Mass demonstrations have come to India as well. This story is a Reuters piece.

NEW DELHI — At least 100,000 trade unionists marched through the Indian capital Wednesday in a protest against high food prices and unemployment, piling pressure on an administration under fire over corruption scandals.

The demonstration was the biggest in New Delhi in years and included members of a trade union linked to the ruling Congress party, reflecting disquiet within the party over food inflation which hit a high of over 18 percent last December.

It was also the latest in a wave of protests that have swept the world, ignited by a worldwide spike in food prices. But unlike the protests that have toppled autocratic leaders, there have been no calls to overthrow India’s democratic government.

“We have come here so that our voices reverberate inside the house (parliament) and they can see what pain the common man is going through,” said Akhil Samantray who had come from the eastern Orissa state to take part in the march.

India, Asia’s third-largest economy and home to more than a billion people, has been grappling with double-digit food inflation for much of last year. The country’s hundreds of millions of poor have been hit the hardest.

The government has looked increasingly helpless as it tries to introduce policies to rein in food prices which have risen mainly on the back of soaring global prices which the government cannot control.

Good Morning, Cousins!

Today’s weekly audio is ready. In this edition I begin with the ban that Arizona is trying to place on judges mentioning karma in their decisions. Did you know that was a problem? Me neither, but if I can think of one law I would not want to be held to were I an Arizona legislator, or any legislator, it would be karma. After all the opposite of progress is Congress.

The main astrology I cover is in two layers — the (very) current Jupiter-Pluto square (see related article), and a background layer, Uranus square Pluto, which I’ve been going on and on about and will continue to do so. This describes the situations in both North Africa and the Midwestern United States.

In the Midwest, we have protests rising up because a bunch of Republican politicians want to take away benefits, reduce pension contributions and — not amazingly, but appallingly — strip public employee unions of collective bargaining rights. I’m not sure I can convey how vicious that is, but we should all be in the streets over this one. Unions are the one thing that stands between living decently and living in squalor. At least in the United States there is such a thing as a weekend (unless you work in a non-unionized job), and workers have some power. This is a long story to tell but in the case of public employee unions, I’ll put it this way.

Anyone who has ever confronted the government about anything — I don’t care what — knows that if you don’t have some solidarity, and some representation, you’re treated like you don’t exist. As Wisconsinites are showing us, they actually do exist.

What we have in Wisconsin is a Tea Party-backed governor (basically an employee of the billionaire Koch brothers) blaming unions for economic problems that were created by the bust of the housing greed bubble and a big heist on Wall Street. Nothing against $12 million bonuses for bankers — but the recession was not caused by school teachers.

The old player is in its usual location. The new player is the nifty gray icon below. Enjoy.

Yours & truly,

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Capricorn weekly of March 7, 2006

If you feel yourself being pulled in two directions, could it be that you’re afraid to make a decision? Remember, you of all people should not have to fight for what you think is right; it’s your business and you know it. So to begin with, I suggest you refuse to argue, and stop yourself cold when you’re getting defensive about what you really know is entirely your prerogative. Once you get everyone else’s opinions out of the way, you’ll get to assess whether you’re really feeling fear — and the chances are, you’ll discover that, in truth, you are not.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

The Sun Herald in Mississippi is reporting an unusually high number of baby dolphins washing up on shore this month in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, with the concentration so far on Mississippi’s shores. Blair Mase, NOAA’s marine mammal stranding coordinator for the Southeast region, has confirmed 17 baby dolphin deaths so far this year. This is the first birthing season since the BP oil spill less than a year ago, which occurred just as Chiron entered Pisces briefly.

According to the Sun Herald, Mase said this is the time of the year she sees death in young dolphins, because it is the beginning of the birthing season. But she also acknowledges the normal birthing season is a little later in the year. This suggests the baby dolphins may not be full term.

Mase continued, “We run the gamut of causes, including human impact, which would include the oil spill; infectious disease and bio-toxins.” While it is good science to thoroughly test the dead dolphins for all possible causes, other reports of the continued presence of oil on the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico do not bode well. The degree of contact the mother dolphins may have had with the oil and the equally toxic dispersant Corexit used last spring is unknown.

Institute for Marine Mammal Studies director Moby Solangi told the Sun Herald it’s too early to tell why they died. “For some reason, they’ve started aborting or they were dead before they were born,” Solangi said. “The average is one or two a month. This year we have 17 and February isn’t even over yet,” with 13 of those found in the last two weeks. Solangi stated that dolphins breed in the spring and carry their young for 11 to 12 months. This means breeding, which occurs in shallow water, bays and sounds — where oil did make its way — occurred last spring around the time of the April 20 oil spill.

This news coincides with Mercury’s ingress of Pisces, where it is conjunct Chiron. The spotlight has returned to the deeply-wounded Gulf of Mexico, in the midst of some other very potent astrology charging up world events. It’s one of the first tangible long term signs of this injury to the sea, to the creatures who call it home and to the health of the planet — which we have barely begun to grasp. Dolphins are some of the most intelligent animals on Earth, and Mercury conjunct Chiron is helping them to send a message. The question is: Are we listening?

By Len Wallick

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
– Helen Keller

The mass migration from Aquarius to Pisces continues. Mars not only takes its turn, it brings something extra.

First, some perspective. The Martian ingress into Pisces follows Chiron, the Sun and Mercury. There is one more to go. Not to be judged by its size, an auspicious asteroid named Karma will conclude matters for the time being when it enters Pisces on Thursday. Because Uranus has not yet ended its stay in Pisces, we have an inventory of one luminary, three major planets, Chiron — perhaps the most influential centaur planet — and asteroid Karma, whose time has come. That’s a lot.

All of this movement can be taken as a huge transfer of energy from Aquarius, a sign traditionally ruled by Saturn, to Pisces, one sign traditionally ruled by Jupiter (the other is Sagittarius). This implies a shift of influence from Saturn to Jupiter. The timing is auspicious because of how the astrology will peak on Friday. Jupiter is getting pumped up for the big one when it exactly squares Pluto at week’s end; in fact, we are feeling its energy now, and have been seeing its effects in the news. This is a relatively rare and tense aspect between Jupiter in early Aries, and Pluto, 90 degrees away in Capricorn. This cardinal square has been functional for several weeks now.

The expansive idealism of Jupiter finds definition in the fundamental force of Pluto. This has been expressing itself in a passionate zealotry that can only be released by direct and sustained action. Look at what is happening around the world. From the halls of the Wisconsin legislature to the shores of Tripoli in Libya, people are risking everything and holding nothing back.  Then, consider this. Jupiter is only acting as a proxy, warming the spot that Uranus will take starting next year. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

The cascade of planets into Pisces is ramping this up because Jupiter derives a good deal of its identity and influence from what is going on in that sign. It is already very nearly overwhelming. So what, besides bolstering Jupiter further,  does Mars bring to Pisces? It brings a third concurrent case of mutual reception — loosely defined as two planets in each other’s sign of rulership.

Continue Reading »

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Libra weekly of Sept. 8, 2006

Only you will be able to deal with the strange pressure you’re under, but the entry of Mars into your birth sign today suggests strongly that you have the energy and initiative to do so. More to the point, you have the ability to focus your mind and get the results you need, and probably a few things motivating you to do so. The odd sense of urgency relates to something you think is unresolved from your past, something you’ve likely not whispered a word about to anyone. It may be time to share your secret, if you feel that will help put it behind you. But at least now you know what that secret is. Family Focus: Remember that rarely is a decision involving a child 100% right, so take off that pressure.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

The astrology we’re living through right now makes a lot more sense if you’re following world events. There must be something happening in France or Japan, but what we’re hearing about is mainly a political explosion in Wisconsin and yet another revolution in North Africa, this time in Libya. Both are examples of people standing up to power. There was an earthquake in a large New Zealand city yesterday, a reminder that the planet is bigger than we are, and that it’s changing every moment.

Mercury conjunct Chiron in Pisces: what's that sound?

We here in Cush Nation may intellectually understand what it’s like to overthrow a dictator who wielded power for 30 or 40 years, but I don’t think most of us can really, actually understand. I mean, would you step into the way of a gun or 20 men with guns for the liberation of your people? Would you go to a protest at all? Or do you get nervous when you’re pulled over by a cop for speeding? What is going on in North Africa (this is a region, not a country) is so enormous and so alien to our experience as Westerners that we can barely begin to understand it.

Consider Wisconsin. Most of us have only heard of the place for cheese and Fonzie. We know these are union protests, but this is where the American union movement started. At least in the United States, kids don’t work 60 hours a week and a great many people make a living wage because of unions — and where people are treated badly and work in filth and danger, it’s largely because unions were busted. People — thousands of people — have been camped out in the state capitol building in Madison for days on end protesting a government attempt to bust unions there. This is, in turn, an attempt to bust unions everywhere in the United States — part of an agenda so vast we don’t even see it. Yes, there are some people who will not be satisfied until the best jobs are stocking shelves at Wal Mart.

Now let’s see how this reflects in the astrology of our moment — rare astrology in a rare time. The first thing you can see even if you’re not an astrologer is how many planets are concentrated in just a quarter of the sky — nearly all of them. Concentrated planets drive potent historical events, and they often drive people into a frenzy. To be perfectly calm right now you have to be totally yogafied or be sitting in a quiet room puffing an opium pipe — and even then (in such an open state) I imagine you would pick up on the sense of imminent change, the tensions, the passions. I’ve been reminding you that in the deep background of everything happening today is a slow-moving aspect between Uranus and Pluto, part of a long, long cycle of revolutions. While that is not exact till 2012, we are under its increasingly potent influence now.

There are two aspects that stand out today, both involving Pisces. One is a slowly developing square between Jupiter in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn that’s nearly come to fruition (this involves one of the Pisces planets, Jupiter). This is inspiring both true belief and paranoia. The other is a faster moving conjunction that’s exact today. Let’s start with that — Mercury conjunct Chiron in Pisces.

Where Mercury goes the mind follows. Both Mercury and Chiron are in the very first degree of Pisces; Mercury is going to fly through and Chiron will be there for eight years. They are conjunct right now, which is focusing our mental awareness on whatever Chiron in Pisces represents — though the experience is like a passing surge of consciousness. In truth it may feel like a little too much, like there is no way to understand what’s happening in the world through any rational means. Mercury-Chiron can impart a sense of a broken mind, a touch of madness, or having to understand things in a nonlinear way.

Continue Reading »

Revolutionary fervor is spreading. Protests are still raging in Wisconsin and, back in the Middle East, reports coming from Libya are telling us that the government is on the brink of collapse. Muammar al-Gaddafi has gone to war with protesters in his country. The former revolutionary gone dictator seems to be going insane. Repeating what little is available from dependable sources, Gaddafi has ordered his air force to bomb protesters, and two of his pilots defected to Malta. Some members of the military have fired on protesters.

Chart for Libya.

Both sides seem committed to fighting to the death. Western news entities are not able to report from the country so most of what’s coming out is by witness accounts and what imagery can be uploaded to the Internet.

Let’s take a look at the chart of Libya and see how this looks. There are two charts to modern Libya, one being a 1951 chart for independence, and a chart from 1969 for the founding of the republic. The charts are very similar; both have so much in Libra that we could rename the country Librya. You can see them both here. I’ll just comment on the later chart.

In any of these charts of things going off, the first thing I look for is planets early in the cardinal signs. And we find them in abundance in the chart for Libya — for example, Uranus, Mercury and Jupiter in Libra, as well as Chiron and Eris in Aries. And for a little extra goddess action, there’s Juno in Capricorn. All of these planets are aligned with the cardinal cross activity that we’ve been experiencing in ’10 and ’11 — Saturn has made aspects to each one of these planets; Pluto has made aspects to most of them; Jupiter has made a few aspects; and Uranus is about to go through the territory like a snow blower.

We’re seeing evidence of how the Aries Point works, but what we’re seeing is the Uranus-Pluto square multiplied by the Aries Point. Uranus-Pluto blends the revolutionary power with evolutionary movement and deep mass consciousness. The Aries Point heats up the energy and makes it personally relevant.

Looking at Libya, this concentration of planets in the early cardinal signs is being lit up by all of the cardinal sign transits. And, that’s a picture of the instability we’re seeing.

Yet this business of turning guns on people is worth investigating, and we can see a bit of that illustrated in Chiron and Eris retrograde in the 8th house. That is a frustrated, painful, even suicidal relationship to death, and a concept of self that is essentially do or die. I say concept of self because Aries is involved. Jupiter is sitting right on that Chiron right now, magnifying and inflaming what is already there.

The story is changing rapidly. I’m home near my TV waiting to hear what Rachel Maddow has to say.