone conversation, Nuland was caught red-handed scheming to install Yatsenyuk in the government before President Viktor Yanukovych had even fled Kiev.
As Robert Parry accurately observes, “events in Ukraine and Venezuela suggest that the idea of respecting the results of elections and working within legal, albeit flawed, political systems is no longer in vogue, unless the “U.S. side” happens to win, of course. If the “U.S. side” loses, then it’s time for some “shock doctrine.” And, of course, the usual demonizing of the “enemy” leader.”
For reference, Anatoly in the Ukraine, near Kiev, says the Neo-Nazi thing is not true, so far as he knows, but I have to engage him a bit more deeply when I have a moment.
Bodymindalchemy, thanks for the Robert Parry link. These things do not appear to be making their way into the popular press, and it’s useful to be reminded of where agendas exist.
It’s interesting to consider that we are living in a Neptunian era. The confusion, deception and vagueness are certainly evident. The feeling of things not being quite as they seem is becoming so pervasive as to be rather annoying at times! However, I also cannot help suspecting Uranus currently holds significant sway, especially if it is viewed as a possible representative of capitalism, or government in its present state. We’re getting to see its nastier side here.
Pausing a moment to say thank you Eric for the Pisces weekly horoscope. I needed the reminder and the encouragement to make the most of this portal. I’ll catch up on the rest of the jam packed weekly edition after my work day. It’s a big banquet as always.
There are many petty tyrants (and tyrant-wannabe oligarchs) who loves them some CNN.
Par exemple:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/04/cnn-international-documentary-bahrain-arab-spring-repression
Thank you for that, Len. I’m definitely feeling the need to slow down and to embrace more introspection. It seems an appropriate thing to do before the storm really hits this spring.
These are indeed quite Neptunian times we live, especially in this particular moment, in light of the current astrology. It’s as if the line separating fact from fiction, truth from lies, is rather blurry and ambiguous. The world seems more surreal than usual.
I’m very curious about the upcoming grand cross involving Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto–a little worried, yes, but also excited about its potential to wake people up. While many of us here on Planet Waves are really quite aware already, there’s always more to become conscious of. Squares are stressful, of course, but stress is really at the heart of growth and change.
Without the pressure urging us to take action, to make things different, nothing would change. I think in light of the upcoming grand cross hitting the U.S. chart, we can anticipate the bar to be raised quite considerably. That might sound a little ominous; I’m sure it won’t be a cake walk to experience collectively, but we really need all the help we can get to shake up the masses and to generate passionate activism and involvement.
So the forecast is definitely calling for some turbulence, but hopefully it serves to make us a stronger collective force.
Hillary, mindbodyalchemy, and Cosmicjaguar: Thank you for your thought-provoking perspectives. This is indeed a time to slow down (along with the apparent motion of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto this weekend) and be receptive (like Venus – the lone sign ruling planet anywhere near up to speed) so as to evaluate events with the time we are being given.
As the erudite and generous Planet Waves commenter “be” Koehler noted to Judith Gayle”s column last weekend, we live in times dominated by Neptune. As such, even those most gifted occultists cited by Alice Bailey are challenged to read the timeless Akashic records of this time.
One thing is certain. Planet Waves is providing advertiser-free forum for all of us together at once being able to rise to the challenge of sorting things out with love and respect for each other. In that way, Planet Waves is making certain that your voices are heard and equally weighed.
The iconic image of the Soviet flag raised over the German Reichstag building in Berlin is notable because both the Red Army soldier and the photographer are Ukrainians.
Born to a Jewish family in Yuzovka (now Donetsk, Ukraine), photographer Yevgeny Anan’evich Khaldei persuaded his uncle to create a gigantic Soviet flag after seeing Joe Rosenthal’s photo of the American flag raising at Iwo Jima while the Soviet army closed in on Berlin. He took it with him to Berlin for the Reichstag shot.
According to Wikipedia:
The events surrounding the flag-raising are murky due to the confusion of the battle to take the number one target in Berlin, the Reichstag. On 30 April there was great pressure to take the building, (seen as symbolic and at the heart of the “fascist beast”), before May Day. Initially, two planes dropped several large red banners on the roof that appeared to have caught on the bombed-out dome. Additionally a number of reports had reached headquarters that two parties, M.M. Bondar from the 380th Rifle Regiment and Captain V.N. Makov of the 756th might have been able to hoist a flag during the day of 30 April. These reports were received by Marshal G.K. Zhukov who issued an announcement stating that his troops had captured the Reichstag and hoisted a flag. However, when correspondents arrived they found no Soviets in the building but were in fact pinned down outside by German fire. After fierce fighting a flag was raised at 10:40 PM on 30 April 1945 when 23-year old Mikhail Minin climbed the building and inserted a flag into a mounted statue’s (Germania’s), crown. As this happened at night, it was too dark to take a photograph. The next day the flag was taken down by the Germans. The Red Army finally controlled the entire building on 2 May.
On 2 May 1945, Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take his picture. The official story would later be that two hand-picked soldiers: a Georgian, Meliton Kantaria and a Russian, Mikhail Yegorov, raised the Soviet flag over Reichstag, and the photograph would be often used as depicting the event. However, some authors state that for political reasons the subjects of the photograph were changed and the actual man to hoist the flag was Alyosha Kovalyov, a Ukrainian, who was told by the NKVD to keep quiet about it. According to Khaldei himself, when he arrived to the Reichstag, he simply asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with staging of the photoshoot; there were only four of them, including Khaldei, on the roof: the one who was attaching the flag was 18-year-old Private Alexei Kovalyov from Kiev, the two others were Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev from Minsk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_flag_over_the_Reichstag
I think the unrest in places like Venezuela and Ukraine is more a factor of people trying to push us backwards. Why should the Ukraine not be aligned with Russia? Why should they be aligned with either the European Union or Russia anyway? Why should not Russia and Europe be more united?
In Venezuela, anyone who paid attention for the past 15 years knows what is going on there. It is sad to watch all the Right-wing minority folks screaming their heads off about how they have been mistreated by Chavez, and now Maduro. They say outright that the People of Venezuela are too stupid to understand who they should vote for…but they don’t want more spending on education, they want the money back in their pockets to send their little rich kids off to the US to get a “real” education. The truth is that Venezuela’s poor are among the best educated in Latin America thanks to Chavez’ Revolution. Crime is a problem there but again it should be about creating more schools and opportunities. If the Right-wing forces did take over, there would be no hope for Venezuela’s poor at all.
There’s been much celebration in U.S. political and media circles over the violent ouster of Ukraine’s democratically elected president. Nearly everyone is hailing this putsch and ignoring that it was spurred on by neo-Nazi militias, Robert Parry reports.
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/26/cheering-a-democratic-coup-in-ukraine/
Robert Parry is an American investigative journalist best known for his role in covering the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal in 1985. He was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984. He has been the editor of ConsortiumNews.com since 1995.
The latest Mercury Retrograde was a major factor in my everyday life. I had incidents all the way up until the last day (today), but with the careful advice from Eric I was able to survive it! He is truly a necessity during these crazy times. He is like a beacon shining on my lost raft out to sea, bringing me back to shore safely.