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.
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.