A Murder Case Re-Opened

Back in October 2011 I looked at the transits for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito upon their acquittal of the murder of Meredith Kercher (you can see relevant highlights from that article below and the full article here).

 

It was announced today that their acquittal has been overturned and a retrial will take place.

 

Perhaps we should not be surprised. That sleeping dogs shall not be allowed to lie, seems to have become a trademark of Saturn in Scorpio in mutual reception and sextile with Pluto in Capricorn. That, along with the game-changing shocking twists and turns we have come to associate with the on-going Uranus-Pluto Squares, has facilitated the uncovering of dark and long kept secrets and forced us to face unpalatable truths.

 

These planetary alignments suggest that the truth will now finally be dragged out one way or another in this tragic case. For the sake of Kercher’s family most of all, but also for Knox and Sollecito. If they are innocent, as they insist they are, they can finally prove it and move on. If they are guilty, then the re-opening of this case provides the now or never moment to convict them once and for all.

 

Knox has a powerful Cardinal Grand Cross in her chart: Venus at 4 Cancer, Mercury at 7 Cancer, Neptune at 6 Capricorn and the Moon's Nodes at 6 Aries and Libra (scroll down to see the chart).

 

Tomorrow’s Libra Full Moon at 7 Libra hits Knox’s Grand Cross exactly. This is a further suggestion that the truth will finally out, for the Moon at its fullest is the Moon in full light. There’s nowhere to hide, everything is seen. This is not a lunation for running, hiding or ‘getting away with it.’

 

Libra Full Moon March 27, 2013. Chart set for Perugia, Italy where the original crime was perpetrated.
Click on the image to enlarge.

 

We would also expect to see at least two of transiting Saturn in Scorpio, Pluto in Capricorn or Uranus in Aries making contact with Knox’s chart, if we are looking for further indication that the truth of this case is ready to be revealed. Indeed, transiting Saturn in Scorpio is currently making a series of conjunctions with her natal Pluto. Its second hit to her Pluto, the retrograde hit (a transit VERY appropriate for a re-look at this criminal case) is due to occur in early May this year. Saturn to Pluto is a hard, hard transit. Loss on any level can be felt at this time. Transiting Uranus is at 8 Aries, making tight contact to her Grand Cross, most exactly to communication planet Mercury, which opposes Neptune, an aspect suggesting deception, fantasy and idealism at play on some level.

 

Other current transits that hit her Grand Cross include Venus at 6 Aries. Picking up the Full Moon a little wide, but still part of the picture is Mars at 11 Aries and Pluto at 11 Capricorn. Pluto hasn’t quite finished with Knox yet, it will retrograde back just far enough to clip her natal Mercury later this year.

 

So, it doesn’t look great for Knox. I don’t know enough about the case to conjecture on her innocence or guilt, but either way she should brace herself for a rough ride because the truth will out.

 

You can also see Sollecito’s chart below. It’s his birthday today! He too has a strong pick up with the current transits. His Sun at 5 Aries picks up the Full Moon and all the other current Aries planets you can see in the Full Moon chart above. Uranus in Aries has finished its transit to his Sun, but transiting Pluto in Capricorn is currently exact on his natal Jupiter, a transit that lasts until January next year. He can also look forward to his Saturn return in Scorpio later this year, a time to face reality and take responsibility. If he's done something wrong he's not going to get away with it. If hasn't then he will be justly absolved.

 

It's also worth noting that the Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn relationship is associated with the uncovering of crimes of a sexual nature, most notably in the Jimmy Savile case. Sex plays a part in the Kercher murder, with evidence the victim was sexually assaulted. It has been suggested that her death was caused by some kind of brutal sex game gone wrong.  

 

Knox’s transits are perhaps more dramatic, but that is as you would expect, with her Cardinal Grand Cross comprising Mercury, Venus and Neptune and the Nodes. She has always been the ‘face’ of this case and its main focus in the media.

 

Naturally, the family of Ms Kercher has welcomed today’s development.

 

Read today's news story in full here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21936308

 

Edited highlights from my October 2011 post:

The reversal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher was a story which gripped and polarised the public and the media. Whether the pair really had anything to do with the murder we may perhaps never know and that’s not a subject I’m going to speculate about here. When fascinated me about their story is how the timing for the original conviction, the appeal and their eventual release key in to the timing of major outer planet alignments, namely Saturn Square Pluto, Saturn opposite Uranus and the incoming Uranus Square Pluto.  Both Sollecito and Knox have had these alignments touching their charts by transit, with Knox in particular experiencing them very strongly.

On 4^th December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. This conviction occurred very close to Saturn’s first exact square to Pluto at 2 degrees Libra and Capricorn in November 2009. Saturn and Pluto’s next exact alignment was at the end of January 2010 at 4 degrees of Libra and Capricorn. For both of them, Saturn and Pluto were transiting personal planets in their charts.

Saturn-Pluto transits can seem, at least on the psychological level, to take away our freedom and our free will. In the case of Knox and Sollecito, the loss of freedom was literal. In fact, losses on any level can occur under this transit. It tends to be a time of forced change, fear, pressure, negativity, crisis, restriction and a psychological journey to the underworld.  We may feel that invisible forces are working against us, that we are fighting for survival on some level. Even as our personal power is taken away, we need to find the strength to carry on, to work hard and then even harder to face and banish our demons. For this we need courage, strength and staying power. We need to tap into inner and outer resources to help us through.

The charts below show how the Saturn and Pluto square picked up on personal planets in Knox and Sollecito's birth charts. Knox has Venus at 4 degrees of Cancer, so just after the conviction transiting Pluto was exactly opposing her Venus, with Saturn squaring her Venus. She also has Mercury conjunct Venus, with Neptune in early Capricorn opposing from the public seventh house. The Moon’s Nodes, in early Aries and Libra, complete a dynamic, but no doubt stressful cardinal grand cross.  With Pluto and Saturn transiting this grand cross it’s not surprising that she has been called a liar, a manipulator, a seductress, violent, perverted and a she-devil, but imagine having to face your demons when the world is naming you as the demon!

Click to enlarge

Sollecito has his Sun at 5 degrees Aries squaring Neptune at 1 Capricorn, within orb of the Saturn-Pluto squares of late 2009 and spring/summer 2010.  While he has attracted less attention than Knox, the Saturn-Pluto transit to his Sun and Neptune is telling. Was he a victim in all this or was he deceiving everyone when he proclaimed his innocence? It’s hard to tell with that Sun-Neptune square, except to mention that it is reasonable to expect martyrdom on some level, or at least the sacrifice of the ego, with this aspect, especially so because both the Sun and Neptune are angular in his chart.

Click to enlarge

We all know that in life nothing is forever and like life, transits are temporal. With Saturn-Pluto transits, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, with the eventual promise of empowerment and emancipation, but not before a lot of hard work and a lot of seemingly endless patience.

Sollecito and Knox‘s legal teams filed appeals against their convictions in April 2010 and the appeal process began in December 2010. It was during the time between the filing of the appeal and the actual appeal that the Saturn-Pluto squares and the ongoing, status-quo upsetting Saturn-Uranus oppositions formed what has been widely dubbed by astrologers as the cardinal climax – a t-square in the early cardinal planets that had been building since 2008 and has come to symbolise shocks, changes, intense challenges, restriction, losses and hard, hard work.

They won their appeal against their murder conviction and were freed on October 3^rd 2011. By now, Saturn has moved out of the picture, with the much anticipated Uranus-Pluto square forming. On the day of their release, Uranus was at 2 Aries and Pluto at 5 Capricorn, connecting with the cardinal planets in their charts very closely. Under Uranus-Pluto moving aspects we demand freedom, we question authority, we don’t accept the letter of the law and we won’t tolerate being controlled. We want to feel free to do what we want to do and we want to make a difference.

Knox’s father summed up Saturn-Pluto followed by Uranus-Pluto perfectly, "she's almost kind of reborn in a way. I mean, living for four years inside a concrete and steel, you know, prison, and now being able to kind of just look around, smell the air and - and just do what she wants to do, hopefully when she wants to do it, it makes a huge difference." (quote from cbsnews.com)

With love,
Mandi
www.mandilockley.com

Chart data from Astrodatabank.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Because we're ruled by time, it’s easy to believe that the human experience is linear, that we move ever forward in one direction. When you study astrology – as indeed when you delve into the bigger picture of history - it becomes very apparent that on our constantly revolving earth, everything is in fact cyclical. This, to me, is in its turn a reflection of the observable cycles of nature and the predictable movements and alignments of the planets.
 
I was doing some research for my new book (non-astrology-related) and it took me in a round about way to the Wikipedia entry on Franklin D Roosevelt’s Inaugural Speech of 1933.*

On the day, Uranus in Aries was exactly square Pluto in Cancer at 21 degrees.  Today, Uranus has returned to Aries and once again is in the midst of a series of game-changing squares with Pluto (now in Capricorn). The same astrological cycle is repeating itself.

These astrological parallels between now and the 30’s (the Great Depression era) are also clearly reflected in the startling similarities between the state of the world as it was then and the world as it is now.

Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry quoting Roosevelt’s speech. Perhaps his sentiments need to be revived his modern day counterparts:

Addressing himself to the causes of the economic crisis and its moral dimensions, Roosevelt placed blame squarely on the greed and shortsightedness of bankers and businessmen…

“...rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.”

Roosevelt then turned, in the following excerpts, to the daunting issue of unemployment, which had reached a staggering 25 percent when he assumed office:

“...the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously.

There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.”

Proof if ever we needed it the world turns in cycles and what goes around comes around.

Roosevelt's speech also coined the famous phrase, still so relevant today:

“The only thing we have to fear is...fear itself.”

Perhaps we should all take a moment to ponder on what that means.

With love,

Mandi
www.mandilockley.com

Don’t forget, over at www.mandilockley.com you can find this month’s Moon ingresses, Moon phases and Moon void of course times.

For this year’s planetary retrogrades, see HERE~ Saturn in Scorpio turns retrograde on February 19^th and Mercury turns retrograde in Pisces on February 24^th.
 
*Date: 4 March 1933, Washington D.C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D._C.
 
Photo credits Wikipedia Commons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_USCapitol_-_Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_First_Inauguration.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Barack_Obama_second_swearing_in_ceremony_1-21-13.jpg

Sex, Savile & Crisis at the BBC

The BBC Director-General Resigns

Saturn in Scorpio can be an extreme placement. One of its darkest themes is the abuse of power, particularly by those in positions of authority in society. This, unfortunately, includes sexual abuse.

The arrival of Saturn into Scorpio also signals social shifts in attitudes to sex. Collectively, we find ourselves dancing around the line between sexual freedoms and sexual controls. Some historical and current examples of this are explored in Saturn in Scorpio: Your Guide Through the Dark.

Another key facet of Saturn’s transit through Scorpio is that we are shown, all too starkly and dramatically, the results of past sexual behaviours, freedoms, controls and abuses. This phenomenon of exposure is linked closely to Pluto’s relationship to Saturn in Scorpio. For example, in the 1980’s, when Saturn in Scorpio conjoined Pluto in Scorpio, the devastating HIV/AIDS virus came to our attention. At the height of the scare it seemed that sex equalled death, quite literally.

Fast forward to 2012 and we have Saturn in Scorpio with Pluto in Capricorn. In mutual reception¹ and in Sextile¹ by sign, Saturn and Pluto are enjoying a relationship which makes it easy for Saturn to act as filter and conduit for Pluto’s energy to manifest. As we’ve already established, Saturn in Scorpio can be about the use and abuse of sex by those in authority. Pluto in Capricorn is about exposing and holding responsible the past wrong doings of individuals, corporations and institutions which have held power.  From here, it’s a very small leap to suggest that once Saturn moved into Scorpio, the past sexual ‘crimes’ of those in power and authority would be exposed.

Saturn moved into Scorpio on October 5. Just TWO DAYS ahead of this ingress, a documentary was shown on ITV in the UK, entitled Exposure - The Other Side of Jimmy Savile² which investigated allegations that the late entertainer had sexually-abused vulnerable teenage girls.

Karin Ward, now 54 and recovering from cancer, went on camera to reveal how she and others were sexually abused by Savile while they were pupils at a school for emotionally disturbed girls. Ward was only 14 years old. After over 40 years of Savile apparently getting away with it, this was all it took. The floodgates were opened and what followed has been extreme. At the time of writing, police investigating the abuse have found 300 potential victims. Two other TV stars from Savile’s era have been arrested and bailed following allegations that they abused teenage girls along with Savile³ There have even been rumours that Savile enjoyed necrophilia.

The UK nation is shocked and horrified by the scale of abuse by Savile, but actually not that surprised. Nobody is defending him. Former colleagues are speaking openly about the rumours that surrounded him at the time and numerous former complaints against him have come to light, some of which were investigated by various police forces across the country. It seems that nobody joined up the dots. Complaints were dropped, ignored or brushed under the carpet. In answer to the question why didn’t you say something at the time, Ward and other alleged victims have pointed out that Savile was a big TV star and a huge supporter of children’s charities. He had power, while they are were just kids and ‘bad’ kids, at that. It’s alleged that he made threats to prevent them from coming forward. Who was going to believe them anyway? It seems that Savile was able to hide in plain sight.

What this scandal has also ignited is a major crisis at the BBC.

Firstly, it seems that the corporation appeared to look aside while the abuse was going on under their roof. This calls into question the culture at the organisation during those years, that so many seemed to know what was going on. It appears that they either accepted it as part of the culture, or, if they did feel uncomfortable with it, felt powerless to act.

Secondly, it’s come to light that in December 2011, BBC’s Newsnight is said to have pulled out of broadcasting the findings of their own investigation into Savile’s sexual abuse. Had the story ran, it would have coincided with lavish BBC tributes to the recently deceased Savile. The BBC has offered no feasible explanation to why the story was pulled, but Newsnight’s editor has stepped aside.

Thirdly, the BBC have been forced to apologise unreservedly after Newsnight implicated a Tory peer as being involved in organised sexual abuse of children at care homes in North Wales in the 1980’s. As a result, Newsnight, a bastion of probing investigative journalism, is facing editorial controls and restrictions. (This is a case unrelated to Savile, but which has been resurrected after allegations that a previous inquiry into the abuse had not uncovered its full scale and that powerful politicians may be involved in covering up a paedophile ring which included some powerful figures)⁴.

These developments have shaken trust in the BBC, one of the UK’s most trusted institutions, so much so that George Entwistle, the BBC Director-General has resigned. He was only in the post for 54 days.

Chart for the BBC. Click to enlarge

The BBC company was founded in 1922, but it was on 1 January 1927 that it became the British Broadcasting Corporation, by Royal Charter, making it the significant and accountable organization it still is today. Using this date as a birthday with a midnight birth time (which is appropriate for the birth of an organization), gives the Sun at 9 degrees Capricorn Conjunct South Node at 7 Capricorn, straddling a 9 degree Capricorn IC. Transiting Pluto in Capricorn is therefore making a series of conjunctions to the BBC’s Sun, South Node and IC and opposing its MC and North Node. Transiting Uranus, Pluto’s current partner in crime due to their ongoing series of disruptive, game-changing Squares, is making a series of Conjunctions to the Descendant in the BBC’s chart, which is at 7 Aries.

Whether they like it or not, the BBC is being forced to undergo a serious transformation that will shake it to its roots (IC) and affect its relationship to the public (Descendent) and its reputation (the MC) and bring in big changes at senior management level (MC). Saturn in Scorpio has just entered the BBC chart’s second House, challenging the corporation’s values and purse strings. Saturn will oppose natal Mars in Taurus in the 8th from the end of 2012 through 2013. Mars in Taurus is not going to yield to change easily, but what is certain is that questions will be asked about how the BBC is funded, how it manages its resources, what its core values are and how it expresses them. The corporation will be held ever more responsible in these areas.

Then, in 2015/6 the BBC will experience its Pluto half return when transiting Pluto opposes its 10th House Pluto in Cancer. We shall see a very different ‘Auntie Beeb’ by the time these transits are over.

Speaking at a recent conference⁵ Lynn Bell described Saturn in Scorpio as taking us to the place of nightmares, challenging the boundaries of our world. Something is opened up, Pandora’s Box-like. This is certainly the case here. Once it all comes out, it’s what you do with the toxic ‘stuff’ that counts.  We can hope that out of the darkness comes some light, healing and positive transformation.

This is something that we need insist upon as the Savile scandal, the North Wales care home abuse scandal and the BBC crisis all play themselves out. For Savile’s victims, the first crucial step of the healing process has been taken. They have spoken and they have been listened to. Now the authorities dealing with this scandal need to do everything they can to ensure that the victims receive help to accept and maybe even forgive what has been done to them, if that is possible⁶. Not only that, but it should be made easier for all of those who have been, or are being, abused by someone in power or authority, to come forward and to be believed and taken seriously.

The culture at the BBC and at all big corporations needs to change so that this can never happen again. It’s about breaking down the poisoned structures and building new, better structures in their place. This would be a powerfully positive use of the mutual reception and Sextile energies of Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn, as well as positive expresson of Uranus Square Pluto.

We also need to nip the panicked witch hunt in the bud, to ensure that innocent people aren’t smeared with the paedophile tag and to avoid more sacrificial head rolling at the BBC and elsewhere. Saturn, Uranus and Pluto will not be satisfied until the REAL perpetrators are held to account.

As noted at the top of this article, Saturn in Scorpio signals cultural shifts in attitudes to sexual behaviour, redefining the rules of what is and what isn’t acceptable. When Karin Ward said in a recent interview with The Daily Mail, “he was just like any other bloke in the mid-Seventies and at the time I never even thought of it as anything other than normal behaviour. He grabbed a handful of bum and went to grab a handful of boob...”^7, we realise how far we have come, because that sort of behaviour in any workplace is totally unacceptable now⁸. That it has taken us so long to acknowledge how prevalent this kind of behaviour was, the devastating effect it can have, and allow some healing and recompense around that, makes us realise just how far we still have to go.

¹Two planets are in mutual reception when each are in the sign of the other’s ruler. Planets in mutual reception tend to work together easily (strong allies or partners in crime). When planets are in mutual reception they tend to dominate the horoscope. Planets are in Sextile aspect when they fall within 60 degrees (two signs) of each other. Sextile aspects enjoy easy expression and are said to offer opportunity.

²Jimmy Savile was a TV and radio broadcaster from the 60’s and 70’s who became a household name. During the 80’s he became known for his charity work and in the 90’s he received a Knighthood, one of the highest honours in the land. Savile died in October 2011.

³For full details and a timeline of events see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19921658

⁴http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20277732

⁵The Annual Conference of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, September 2012

⁶Saturn In Scorpio: Your Guide Through The Dark, Mandi Lockley's timely ebook discusses issues of healing, acceptance and forgiveness in relation to Saturn’s transit through Scorpio.

⁷ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217004/Jimmy-Savile-scandal-Karin-Ward-accuses-Freddie-Starr-pouncing-her.html#ixzz2BGZuXOUl

⁸I’m just about old enough to remember the days when, if a woman objected to being wolf-whistled or to having her bum pinched etc. she was told there was something wrong with her, that is was only a bit of fun. It was widely accepted that an ambitious women had to put up with this kind of thing if she wanted to get anywhere in her career. At the same time, she would be vilified by other women if it was perceived that she had ‘slept her way to the top’.

A note about Jimmy Savile’s Birth Chart

I don’t have a birth time, but his date of birth was 31st October 1926 in Leeds UK. At the time of the ITV documentary, transiting Saturn at 29 Libra was approaching a conjunction to his Venus at 2 Scorpio. Venus is conjunct his Sun at 7 Scorpio. At the same time, transiting Saturn was in an exact opposition to Savile’s natal Chiron at 29 degrees Aries. The revelations of his abuse of young women are indeed fitting for Saturn in Scorpio conjunct Venus and the transit to Chiron perhaps suggests the healing that now needs to be done. I can’t find a birth date for Karin Ward, but certainly she fits the wounded healer archetype.   

www.mandilockley.com
 
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Everything you need to know about June 2012

June is upon us, bringing three significant and exciting astro-events.

Big(ish) Event Number One

Firstly, there’s a Partial Lunar Eclipse on June 4. It falls at 14 degrees-14 minutes of Sagittarius and Gemini. If you have planets or points at 13-15 degrees of the mutable signs - Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces - this Eclipse will touch your chart.

You can get your chart for free at http://www.astro.com/ or http://www.alabe.com/ and also see my article Working with Eclipses for tips on how to interpret Eclipses.

Big Event Number Two

June 5/6 brings a rare transit, when Venus, planet of love, money and values, passes directly between the Sun and the Earth and is visible as a small dark disk passing across the Sun’s face.

Significantly, Venus falls in the same degree as the Eclipse the day before, 15 degrees-44 minutes of Gemini, so if you have 15 degrees of the mutable signs highlighted in your chart, this is an event well worth following.

But what is a Transit of Venus exactly? What does it mean? The links below should help...

As usual, NASA is the first port of call for all things astronomical. Their special site includes explanation, history and a live webcast of the event on June 5/6: http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/

Everything you need to know, including advice on viewing it safely (you should never look directly at the Sun) at: http://www.transitofvenus.org/

A couple of good articles from the ever reliable TMA:
http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/venus-transit-the-message-is-love
http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/astrology-as-if-the-sky-matters-venus-retrograde

Finally, this excellent post discusses events that coincided with previous Venus Transits. What will this transit bring as Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee and mega-movie Prometheus is released? http://copycateffect.blogspot.mx/2012/05/venus-transits-sol.html

Click on image to enlarge

Big Event Number Three

June 24 sees the first exact square of Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn. On the big picture level, this aspect has been playing out a while, but now it’s exact it will reach its highest intensity, with six further exact squares coming September 2012 through March 2015.

Here’s what it signifies, in a nutshell:

Since 2007 an exciting, powerful and incredibly disruptive planetary alignment has been forming. Rebellious Uranus has been squaring up to Pluto in Capricorn. Uranus’ energies have been compared to those of the mythical Prometheus, who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to man. Combined with Pluto, Uranus ignites revolutionary impulses and upsets the status quo. This planetary combination has been associated with mass rebellion against the establishment, revolutions, civil rights movements and radical social and political change.

The above is from Uranus-Pluto and Our Changing World. The article includes a fascinating look back at historical Uranus-Pluto alignments. Read more here....

How are Astroair’s 2012 predictions playing out? Find out here...

Over the next three years the Uranus-Pluto squares occur between 6 and 15 degrees of Aries and Capricorn, so if these degrees are highlighted in your chart (and also 6-15 degrees of Cancer and Libra), then these squares will form a significant transit to your chart. A time of change is on the horizon for you, that's for sure.

Moon News

Moon Phases and Void of Course Moon Times for June are up on my website. See http://www.mandilockley.com/ for details.

With love,
Mandi

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Say Hello 2012, Wave Goodbye 2011 (and some handy survival tips)

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed the celebrations. Of course, we weren't just saying hello to the New Year, we were letting go of the old year.

I celebrated with friends and at midnight, as we stood on the roof of their building watching the fireworks over London, someone shouted, goodbye 2011, you were c**p! Yes, without a doubt, 2011 was a year when many of us were swept up in a tide of change, challenge and difficulty.

This was reflected in the symbolism of the planetary alignments, most notably the applying square of radical, impetuous Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn, which demands sweeping transformation of our societal structures from the foundations up, including our economic and political structures and leaders. Who would have believed that 2011 would see the end of Mubarak's regime in Egypt, the overthrowing of Tunisia's President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the assassination of Osama bin Laden,  the humiliating fall of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi? Instead, People Power was the way forward, witnessed most dramatically in the Arab Spring uprisings, but also in the riots and protests across Europe and in the worldwide Occupy movement.

Saturn continued through Libra, prompting us to question the boundaries of our relationships and alliances, on a personal level but also on a collective and political level. In the Eurozone crisis for example, relationships amongst EU countries have been strained almost to the limit over questions around who should pay to bailout failing Eurozone countries.

Neptune continued to travel hand in hand with Chiron, as both planets played out their last days in Aquarius and immersed themeselves in watery Pisces (Neptune finally leaves Aquarius behind in February). This suggests a collective (and for some, a personal) need to feel and understand sacrifice at a deep level. We're being told that, even though times are hard and set to get even harder, we're all in this together. Beware though, Neptune can be the great deceiver. Are we really all in this together? The Occupy Movement would say no we're not, the 99% are being asked to pick up the tab for the mistakes of the 1% who continue to 'get away with it'. The romanticism of Neptune in Pisces came out in the fairy tale fantasy that was the royal wedding and we were reminded of the destructive power of water by the devastating tsunami and nucleur crisis in Japan.

What will 2012 bring, more of the same? I believe it will bring the same and more.

The new People Power is only just finding its feet. It will continue to gain momentum as Uranus and Pluto make their first and second of seven exact squares in June and September 2012. Five more squares follow in 2013, 14 and 15. Exciting new leaders will begin to emerge, but in the end will they be any better than the leaders they will replace, or just different? Economically, we're set for another recession in 2012, with some even predicting a depression. I think they're correct, all the indications are there. It's a necessary step towards overhauling a system that is no longer working. We have failed to change voluntarily so we must do it the hard way. It's just a pity that this will mean suffering for so many. As for the '1%', as the Uranus and Pluto squares bed in, we will see more and more of them being held accountable for the messes they have created. Expect to see an avalanche of corporate and political heads rolling over the next three years. Again, will their replacements be any better or will the ousted leaders just be sacrificial gestures (Neptune in Pisces) so that the 1% can get back to 'business as usual' as quickly as possible? This is a time when we really can change the world, but also a time where it will be too easy to miss the opportunity if we don't fight hard enough or shout loud enough.

In October 2012, Saturn makes a clean break from Libra and enters Scorpio, where it will remain until 2015. Uneasy alliances and shaky friendships won't survive this transition. The UK coalition government will begin to break down, perhaps acrimoniously and I will be surprised if we don't see more than one country crashing out ot the Euro currency. People and communities, as well as countries, will become more secretive and more concerned about protecting what they've got, less inclined to share or compromise. Law and order, national, local and personal security and immigration will  become hot topics during Saturn's time in Scorpio. See Theodore White's article for more on Saturn in Scorpio.

Neptune in Pisces will be reflected on all levels, all at once. Expect the power of nature to make herself known over and over, but also expect to be heartened by the compassion and empathy of the human race in response to any kind of suffering or hardship. This is where Chiron in Pisces comes in and it will be those who have suffered the most that will have the most to offer others in hardship or despair. Neptune in Pisces will continue to come out through music, fashion, movies and in our spirituality. Expect a fantasy/escapism theme to emerge in all these areas. Fashion will follow film and the Maggie Thatcher look (yes, really), will be the height of glamour, closely followed by styles from The Great Gatsby. New findings into the nature of consciousness and the interconnectedness of all life will be published. Science will more and more come to feel like a religious experience, as discoveries in astrophysics push the boundaries of our comprehension and make us question reality. Lies and trickery will also be the order of Neptune in Pisces and deceptions will be uncovered. The full extent of the phone hacking scandal will emerge, including details of exactly how Piscean Rupert Murdoch played his part.

My survival tips for 2012?

Don't believe all that you see or all that you hear. Seek the answers from within and even then question yourself. In fact, this is a year to question everything,

Fight for your rights (and for the rights of others).

Stand up for who you are and be the unique person you were always meant to be.

Don't blindly follow any kind of leader, especially any kind of guru who claims to have all the answers.

Folllow your own lead.

Be your own boss.

Cut out the weed, cut down on the booze, keep a toe in reality if you're tempted to go on any flight of fantasy.

Create something beautiful.

Let go of the illusion of security and feel safe anyway.

2012 will push many of us to the edge, keeping clean and healthy in mind, body and spirit will help us to appreciate the view without falling off.

Most of all, do it all with love.

Hold on tight, our future is here

With love,
Mandi
www.mandilockley.com

Uranus-Pluto and Our Changing World

Change is a fact of life, both on the personal and the collective level. This is an undeniable truth. Yet all too often when change comes, instead of accepting it, we resist, dig in our heels and work our asses off to restore the status quo and get back to business as usual, even if the status quo clearly isn’t working for us anymore.  To date, this has been the response to the global economic crisis, but the more the force of inevitable change is resisted, the deeper we’ll fall into the abyss.

Those who follow the motions and patterns of the planets have a reliable and useful perspective from which to observe the world and the changes that occur within it. This is because, through history, astrologers have observed that certain planetary patterns and alignments coincide with certain themes and events playing out in history*. From this knowledge comes a useful tool for predicting when and where change is coming and what form that change might take. If we look at the alignments that are coinciding with the current global economic crisis, a very telling picture emerges, a picture indicating that we are undergoing a long process of deep, disruptive, but necessary transformation.

Despite all the warning signs of the ‘credit crunch’ which followed years of easy credit, questionable practices in the financial sector and the build up of massive personal and national debts, in 2008 the world was shocked by the collapse/near collapse of some of the globe’s biggest financial institutions. Shoring them up with public money ultimately meant that, in the main, those institutions and those that run them (part of the 1%, as defined by the Occupy Movement) were free to carry on with business as usual. Meanwhile, the 99% (the world’s ordinary people) were presented with the bill. Recession set in, followed by slow, almost stagnant recovery, high unemployment, state implemented austerity measures, heavily indebted governments and the near certainty of double dip recession.

Also in 2008, Pluto moved out of the sign of Sagittarius and into the sign of Capricorn, where it will stay until 2023. Pluto moves slowly, taking 248 years to return to the same spot in the sky, so when Pluto changes signs it’s a big deal and we can reliably predict that collective change will occur, according to the themes symbolised by the sign Pluto is in.  

Don’t let Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet fool you, Plutonic change is dark and dirty and takes no prisoners. It involves a purging of that which has outstayed its welcome. It is the cosmic transformer which deals with issues that are above and beyond our personal will. It does this by unearthing our collective shadows and making us face our primal fears. If we don’t embrace Plutonic change it will take us by force.

So what are the themes of Pluto in Capricorn? First a brief summary of the themes of Pluto in Sagittarius (1995-2008): this period was about growth without sufficient boundaries, controls or accountability. It was about overconfidence and the spread of globalism. We heard a lot about economic buoyancy, boom and bubbles while Pluto was in Sagittarius. Pluto was trying to warn us that bubbles eventually burst (such as the dotcom bubble which began in 1995 and dramatically burst in 2000) and that under our current capitalist system a boom always comes before a bust. Global free market capitalism was spiralling out of control. Pluto’s sign also reflects who we collectively choose as our enemies. With Sagittarius symbolising the foreign, it’s not surprising that our biggest real or perceived threat was the foreign terrorist. This fear had us take our eye off enemies closer to home. Under Pluto in Capricorn these ‘enemies’ have been exposed.

Pluto in Capricorn symbolises the shadow side of corporations, imbedded societal structures, governments, plutocrats and authority figures (the 1%). These are the new ‘enemies’. These are the systems that need to change and transform. If they do not change on their own, or do not change fast enough or deeply enough, they will be forced to change and much (more) global suffering will be inevitable.  The boom and the bubbles of 1995-2008 have gone for good. Growth has been stopped in its tracks and the bust has well and truly arrived. Those who currently hold all the power are doing everything they can to uphold the status quo and get things back to the Pluto in Sagittarius days. Well, I have a message for them. Pluto in Sagittarius is not coming back, at least not in our lifetime. Rather than growth without boundaries, Pluto in Capricorn is all about boundaries and about accountability and accepting responsibility for our mistakes. Collectively, we must act with extreme caution, for Pluto in Capricorn heaps upon us the full might of karma for our actions. It also speaks of the boundaries of nations, a topic very much currently to the fore with the Greece/Eurozone crisis.

Pluto in Capricorn is also about resistance and we can clearly see how the 1% are resisting the inevitable collapse of the current model of capitalism. They lack the motivation to see another way because they simply don’t want things to change, they can’t see how they will profit from doing things differently. They will not give up their power easily.

The 99% though, can use the power of resistance to say no, to question and to oppose, to suggest an alternative. The 99% can be a powerful vehicle for positive collective transformation. 

Since 2007 an exciting, powerful and incredibly disruptive planetary alignment has been forming. Rebellious Uranus has been squaring up to Pluto in Capricorn. Uranus’ energies have been compared to those of the mythical Prometheus, who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to man. Combined with Pluto, Uranus ignites revolutionary impulses and upsets the status quo. This planetary combination has been associated with mass rebellion against the establishment, revolutions, civil rights movements and radical social and political change. Below is a list of events that coincided with some of the Uranus-Pluto alignments of the past. Reading through the lists you will see the same themes occurring again and again, building through time:

The 1643-1654 alignment: the English Revolution, part of a wave of revolutions and rebellions across Europe; the emergence of the radical Puritans, the Roundheads, the Levellers and the Quakers; the forced abdication and execution of Charles I.

1787-1798: the French Revolution; the earliest emergence of modern feminism (Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Right of Women); in the US, France and Britain, the first widespread calls for the abolition of slavery, along with the Haitian slave revolution and the freeing of slaves in the French colonies.

1816-1824: revolutions across much of South and Latin America including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and Venezuela; revolutions and revolts in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France.

1845-1856: revolutionary uprisings in most European capitals (1848-49) including Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Budapest, Prague; the abrupt overthrow of a number of governments throughout Europe; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (The Communist Manifesto); upheavals in China; Japan, India and the Ottoman Empire; the emergence of the women’s suffrage movement in the US; the peak of abolitionist activism in the US; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Thoreau’s influential essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.

1896-1907: the founding of the major socialist parties in England, the US, Russia and France; the beginnings of modern Communism; the emergence of the militant women’s movement (Emmeline Pankhurst); Booker T. Washington’s calls for social and educational reform for blacks; the Boxer Revolution in China; the Russian Revolution of 1905; the emergence of Lenin and Trotsky; the founding of independence movements including the World Zionist Organisation and Sinn Fein; the influential political writings of Leo Tolstoy; Gandhi’s struggle for Indian Rights in South Africa (his methods influenced by the writings of Tolstoy and Thoreau).

1928-1937: the Spanish Civil War; a global upsurge in radical socialist movements; the empowerment of labour unions in the US; economic upheavals including the Great Depression, which informed new economic theories, most notably Keynesian economics which informed much western economic decision making up until the late seventies; the protest music of Woody Guthrie and co. which went on to inspire the protest music of Dylan etc. during the next major Uranus-Pluto alignment.

1960-1972: the evolution of radical socialism; the non-violent civil disobedience movements employed by Martin Luther King and the anti-war protests ( inspired by Gandhi); the widespread emergence of the women’s lib movement (Millett, Greer, Lessing, Steinem); the culmination of the black civil rights movement in the US (Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X and the Civil Rights Acts of 1965 and 1968); the resistance activities of Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa; the rising popularity of Marxist revolutionary leaders and their ideas including Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh; Mao’s Little Red Book.

The ongoing 2007-2020 alignment (exact between 2012-15): a resurgence in Keynesian economic theory in response to the global financial crisis of 2007/8 (which advocates active monetary and fiscal policy making by the government in order to stabilize the economy); the Arab Spring including revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and ongoing civil uprisings in other countries including Bahrain, Syria^]and Yemen;  a wave of strikes, riots, protests and civil unrest throughout Europe and the US; the global Occupy Movement, advocating peaceful protest, a new manifestation of the non-violent civil disobedience movements that occurred under previous alignments.

So what’s next? This is only the beginning for the current Uranus-Pluto alignment, which doesn’t make its first exact connection until June 2012. Between now and 2020, the planetary alignments indicate that we are likely to see the economic situation getting worse if the same-old, same-old solutions are applied.

I predict that, in response, the Occupy Movement will grow and develop, with other movements springing up worldwide. New and existing radical political groups (from both ends of the political spectrum) are likely to grow in voice and influence, but in particular there will be a new interest in radical socialism. More revolutions and mass uprising are inevitable, not ruling out European countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy or even the UK. Friction between European countries is also more than possible, caused by tensions over the EU’s role as a central controlling force. I will not be surprised if the Euro collapses by or before 2020. The EU as a body will look very different, as more and more EU countries reclaim their national independence. Overall, cries for a fair, just, democratic world will be so loud it will not be possible to ignore them.

We should expect the unexpected and rule out nothing, even that which currently seems impossible.  The only inevitability is that by the time 2020 comes around our world will be a very different place. To get there in good shape, we need to break free from the old way of doing things. Those in power are refusing to let go, but they do not seem to realise they are sailing on the proverbial Titanic. When the ship goes down, it is up to the 99% to seize the opportunity to replace the old with a new society, based on true democracy and fairness. We must continue to build democratic communities from the grassroots up, to provide a positive model for the years to come. At the same time, we need to do whatever we can to free the world’s precious resources from corporate control and demand collective ownership of the earth we walk upon.

*This phenomenon follows the ancient Greek Neo-Platonic idea that the same patterns are reproduced at all levels, from the largest (the macrocosm or universe-level) down to the smallest level (the microcosm).

References: historical correlations from Cosmos and Psyche, Intimations of New World View, Chapter 4.  Author: Professor Richard Tarnas. Published by Viking Penguin, 2006.

With love, Mandi

www.mandilockley.com

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Transits of 'Imprisonment' and 'Liberation'

The reversal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher was a story which gripped and polarised the public and the media. Whether the pair really had anything to do with the murder we may perhaps never know and that’s not a subject I’m going to speculate about here. When fascinated me about their story is how the timing for the original conviction, the appeal and their eventual release key in to the timing of major outer planet alignments, namely Saturn Square Pluto, Saturn opposite Uranus and the incoming Uranus Square Pluto.  Both Sollecito and Knox have had these alignments touching their charts by transit, with Knox in particular experiencing them very strongly.

What intrigued me even more were the parallels between what happened to them while Saturn, Pluto and Uranus transited their charts and what happened to me while the same transiting planets were touching my own chart. No, I haven’t been convicted, imprisoned, retried and then acquitted of any crime, nor have I had my personal life and character hauled over the coals for all the world to see, but what I did experience with these transits was similar on the psychological and emotional level. Feeling trapped (imprisoned) by external circumstances apparently beyond my control, a sense of ‘fighting back’ and eventually, release and freedom.

By making this analogy, I hope to demonstrate how the themes we associate with outer planet transits to our natal planets can manifest in our lives on so many different levels... From the most literal, external, public events to processes and feelings that occur at the most private and inner level. Often of course, they manifest on many different levels at once and fortunately for most of us, they are not nearly as dramatic or public as the Knox and Sollecito case.

On 4^th December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. This conviction occurred very close to Saturn’s first exact square to Pluto at 2 degrees Libra and Capricorn in November 2009. Saturn and Pluto’s next exact alignment was at the end of January 2010 at 4 degrees of Libra and Capricorn. For both of them, Saturn and Pluto were transiting personal planets in their charts.

Saturn-Pluto transits can seem, at least on the psychological level, to take away our freedom and our free will. In the case of Knox and Sollecito, the loss of freedom was literal. In fact, losses on any level can occur under this transit. It tends to be a time of forced change, fear, pressure, negativity, crisis, restriction and a psychological journey to the underworld.  We may feel that invisible forces are working against us, that we are fighting for survival on some level. Even as our personal power is taken away, we need to find the strength to carry on, to work hard and then even harder to face and banish our demons. For this we need courage, strength and staying power. We need to tap into inner and outer resources to help us through. Readers with planets or angles at 1-5 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and/or Capricorn are likely to identify with some of these themes if they look back over the last couple of years or so (get your chart for free at www.alabe.com).

The charts below show how the Saturn and Pluto square picked up on personal planets in Knox and Sollecito's birth charts. Knox has Venus at 4 degrees of Cancer, so just after the conviction transiting Pluto was exactly opposing her Venus, with Saturn squaring her Venus. She also has Mercury conjunct Venus, with Neptune in early Capricorn opposing from the public seventh house. The Moon’s Nodes, in early Aries and Libra, complete a dynamic, but no doubt stressful cardinal grand cross.  With Pluto and Saturn transiting this grand cross it’s not surprising that she has been called a liar, a manipulator, a seductress, violent, perverted and a she-devil, but imagine having to face your demons when the world is naming you as the demon!

Click to enlarge

Sollecito has his Sun at 5 degrees Aries squaring Neptune at 1 Capricorn, within orb of the Saturn-Pluto squares of late 2009 and spring/summer 2010.  While he has attracted less attention than Knox, the Saturn-Pluto transit to his Sun and Neptune is telling. Was he a victim in all this or was he deceiving everyone when he proclaimed his innocence? It’s hard to tell with that Sun-Neptune square, except to mention that it is reasonable to expect martyrdom on some level, or at least the sacrifice of the ego, with this aspect, especially so because both the Sun and Neptune are angular in his chart.

Click to enlarge

For myself, I have Sun in the eighth house at 4 degrees Capricorn, which meant that for most of 2009, transiting Pluto was in orb of conjunction with my Sun, with its first exact hit in January 2010. Transiting Saturn was in orb of a square to my Sun from late 2009 through autumn 2010, with the first hit in December 2009. What happened to me? Well, a change in personal circumstances beyond my control meant that I felt trapped in an unhappy situation both literally and emotionally. Any attempt to get myself out of the situation seemed blocked at every turn and I felt like a rat in a maze. I won’t go into great detail, except to say that it was all very eighth house on every level!  Friends will testify that during this time I would often say that my situation felt like a prison sentence, but that I wasn’t sure what my crime had been!

We all know that in life nothing is forever and like life, transits are temporal. With Saturn-Pluto transits, there is, thankfully, a light at the end of the tunnel, with the eventual promise of empowerment and emancipation, but not before a lot of hard work and a lot of seemingly endless patience.

Sollecito and Knox‘s legal teams filed appeals against their convictions in April 2010 and the appeal process began in December 2010. It was during the time between the filing of the appeal and the actual appeal that the Saturn-Pluto squares and the ongoing, status-quo upsetting Saturn-Uranus oppositions formed what has been widely dubbed by astrologers as the cardinal climax – a t-square in the early cardinal planets that had been building since 2008 and has come to symbolise shocks, changes, intense challenges, restriction, losses and hard, hard work. Its most obvious manifestation has been in dramatic change of fortune in the world’s economies, the effects of which have filtered down into the lives of individuals everywhere, but overall, these aspects have been reflected in individuals’ lives in many different ways and on many different levels.

Whatever the manifestation, I’m proposing that it was accompanied by these feelings of entrapment and imprisonment that I have described, along with the feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself and in many ways out of your control. Despite this, many of us have emerged much stronger and more resourceful, even as we find our material circumstances reduced.

So, for those of you still feeling trapped and repressed, where and when is the release? Let’s look again at the charts of Knox and Sollecito. 

They won their appeal against their murder conviction and were freed on October 3^rd 2011. By now, Saturn has moved out of the picture, with the much anticipated Uranus-Pluto square forming. On the day of their release, Uranus was at 2 Aries and Pluto at 5 Capricorn, connecting with the cardinal planets in their charts very closely. Under Uranus-Pluto moving aspects we demand freedom, we question authority, we don’t accept the letter of the law and we won’t tolerate being controlled. We want to feel free to do what we want to do and we want to make a difference.

Knox’s father summed up Saturn-Pluto followed by Uranus-Pluto perfectly, "she's almost kind of reborn in a way. I mean, living for four years inside a concrete and steel, you know, prison, and now being able to kind of just look around, smell the air and - and just do what she wants to do, hopefully when she wants to do it, it makes a huge difference." (quote from cbsnews.com)

For myself, after a year or more of Saturn and Pluto transiting my Sun, I had the first squares from Uranus to my Sun in May this year. Around the time of the second hit, a surprising event happened that changed everything for me. As I sit here writing, I am looking forward to the next few months leading up the third and final square of transiting Uranus to my Sun, with Uranus is also making a series of sextiles to my MC and 10^th house Aquarius planets.  I am now in a position where I feel free do whatever I want with my life. Yes, there has been much upheaval and masses of change, but finally my appeal has been heard and I have been released from my psychological prison. I still don’t know what my crime was, but that doesn’t matter, because what I do now know is that I have the inner resources to cope with an uncertain future and it doesn’t matter that I can’t control everything. All that matters is that I use my time and energy wisely from now on and follow my heart.

Readers, have you experienced similar feelings and events over the last couple of years or so? How are things now?

With love,
Mandi
www.mandilockley.com

Chart data from Astrodatabank.

A note to subscribers: an apology that at the end of Astrology for October there was an error in the text for Venus and Mercury opposing Jupiter. This has now been corrected:

http://mandilockley.blogspot.com/2011/10/astrology-for-october-golden.html