Search Global Astrology Topics

Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Cardinal Crisis -> Greeks Fight The Powers That Be > Also, The 13th Zodiac Sign? Astrologers Ask, "Where's The Beef?" > Plus, Mundane Mystery Of Ophiuchus > Jupiter, The Moon's Nodes & Uranus In 2011: Year Of The Rabbit > *The Fixed Star Scheat & Australia's 'Biblical' Floods > La Niña & Winter/Spring Climate Forecast: Prepare For A Deep Freeze > Jobs, The Economy & Legacy Of Baby Boomers In 2011: A Brave New Dystopia? > Is Generation X Our Noble Generation? >> Also, Mundane World Forecast: Decade Of The Twenty-Tens


The Cardinal Crisis
The people of Greece will have to fight global robber barons for the future of their nation in 2011.

Astrological Forecasts 2011:
Jupiter, Uranus & The Year of The Rabbit
  
Plus,

The Fixed Star Scheat
&
 Australia's 'Biblical' Floods 
Jupiter-Uranus conjunct Scheat: Four children, including a toddler torn from his mother's arms by killer flood currents, are among 10 people confirmed to have recently drowned to death in Queensland, Australia. Since November, as heavy rains from frequent storms began the deluge, 22 have died with 43+ people currently reported missing. In this January 11, 2011 image, a baby known only as "Montana" arrives safely in Gatton, Australia after being quickly evacuated by army helicopter in the wake of Queensland's mammoth La Niña-fueled floods. The deadly floodwaters are now set to strike Australia's third largest city - Brisbane - the capital of Queensland and home to 2 million people.
Image: Jack Tran/The Australian

La Niña's Deep Freeze

&

Jobs, The Economy & Legacy Of Baby Boomers

Plus,

Generation X - Our Noble Generation

And,

2011: A Brave New Dystopia?

Also,

The 13th Zodiac Sign?
Astrologers Ask:
"Where's The Beef?"

&

The Mundane Mystery Of Ophiuchus


 Global Astrology 

By
Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
Θεόδωρος
Peace and Goodwill To All People Of Earth.

Praise And Glory Be To The Immortal God.

This edition of Global Astrology is a long read, so please feel free to return as often as you'd like to finish reading up on the diverse events of our present world along my mundane forecasts provided in this special edition.

This mid-January update has been attached to the January 1, 2011 edition of Global Astrology.

The year of 2011 will see the good people of the brave nation of Greece fighting back against the evils imposed on them by debt lords who falsely believe they can force the Greek people into submission.

Expect to see updates on the Greek crisis, which really is about Europe and the Euro as much as it is about debt robber barons who think they can steal the resources of Greece away from the Greek People.

The year 2011 will continue to see battles on the streets of Athens, in Parliament and intrigue throughout the halls of Greek power as international robber barons are about to discover that the Greek people will not go down without a serious fight.

The Cardinal Crisis
Greeks Fight The Powers That Be

We here at Global Astrology are rooting for the Greek people, who continue to show the rest of the world that in order to maintain democracy one must fight for it.

It reminds this American of a speech that galvanized a collection of colonies fighting for their survival:

"No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House.

But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.

This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery - and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate.


It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country.

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts.

Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?


Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.

And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.

Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.

Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?


Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort.

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?

No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging.

And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument?


Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?

Nothing.

We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted?

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on.


We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.


Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight!


I repeat it, sir, we must fight!

An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!


They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.


The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active - the brave.


Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!

Our chains are forged!


Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable - and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!



The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!

Our brethren are already in the field!


Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish?

What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?


Forbid it, Almighty God!

I know not what course others may take - but as for me - give me liberty or give me death!"

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

~

Now, in this edition of Global Astrology, we take a deeper look on what has been called a "viral" spread of yet another attack on Astrology by astronomers, who frankly, should know better, but keep on sticking their feet into their mouths when it comes to the divine science of Astrology.

So, to hopefully correct what I see as opinion serving as ignorance to deceive the general public, this opinion, running wild and flailing its arms about like an emperor with no clothes on, please consider, if you will... 

The 13th Zodiac Sign?
Astrologers Ask:
"Where's The Beef?"

“There are in fact two things: Science and opinion. 
The former begets Knowledge, the latter - ignorance.”
~ Hippocrates

Editorial By
Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S

Every few years, we seem to hear no end from conventional astronomers who rail on and on about how “Astrology” is nothing but junk.

Usually, as is always the case these days, it is from yet another ‘astronomer' who takes on something that is so technically moot and turns a molehill into a mountain. 

In this case - what came out of the state of Minnesota in January 2011.

We all know the silly story by now. 

It emerged out of the Star-Tribune of Minnesota and spread around the Internet like a funky bad smell in a small room.

Let’s take a very brief sniff:

“A recent Harris Poll found that 31 percent of Americans believe in astrology. They're wrong - although not necessarily in the way their detractors might cite.

The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was "in" on the day a person was born. 

During the ensuing millenniums, the moon's gravitational pull has made the Earth "wobble" around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment.

The result?

"When [astrologers] say that the sun is in Pisces, it's really not in Pisces," said Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society.

Indeed, most horoscope readers who consider themselves Pisces are actually Aquarians. So instead of being sensitive, humane and idealistic, they actually are friendly, loyal and inventive.

Or not.

There is no physical connection between constellations and personality traits, said Kunkle, who teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

"Sure, we can connect harvest to the stars," he said. 

"But personality? No."

Astronomers have pooh-poohed astrology from the get-go, but Kunkle hedged when asked if astrology can bring people to his science.

"Historically, people looked at the sky to understand the world around us," he said. "But today I don't think people who are into astrology look at the sky very much."

But they do look at horoscopes. And now they have an explanation for why a day might not have turned out exactly as predicted.”

The publication then posted Kunkle’s "new Zodiac" as follows below.

This is some really weird stuff people, but here it is –

Kunkle says that “Astrology buffs” should be using his dates.

Remember, this comes from a non-astrologer who does not practice the science:

  1. Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
  2. Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
  3. Pisces: March 11-April 18.
  4. Aries: April 18-May 13.
  5. Taurus: May 13-June 21.
  6. Gemini: June 21-July 20.
  7. Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
  8. Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
  9. Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
  10. Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
  11. Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
  12. *Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
  13. Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.
 Then, it took off on the Internet and got this wild-eyed response (see video below) from many who have not a clue as to what they are talking about, but wow, they sure suck down that Kool-Aid quickly, don't they?

Check out the dude below for proof why you should not believe everything you hear and read - because it just may not be true.

You see, I always like to think Star Trek. You know, let's be calm, cool, scientific, stable, mature and above all - professional - about things.

Astrologers are a long suffering crew. We also know how to lighten things up in the wake of all the attacks astrology must defend itself: from those who are ignorant and whom mock the very complex work astrologers perform, day in and day out.

So, before we get all serious here on Global Astrology on the subject of a 13th zodiacal Sign - here's to all you hard-working astrologers out there who have been fielding hundreds of calls and emails from stressed-out people and the news media, frantic that their birth signs may have suddenly changed.

And no, we astrologers don't drink Kool-Aid aboard the USS Enterprise...
 
... We fight back against opinion and ignorance - with knowledge.

That is what serious astrology is all about.

But some people, like the dude just below, well, he's not thinking that.

He thinking Gilligan's Island and he's definitely gulping down all that Kool-aid.

Yummy.

Is this now the 21st Century - for dummies?

I'm sure some of you woke up, saying:

"What is this s__?"

Here's a guy who drank the Kool-Aid rather fast. I'm sure there are others like him going around telling their friends," Hey, guess what? You ain't a Scorpio dude."

This guy read Time Magazine's article and went out of mind!

He says, "I always knew they (astrologers?) were wrong, but I never knew why."

Hold on there a minute - and whatever you do - make sure you do not drink the Kool-aid yet, like Gilligan you just heard and saw, wide-eyed and all.

He just took it all in, without even thinking first.

He couldn't even pronounce the name Ophiuchus correctly. I doubt very much he even knows where the constellation is to be found in the night skies.

In our reactionary, ankle-deep surface-thought society, with all the technology available at one's finger tips, you'd want to believe a person would explore the matter just a bit deeper before going around telling people something which may not be true?

But then again, I suppose with that guy, it really is Gilligan's Island... At :24 seconds in, look out for the 13th sign, Ophiuchus, who jumps down and surprises Ginger from behind.


Now, astronomer Parke Kunkle says – mind you, this guy is not an astrologer – that the Babylonians discarded Ophiuchus because they “wanted 12 signs per year?”

But why?

Well, Kunkle doesn’t tell us.

Really weird stuff. 

Why would the Babylonians do that?

So, here we have it.

A guy named Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, who is not a professional astrologer, decides to tell everyone that there is “no physical connection between constellations and personality traits.”

Seems the most famous astronomer in the world – Claudius Ptolemy – whom I’m sure Kunkle might have heard of – would very much disagree with him.

He, along with all the other most well-known astrologers and astronomers in world history – say Kunkle is - Wrong.

Okay, here we are:

An astronomer decides a single constellation in all 88 of them - in this case Ophiuchus - must be included as the 13th Sign of the Zodiac, but then he goes on to tell people that they are “not who they are” – regarding their astrological signs?

But didn’t Kunkle already say that there is NO connection between personality traits and the constellations?

He is saying Astrology is bunk, but then he tries to rewrite the order of the Signs and their placements?


What's with that?

I would not dare dream of rewriting the order of the signs and I am an astrologer.

I won’t go into all the popularized details of what took place because frankly, it did not deserve any attention to begin with – but since it went “viral,” as they like to say on the Internet – I thought that as a mundane astrologer I would put it to rest.

Why?

Because, in the end, the constant attacks on astrology by astronomers and so-called "skeptics," is bunk and they know it too.

They are basically saying since they can't interpret and read the transits of stars and planets - then no one can.

That's the height, not only of ignorance, but of rampant narcissism.

So, I have a couple of questions for the astronomer in question and for those who believe in such silliness.

First, most astronomers who rail time and again about “Astrology,” do not know what they are talking about when they go on such stupid “debunking” hissy fits.

It seems that the astronomer in question out of Minnesota never read his Claudius Ptolemy, you know, the most famous astronomer in the world, who also just happened to be an astrologer?

We will get to Ptolemy in a minute.

First – we are told that there are 13 Zodiacal signs. We are told that a Capricorn really isn’t a Capricorn and that a Sagittarius really isn’t a Sagittarius and a Scorpio really isn't a Scorpio by Sun sign because an astronomer (who is not an astrologer) tells us so.

Really?

Okay, I have a couple of questions because I am a professional astrologer and happen to know a little bit myself about astrology and astronomy.

Astrology is a science. This much I know. I practice it as an expert.

I also know how to read a scientific ephemeris. That’s a calendar.

I also know that astrology focuses on seasons. 

That is because one of the first applications of Astrology was to forecast the weather and climate. 

This is very important because before the advent of television, radio and the Weather Channel – people, over thousands of years - needed to eat. And they couldn't simply turn on a TV to get a weather report.

It was critical to know, long in advance, what the climate and weather would be so people  could grow enough food and then harvest and store it.

Astrologers, you see, invented meteorology.

But, I digress.

I ask astronomers these questions:

Astrology reflects the months of the year, yes?

And, we know that there are 12 of them – of basically equal number, yes?

So, if there are 12 months, then tell me - what is the name of the 13th month?

Simple question.

But I don’t hear any answers from astronomers.

So, I will give some answers.

First – the number 13, in serious astrology – is the Moon’s number.

There are two calendars – a solar one and a lunar calendar.

The solar calendar has 12 months.

The lunar calendar has each lunar year with 13 lunar months. The mean average year would be just under 384 days. 

Most lunar calendars are, in fact, lunar and solar; such as the Chinese, Hebrew and Hindu calendars, as most calendar systems were used in antiquity.

The lunar calendars have a variable number of months in a year.

The reason is that a year is not evenly divisible by an exact number of lunations, so without the addition of inter-calendar months, the seasons would drift each year.

This results in a thirteen-month year every two or three years.



 click on graphic to enlarge

The Chinese calendar is also a lunar-solar calendar, which includes the essentials of a lunar calendar, along with the basics of a solar calendar.

This calendar is followed in China and in several other Asian cultures.

Sometimes, even some western cultures referred to this calendar.

In many parts of Asia the Gregorian calendar is still used to discern daily transits, but the Chinese calendar is also of a great use - as it helps to know about the Traditional Eastern Asian holidays such as spring festivals - known as the Chinese Lunar New Year and the Duan Wu Festival celebrated in China as well as the mid-autumn Festival.

Moreover, the Chinese calendar system are used for diverse purposes of predictive astrology like determining auspicious dates for weddings and any other good works to be done in the future under favorable astrological transits.

The phases of the moon can also be determined in advance as these calendar systems follow the Lunar cycles during any year.

This year, starting in February, is considered the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese Calendar.

The earliest signs of the Chinese calendar originated on Oracle bones of the late second century millennium BC of the Shang dynasty; which gives the impression that the lunar-solar year consists of 12 months, with a likely inter-calendar year of thirteen months, or at times even fourteen months added empirically to avoid breaks in the calendar flow.

For recording the day, Sexagenary cycles were already in use. In that period the year starts on the first new moon.

The spring and the autumn Chinese chronicles provide a better way to understand the types of calendars used in the Zhou dynasty.

In a year, there were usually 12 months which consisted of 29 and 30 days alternatively, but from time to time an additional month was added to continue the flow between the calendar and actual lunar cycles, so that at the end of the year inter-calendar months could be added randomly.

Later, the Gregorian calendar was adopted as an official dating system in January 1912, but the general Chinese people still used the traditional astrological calendar systems. Many millions still do to this day.

Look closely at the next graphic. It is a graphic of symbols: with the stems, elements, branches and animals of the Chinese astrological system.

If you count the number of animals, there are 13 of them. And there are 10 stems and 12 branches.
click on graphic to enlarge

Also, and this is something that is really strange about astronomers who like to go on their rants about how Astrology is bunk:

It seems that these opinionated astronomers do not know how to count.

Don't you find that strange?

I do.

Very strange, considering just how “smart” conventional astronomers like to say they are when they pontificate on how Astrology is just "bad astronomy."

What I say is that these attacks on Astrology by astronomers is not only “bad astronomy" but its "bad astrology" too.

Remember who "re-wrote" those signs that went "viral" on the Internet. No astrologer in their right mind would have done that.

And, it only goes to show the depth of the ignorance and contempt most astronomers have for astrologers in general and for the science of astrology in particular.

All the famous astronomers that conventional astronomers hold so high and dear – were, in fact Astrologers.

There are astronomers who know this, because in the course of learning astronomy they had to study and read about the history of astronomy, and one could not help but to trip over the list of names of these brilliant minds who built the structure of astronomy and physics into the sciences they are today.

It is a crying shame that the majority (not all astronomers, but most) of those practicing astronomy would hold such outright contempt for the Mother of astronomy - and that surely is the divine science of Astrology.

In effect, it would be like treating the mother who raised you like a whore and then spitting in her face.

Shame on them.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the shining lights who raised astronomy and astrology to great heights.

For it is on the shoulders of these astrologers and the inventions of their celestial mechanics that allowed humanity to physically escape Earth's atmosphere to reach the planets and the stars ~


Claudius Ptolemy – called the 'Father of Astronomy' - was an astrologer. That's him, in the image above.

c. 90 – 168: The mundane astrologer Claudius Ptolemy was the most influential astronomer, geographer, expert weather forecaster and mathematician of ancient times. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt - a major center of knowledge in the ancient Mediterranean. He promoted the astrological Geocentric Technique of using the Earth as the center of planetary motions relative to it in order to forecast the future. The writings of Ptolemy, including his famous astrological treatise of four books, "Tetrabiblos" - includes the names and outlines of 48 constellations that are still in use today.

Tycho Brahe – the famous Danish astronomer. Another astrologer.

1546 - 1601: As royal astronomer of Denmark (before telescopes), Tycho Brahe used a "quadrant" to precisely measure the positions of celestial objects, especially Mars. This data would later prove crucial to Johannes Kepler in formulating the laws of planetary motion. Brahe observed a supernova and showed that it could not be within our atmosphere. Likewise he showed that comets must be farther away than the Moon. To say the least, Brahe was a colorful character. He got into an argument over a math question which led to a knife fight and part of his nose was cut off. He had a gold and silver replacement made and carried around a box of glue to keep it stuck on.


Johannes Kepler – the founder of the planetary laws of motion. An astronomer and, you guessed it – another astrologer.

1571 - 1630: The mundane astrologer Johannes Kepler "broke the code" of planetary orbits. After the death of Tycho Brahe he was appointed successor as the imperial mathematician. Using Brahe's meticulous notes on the motions of the planet Mars, Kepler was able to deduce that the planets orbit around the Sun, but in ellipses, not in circles as Copernicus had assumed. Kepler articulated three now famous laws of planetary motion: 1.) Planets travel in ellipses with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse. 2.) An imaginary line between a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal area in equal time. 3.) The square of the total time period of an orbit is proportional to the cube of the average distance of the planet to the Sun. Kepler was also an expert astrometeorologist and was well known throughout Europe for his advanced and accurate climate and weather forecasts.

That’s just three.

Here's more:


Galileo – one of the most famous astronomers in the world - and an astrologer.

1564 – 1642: The mundane astrologer Galileo Galilei formulated the basic law that all falling bodies fall at the same rate. Notably, he verified his conclusions by carefully designed experiments and measurements. He constructed a refractor telescope with which he viewed craters on the Moon, the phases of Venus, and the rings of the planet Saturn. He discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter. He agreed with the astrologer Nicolaus Copernicus that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun. For promoting this fact and his practice of judicial astrology, Galileo was arrested and tried for heresy by the Vatican, who apologized to him - 500 years later.

Nicolaus Copernicus, the celebrated astronomer was also a mundane astrologer. 

1473 - 1543: The astrologer Nicolaus Copernicus wrote a treatment on the solar system that suggested the Sun was more likely to be in the center than the Earth and that the planets revolved around the Sun. His treatise, titled, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies"  was immediately banned and anyone found to have possession of it were accused of heresy, tortured and condemned to death by the Inquisition. The idea of a "Heliocentric" or Sun-centered system is considered so important to world history it is often referred to as the "Copernican Revolution."

The Englishman Isaac Newton, though most modern-day astronomers will not admit it publicly for fear of being mocked by their "rationalist" colleagues, was in fact, a mundane astrologer.

1642 - 1727: Listing all of mundane astrologer Isaac Newton's contributions to science would fill many volumes. 

In the science of astronomy, particular areas of the work of this astrologer stand out. He designed a new type of reflecting telescope which is now called a "Newtonian" telescope. Most amateur telescopes in use today are called "Newtonians." 

Newton used a prism to show that white light is actually made of colors. His laws of motion and gravity are the basis for understanding Kepler's laws of planetary orbits to this day. 

A devout Christian and very spiritual man, Isaac Newton calculated the entire history of the prophetic events of the Holy Bible, applying the dating-of-time principles of mundane astrology. 
For more on this fact, see -> The Newton Project.

The German-born native Albert Einstein said that his deep and long study of mundane astrology taught him many things about the nature of the Universe. 

There are repeated attempts by the enemies of truth and of astrology on Internet search engines to disconnect people like Newton and Albert Einstein from astrology. 

However, both men firmly supported and practiced serious astrology themselves.

What they, like all true scientists and believers were against are the pop-culture forms of astrology which they correctly saw as demeaning the great science of astrology and the excellent service it has rendered throughout humanity's history.

"Astrology is a science in itself and contains an
illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things
and I am greatly indebted to it. 

"Geophysical evidence
reveals the power of the stars and planets in relation to
the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power
to some extent. This is why Astrology is like a life giving
elixir to mankind." 

~ Albert Einstein

1879 - 1955: The contributions Albert Einstein gave to astronomy are so significant that the depth of some them continue to be explored today. Some of the areas of Einstein's major impacts on science deal with the nature of light, gravity and the nature of time itself.
 
It is in regards to the nature of light Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics for his discovery of the law of the "photo-electric effect." Ten years earlier, in 1911, Einstein calculated that, based on his new theory of relativity, that light from another star would be bent by the Sun's gravity. Einstein's prediction was confirmed eight years later by the observations of a British expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919. International media reports of this made Einstein world famous.  

The essence of Einstein's work is that the amount of energy contained in various light waves are directly related to the light's wavelengths. For example, blue light is more energetic than red. Einstein gave us a whole new perspective on gravity called General Relativity. Instead of viewing gravity as an attractive force between two objects (like Newton), he viewed it as a shape, as an astrologer would.

 "How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

By treating space itself as a thing with shape that can be distorted in the vicinity of matter, Einstein gave astronomers a powerful tool for explaining extreme situations and effects, like black holes. The strange nature of time is explained in Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity

Einstein shows how time is not absolute, but rather, elastic, stretching like musical notes or compressing itself depending on an individual observer's own point of view. It is the most tested and successful astronomical theory in world history.

So, just how is it that today's astronomers can mock astrology, roll their eyes, attack it, call it junk and a pseudo-science?

Just what is going on here?

I find it hard to believe that today's astronomers are so prissy on astrology when the most famous astronomers - of all-time – were, in fact, Astrologers.

But, I digress.

Let’s get back to the Seasons.

 click on graphic to enlarge

You see Western astrologers, in our time, use the Solar Calendar - which has 12 months.
 click graphic to enlarge

This is the Tropical Zodiac. Western Astrologers are correct in their usage.

The Lunar Calendar, which has 13 months, is another thing.

It is an ancient calendar – used by Arab and Chinese cultures - mainly for religious purposes. 

They are also correct in their usage of this calendar.

As a matter of fact, I use both.


I am a mundane astrologer, so I use not only the planets, but also the fixed stars. I apply both tropical and sidereal horoscopic systems - called constellational astrology - in my natal horoscope readings and in my mundane work.

Here's what many astronomers will not tell you:

The Tropical and Sidereal zodiacs converged in the year 221 AD., and have been moving apart, at a rate of one-degree every 71.5 years since.


It is how the Earth spins on its own axis in reference to the Zodiac.


The tropical zodiac's retrograde movement, on the ecliptic, is known as the Precession of the Equinoxes.


So, tropical positions are converted to sidereal positions by doing basic math:

 click to enlarge

This is done by adding the degree, minutes and seconds of what is called the Synetic Vernal Point (the 0-degree point of the Sidereal Zodiac) to tropical longitude and subtracting back by one zodiacal Sign.

 click to enlarge graphic

These two systems are used in western and eastern astrology and are well-known by professional astrologers. Vedic and Hindu astrologers apply the sidereal system. Western astrologers favor tropical techniques.

Both systems are valid.


But, I digress again.

Let’s get back to the astronomers.

If they say Astrology is bunk because a 13th Sign – in this case Ophiuchus – changes a person’s Sun sign – then just what “system” are they using?

I ask this because it seems these astronomers, who are stellar cartographers, that is – they are technical workers - who are only supposed to be concerned with the identification and mapping of the skies (but not interpreting them as Astrologers do) - are really worried about people believing in astrology. 

They want to do something - anything - to attack and discredit Astrology.

But why?

Are not the very fathers of astronomy - in fact - Astrologers?

These astronomers – including Parke Kunkle - in their attacks on astrology - have bigger issues than worrying about people's belief in Astrology. 

The astronomers do not seem to be able to count the months of the year accurately and in order, nor discern the differences between solar and lunar calendar systems as well as astrological systems and techniques employed by astrologers in their work in this science.

This is something that any astronomer worth his or her expertise must know if they are to map the movements of the bodies of the celestial skies, don't you think?

I’m sure that Mr. Kunkle, like most people, celebrated his “Happy New Year,” on January 1, 2011. 

Bet he had a good time. 

Drank a lot on “New Years’ Eve,” and then took the day off on New Years’ Day.

Bet he said, "Happy New Year!"

Only problem is: it was NOT New Years’ Day.

Why didn’t Kunkle make any noise about that?

Didn't read anything about that in Time Magazine.

Did you?

I will explain.

You see, as an mundane astrologer, I know that January 1st is not New Years’ Day.

New Years’ Day is on the vernal equinox, that's March 20-21st.


All astrologers know (or should know) that the first day of the New Year always comes when the tropical Sun reaches the 0-Aries degree point of the Zodiac.

This is the day of an equal day and night.

 The Day of the Vernal Equinox: True New Year's Day

In fact, many cultures around the world celebrate this day. The Persians jump over bonfires to signify the day the Sun crosses what we call the Vernal Equinox.

Days just before the Persian New Year - called Nowrūz - or "new light" and "new day" - people build small bonfires and jump over the flames to symbolize the changing of seasons and its rebirth.

 Nowrūz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the new year in the Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians, the same time is celebrated in the Indian subcontinent as the true New Year. 


The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and Iranian families gather together to observe the rituals. Originally being a Zoroastrian festival, and the holiest day of them all, Nowruz is believed to have been invented by the mundane astrologer Zoroaster himself. Since the Achaemenid era the official year has begun with the New Day when the Sun leaves the zodiac of Pisces and enters the zodiacal sign of Aries, signifying the Spring Equinox. The Jewish festival of Purim is probably adopted from the Persian New Year. It is also a holy day for Sufis, Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis, and adherents of the Bahá'í faiths.

This is the day, in the northern hemisphere, that is also known as the first day of Spring.

Effectively - it is the start of the new astrological year, or New Years' Day.

Now, to make matters even worse with Parke Kunkle’s “rearrangement” of the Zodiac, is that he cannot count the months or the seasons of the year correctly.

And he goes around telling us that Astrology is junk?

Ask him what the first month of the year is and he is almost sure to say January.

And, you know what?

He would be wrong.

Kunkle says that people who are “into astrology” don’t look at the sky very much. And while that may be sometimes true, it also means that neither does he, which is odd for an astronomer, don't ya think?

Here’s why -

The first day of the new year – that is by the Solar Calendar System used by Western astrologers and Eastern Astrologers alike - is in the middle of the month of March.

And in this order:

  1. mid-March - Aries
  2. mid-April - Taurus
  3. mid-May - Gemini
  4. mid-June - Cancer
  5. mid-July - Leo
  6. mid-August - Virgo
  7. mid-September - Libra
  8. mid-October - Scorpio
  9. mid-November - Sagittarius
  10. mid-December - Capricorn
  11. mid-January - Aquarius
  12. mid-February -Pisces
Astrology is a complex science and a system used by experts to read not only the personality traits of those born under planetary and stellar influences, but is also a priori-based science – that is, an advanced forecasting science.

The systems used by astrologers are technical, such as the arrangement of Houses, and the variable mathematical aspects, according to the constant movement of the planetary bodies among the constellations.

However, what is amazing about astronomers who seem to feel that it is their duty to “debunk” a complex forecasting science they themselves have not studied – is that the astronomers who complain and whine often and loud – cannot count and do not know the order of the seasons to be able to tell what time it really is.

Here’s why:

I bet if you ask an astronomer how many months are in a year they would say 12.

If you ask them what the first month of the year was they would say January.

Again - they would be wrong.

January is the 11th month of the year.

You see – this is my point about Astrology and the astronomers who say that it is bunk. 

These “astronomers” – at least those who claim that title – do not seem to be able to read a calendar system – and Astrology, my friends, is based on astronomical calendar systems.

We use what is called an ephemeris and we know that there are various systems and techniques in reading what we call Time. That is what Astrologers do.

Astrologers interpret the mathematical variable movements of the planets among the stars and constellations and translate their influences and inclinations as depicted in horoscopes.

Now, if you still follow me here – since this is not Gilligan mentality when it comes to Astrology – know this:

Astronomers who claim that Astrology is bunk are lying. 

They do not know what they are talking about.

They want to control your mind and make you think that they know what they are talking about – when it is obvious that they don’t.

I will prove it with the Seasons and Months of the Year.

Let's get back to basics:

Astrologers mark the seasons of time itself by the construction and delineations of horoscopes.

They base their predictive forecasts by their calculations, according to the astrophysical relationships of the Earth to the Sun, Moon, planets and stars which comprise the constellations of the Zodiac and that also correlate to the geophysical and metaphysical influences observed in our world over the centuries.

So, there are two basic systems: sidereal and tropical.

The constellation Ophiuchus does touch the ecliptic and is applied usually by constellational astrologers through the Signs of Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius.

There is a mundane history of Ophiuchus, which we will now explore:

The Mundane Mystery Of Ophiuchus
 click to enlarge
 Ophiuchus is said to be associated with a real person. In the 27th Century B.C.E., in ancient Egypt lived a man known as Imhotep. He was known as ‘Aesclepius’ by the ancient Greeks. In very arcane mundane terms, this constellation was also associated with Jesus Christ. One of his astrological abilities was discovering cures for healing and rejuvenation of the human body and the raising back to life of the dead.

It is said it was he who introduced medicine by astrology to humanity. Aesclepius' accomplishments included a diverse knowledge of advanced mundane astrology and medicine. The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains the symbol of medicine today and symbolizes Astrology as the origin of modern medicine.  

Hippocrates, the Greek mundane astrologer and the 'Father of Western Medicine' said, "Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance," and he also said, “A physician without knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.”

Asclepiusis is also symbolized as the constellation called Ophiuchus.

Actually, the Signs of Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and the constellation Serpens are all connected in mundane antiquity with Ophiuchus.

The body of the Scorpion that makes up what is called Scorpio lies mostly below the ecliptic - with its claws down - so that only a part of Scorpio actually touches the ecliptic.

As a result, the transiting Sun and other celestial bodies spend a short time transiting Scorpio.

The remainder of the time by transit is spent in Ophiuchus - altogether, planets spend slightly less than one-third of their time in Scorpio, but slightly more than two-thirds of transit time is spent in Ophiuchus.

The transits of planets traveling through these constellations goes like this: Libra, then Scorpio, then into Ophiuchus and then Sagittarius. Ophiuchus touches the constellations of Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius.

The mystery behind the constellation of Ophiuchus is that it does not have any element associated with it, and its temperament is a mystery.

All the other zodiacal constellations have Latin names, but Ophiuchus is a Greek name.

Ophiuchus does not rule any House in astrology and has no planetary ruler. The name of its zodiacal sign would not be called Ophiuchus, but rather would be called "Serpentarius."

Let's explore this mysterious history of the Scorpion, Serpens and Ophiuchus in more detail since most people will not be aware of the history of Ophiuchus.

There is a much deeper spiritual meaning of this constellation as it is well-known among mundane astrologers. In fact, Isaac Newton himself was immersed in this particular mundane biblical lore.

[*Editor's Note - > I do understand that length is an issue, however, to combat the short-attention span of some, where all manner of error and falseness comes from, those who stay with this mundane discourse are bound to learn significant things about Ophiuchus.]

A Mundane Discourse on Ophiuchus

According to the collection of mystical astrological works by Bassenco's "Declaration of the Stars," we read ~

"Scorpio is the most maligned sign in the entire history of Astrology. And it fares no better when the stars are viewed as the Declaration of the Righteousness of God.

Historically, those born under the sign of Scorpio are said to be treacherous, deceptive, grudge bearers, thieves, murderers, rapists, assassins, torturers, implacable, and - yes - nearsighted.

While Scorpio does not hold the vast majority of murderers, serial killers, etc. in its scope, it is amazing that astrologers who keep statistics can pull out an amazing number of notorious villains who are born with the sun in Scorpio.

And even in recent history, a lot of catastrophes have occurred when planets in our solar system conjoin stars in Scorpio.

In later essays, I may have a chance to talk about what sun signs mean in terms of a Christian view of the stars, but I will say here in the early essays that the testimony of the heavens, when it is put down into birth charts that are read astrologically, is clear that every person is a depraved sinner.

It's as true for Libra as it is for Scorpio.

One of the first things that astounded me about natal astrology (which is the astrology of reading the birth chart), is that every chart shows the complete sinfulness of the person.

If there is anything true in natal astrology, human depravity is one thing that is true.

And the sinfulness that each chart shows gets quite specific in terms of which areas will be the greatest temptations for a person.

Secular astrologers usually try to get around this huge indictment by ignoring it or by talking about reincarnation: the "south node" that points to the expression of sin in the life is described as pointing to sins in a past life.

Well, natal charts don't show a past life. They show only the current life.

And everybody's got a South node, so Scorpios are not singled out as being any more depraved than anybody else.

And Scorpio, though much maligned and tied to venom, pain, and burning fire, is linked to judgment, wisdom, and insight.

After all, fire is the element that both consumes and yet enlightens when it is tamed. Even so pain: if it doesn't kill us, it makes us wiser.

In the Biblical account of Jacob blessing his sons, in which Jacob linked each son to a sign on the ecliptic, Dan was linked with Scorpio:

 Banner of The Tribe of Dan

"Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that
biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward." (49:16-17)


Jacob's words were fulfilled in Samson, who came from the tribe of Dan.

Samson was quite able to settle disputes among his own people and he could read the mindset of the Philistines quite well. In spite of his failings, he was an able to judge.

Yet the tribe of Dan was also true to the warning that his tribe would bring about downfall.

His tribe struck at the vulnerable heel of the nation by bringing idolatry into it in a remote corner and setting up its own priesthood to a false god (Judges 13.)

In I Kings 12, Jeroboam realized the efficiency of this plan of a distant, rival priesthood, and he set up a golden calf in Dan, where there had already been a history of a minor priesthood set up, and the idolatry had become more or less accepted.

In Jeremiah 8, the prophet links Dan to the nation being judged, and the reference to the serpent and the adder (the scorpion, the "unsheathed stinger") is again pointed out, as the Babylonian armies came down through Dan.

So Jacob's words again were proved out (though not in the way one would hope), by judgment of the nation coming by way of Dan:

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land
trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for
they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it;
the city, and those that dwell therein.
 

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, [scorpions] "unsheathed
stingers"] among you, which [will] not [be] charmed, and they
shall bite you, saith the LORD. (8:16-17)


We see from the Scriptures that the Scorpion is linked with pain, stinging, falling, wisdom, and insight.

Astrologically, this would be a pretty accurate description of the sign of Scorpio.

Constellation Scorpio


Allen has pointed out that the long tail of Scorpio appears to be coming out of the dark section of the Milky Way, the section reckoned by the ancients as depicting hell and the underworld.

Remember, scorpions prefer dark holes and crevices as their hiding places, so in the heavens, it looks as though Scorpio has crawled out from the dark hole that leads down to the land of the dead and damned.


In the ancient languages Scorpio was called "The Seizer" and "The Stinger," interchangeably.

In cuneiform, the characters that represent it also mean "Double Sword," which calls to mind the Lord Jesus' warning that we must beware of those who can destroy the body and send the soul to hell, another trait of this creature that tries to pull the offering from the altar.

Remember, the Scorpion is associated with that which first seduces and then devours, a depiction of the ensnarement of the body and then the destruction of the soul.

Bullinger explains that the Hebrew word for this sign, Acrab, is used interchangeably for the word "war," and he points out that when David praises God for teaching his hands to war, David uses the word "Akrab."

This word, in fact, shows up nine times in the Old Testament as a word for warfare.

In Arab languages, the word for Scorpio means "wounding him who comes," and in Coptic languages, the word for this sign is also used for "oppression." [Bullinger].

One ancient author cited in Allen has commented that when Pharaoh at last released the Children of Israel, he did so because the death of the first born was linked in his pagan mind with the Scorpionic god that he worshiped as having been turned against him or enslaved by a more powerful God and used against him (probably Typhon, the Destroyer.)

Bible scholars have often commented that each of the ten curses on Egypt was designed to show that a particular god in their pantheon was powerless against the one true God.

In spite of its clear association with the Scorpion, this constellation is sometimes used interchangeably with the symbol of an eagle, and it is commonly accepted in astrology today that the eagle is another symbol for Scorpio.

More rarely, the goat is sometimes used for Scorpio. The only reason for this that I can find is that all three are linked together as signs that indicate mystery and matters of difficult understanding (i.e., "darkness" and "things that are dark.")


Dsubba and Jabbah and Acrab are all stars in the head of Scorpio, called "the crown of Scorpio," whose names all mean "the forbidden tree of life" or "the forbidden tree of knowledge," which indicate how this struggle all started.

It may indicate the reason that the Scorpion came crawling out of his hole, or else indicates his authority to drag people down into his hole.

We are all lawbreakers because of what our first Father and Mother did, and this is the crown that Scorpio wears, the authority he has to triumph in our death and destruction.

The brightest and best known star in Scorpio is Antares, the "heart of the Scorpion," for there it resides.

It is a red star and often confused for Mars by observers.

 The Fixed Star, Antares

It has been called the "anti-Mars" and "the lieutenant of Mars." According to Bullinger, its name in Arabic means "the wounding."

In later references, it is directly named "The Heart of the Scorpion," because of its placement.

Bullinger observes that the name "Lesath" is also associated with this star. "Lesath" means "stinger," and is more popularly given for the star at the tip of Scorpio's tail.

And yet it is documented that several stars in Scorpio have at one time or another been called "Lesath," which makes me wonder if that overall descriptor of "Stinger" was not once more properly a name for the entire constellation in more languages than has been supposed.

In other languages less known, Antares has been given names that mean "Lust," "Rapine," and "Lightning."

On a more speculative note, Antares is known in Western, semi-Christian myths as the "watcher of the west," one of the signs of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who are called to hold back the wrath of God from earth until those who believe are sealed unto God.

It is possible that in the context of the heavens as the representation of the heavenly army, Antares depicts a general, waiting for the day of wrath to be executed upon the enemies of God.

Bear in mind, that though the stars can be pulled together to show us pictures of evil, the stars are not evil.

The stars declare the righteousness of God, and the function of Antares is to point out the evil that is upon the earth and God's righteousness in bringing salvation and judgment.

Lesath and Shaula are two stars that form the sting of the Scorpion, right in the tip of the Scorpion's tail and Scorpio is often depicted as trying to sting the heel of Ophiuchus, who has placed his other heel firmly on Antares to crush out the Scorpion's life.

The presence of two stars in the sting may be the reason that Scorpio has been called "the Double-edged sword," because it was perceived that he carried two stings. This is noteworthy because of the danger he represents both to earthly life and to eternal life.

Other known star names in Scorpio refer to the Sting.

Ophiuchus

click to enlarge

The figure of a man, Ophiuchus (the snake bearer, or snake holder) stands above Scorpio with one foot firmly planted on Scorpio's heart - the star Antares.

While crushing Scorpio's heart, Ophiuchus is also wrestling with a serpent, the constellation Serpens.

It's impossible to consider one without the other, but both constellations are distinct from each other, and the stars in each are clearly delineated.

The emphasis of the Scorpio-related lunar mansions is not on the victory (though victory is implicit in the images), but on the struggle.

Here are depicted the labors of the Savior.

The Virgo mansions, or decans, set down the basic ideas of who would come.


Libra set down the ideas of the necessity and nature of his death, with a heavy emphasis on redemption.

 Libra

Scorpio depicts what he had to accomplish. It was not enough just to die, or else the Savior could have died at birth. But his life was the accomplishment of righteousness.

In his life, He labored as the only Man who resisted temptation to the end.

He labored to set right the doctrinal wrongs that mankind had committed. He labored to demonstrate to mankind the love of God and the power of God to forgive as well as to heal.

He delivered us from demonic agents by the power of His Word.

Scorpio is about passion and mystery, and the lunar mansions show the passionate struggle of the Savior to overcome the darkest mysteries and the most powerful foes of mankind.


It's important to note that Ophiuchus is fighting two foes at once.

First, he is crushing the heart of the crowned Scorpion, while the Scorpion tries to sting him with its double-stinger tail.

The Scorpion is not the same entity as the Serpent, for the Scorpion has been granted some authority to come forth.

He wears a crown made of the first sin of mankind. He is allowed to kill and to drag us down to death, and he waits at the scales to devour the living with death.

But Ophiuchus defeats him just the same, even though Scorpio tries to sting Ophiuchus.

Ophiuchus strikes him with a heel in the heart, the seat of passion and mystery, the star called "wounding" - Antares - where the power of the Scorpion to mortally wound us lies.

Christ suffered one sting from the Scorpion. He died a physical death. But in allowing that sting to pierce Him, He became the Death of Death.

Paul wrote, "O Death, where is Thy sting? O Grave, where is Thy Victory?" 

This is the testament in the heavens, that the mystery and power of the Scorpion are stopped by the heel of Ophiuchus.


Bullinger provides other star names for component stars in Ophiuchus, but he does not identify them or equate them with the catalog system of stars that we have today: He names one as "Saiph" which he says is in the foot, and means "bruised."

I can only assume that this is a reference to the theta star in the foot of Ophiuchus. He also documents stars named Triophas, "treading under foot"; Carnebus, "the wounding"; and Megeros, "contending".

The other struggle of Ophiuchus that is depicted is his wrestling with the snake that he holds.

Bullinger documents that in the most ancient of all zodiacs, the Denderah Zodiac, Ophiuchus is shown as a human figure with the head of a hawk and Ophiuchus is called Api-bau - "the chief who cometh."

The hawk was viewed as the mortal enemy of the snake. No high flying hawk could resist the sinuous motion of a snake that it espied and the hawk's aerial attack spelled death for any snake caught in its talons and beak.

So the victory here is implicit in the name given to the hawk-headed man, and there are hints of vigilance in this figure. Hawk-like, He is one who watches for any sign of the serpent.

But the struggle is just as real. In the Denderah zodiac, the snake is called Khu, "the ruled," or "the enemy."

But where Ophiuchus has tread upon the heart of Scorpion, which is the Scorpion's passionate power to mortally wound its prey, Ophiuchus has grasped the snake by the neck, right at the star Unukalhai, which means "Neck of the Serpent."

In Latin, this star has been called Cor Serpentis, the "heart of the Serpent," even though the star is too high to be the heart of such a creature.

But the meaning is that Ophiuchus has seized the Serpent by the source of its power, the center of what it is by nature.

One astrologer has observed, "The neck, rather than the head, is where a snake has its brain, its seat of knowledge." [attributed to Eric Morse.]

So even as Ophiuchus stamps out the power of death with his foot, he seizes the power of deception in his hand and crushes it.

For the serpent is the deceiver. And the power of the serpent is deception.


Sin gained dominion over us because Eve was deceived.

Satan is called the great Deceiver and the Father of Lies.

In the heavens, Ophiuchus seizes the serpent as the serpent is reaching to seize the crown depicted in Libra.


If Scorpio cannot seize the price of our redemption from the altar, then the Serpent will seize the glory of salvation, and make it unseemly and worthless, so that we are deceived.

But Ophiuchus prevents this.


And though I see that Christ defeated this serpent in His death and resurrection, yet also in His life, Christ labored to make us understand what glorifies the Father, what true righteousness is.

One field of battle for our Lord was simply to clear away the deceptions and self deceptions that had obscured the true glory of God from His own people.


Over the course of a day, Christ suffered and died for us. Over the course of three days, He rose again.

But over the course of a lifetime He corrected errors in doctrine and errors in practice and made us understand the nature and will of God the Father.

There is a truth that Christ defeated Satan all in a moment.

But in another sense, it was an ongoing process, a labor, of wrestling with ingrained deceptions that required our Lord to walk up and down among His people, healing them, teaching them, accepting them, personally delivering to them the message that God had forgiven them because they fearfully and humbly trusted in Him.


So Christ seized the "brain" of the serpent, the deceptive thinking that the serpent spread among man, and Christ defeated those deceptions and told us the truth.

In fact, Christ spent His earthly life being the Truth, so that we could see the Truth in action.

This was his labor as well.


I think this is why Ophiuchus is depicted in the midst of two struggles: because Christ had great tasks set before him, and His life was labor.

The brightest star in Ophiuchus, Ras al Hagus, means "the head of him who holds," [Bullinger.]

The star Sabik in the knee of Ophiuchus has been called "The Proceeding One" (as in one who gives chase to the serpent before it, another reference to his vigilance) or "The Driver," a name that harks back to Bootes in Virgo and that also points to the victory of Ophiuchus over the snake.

The Persian name for this star and another star nearby is "Serpent Tamer."

The Serpent


The brightest star in the Serpent is in the neck, as mentioned above. It is the star Unukalhai, the star depicting the source of the serpent's thinking and knowledge.

Scorpio, remember, seduces and can give earthly delights by his terrible claws, which he then uses to kill and devour his desired one.

But the serpent uses cunning, craft, and deception. Bullinger defined this star as Unuk, "the encompassing". According to him, the Hebrew name is Alyah, "the accursed."

The second brightest star, which he documents as Cheleb, or Chelbalrai, means "the serpent enfolding."

Modern astrologers have named a star in Ophiuchus as Cebalrai, "the heart of the Shepherd Dog".

Obviously there has been some confusion as to which star is named what, and the reasoning for this name being put right onto the nostril of Ophiuchus is that some Arabic astrologers saw a herd of dogs and a shepherd here.

But there are no real supports for this idea that I have yet found, and Bullinger's research was pristine, so I would vote for his point of view, that Chelbalrai, "the serpent enfolding" is the name originally affixed to a star in the Serpent, to indicate the struggle against Ophiuchus.

The stars in both Ophiuchus and the Serpent have long been equated with both poison and medicine in mundane astrology.

In Greek myth, Ophiuchus (also known as Aesculapius), born of a god and a human woman, is equated with being killed and resurrected, with having the medicinal power to prevent death and make man immortal.

He is directly linked to Chiron as one of Chiron's students. He fell under the wrath of Jupiter/Zeus and was killed, and yet later was glorified in the heavens by Jupiter.

So we see the tale of the corrupted Gospel in this mythical figure.

A long trail of medical discoveries and medical catastrophes have occurred when stars in either of these constellations have been conjoined by planets on our own ecliptic."
~

As you can see, there is a much deeper and spiritual meaning to this constellation of Ophiuchus.

A lot was left out when all this brouhaha came out about Ophiuchus and the 13th Sign, don't you think?

Such is the toe-deep surface mentality of our present era.

Let’s get back to the months of the year.

We know that there are 12 Months in a Year, right?

If this is so, then what is the 13th month?

Seems the astronomer Kunkle left that out.

If there is a 13th zodiacal sign then we must have a month. And what do we call that mysterious 13th month?

The month of Kunkle?

And, why do astronomers say that January is the first month of the year when it is in reality the 11th month of the year?

Try asking them sometime.

Let's look at the origins of the months which prove what I am saying to you is true.

September = 7 - In Latin, Septem means "seven" and "Septimus" means "Seventh."

October = 8 - In Latin, "Octo" means "Eight."

November = 9 - In Latin, "Novem" means "Nine."

December = 10 -> In Latin, "Decem" means "Ten." December was also the tenth month in the Roman calendar until a month-less winter period was divided between January and February.

Why is September called the 9th month when SEPT means the number 7?
Why is October called the 10th month when OCT means the number 8?
Why is November called the 11th month when NOV means the number 9?
Why is December called the 12th month when DEC means the number 10?

You see, the reason is that astronomers do not know how to interpret TIME and it is for this exact reason why they are not called Astrologists.

Though they want to be called Astrologists – as those who practice the Logy-professions are called biologists, psychologists, zoologists, etc.

Astronomers – again – are stellar cartographers

They are merely the workers who perform the function of identifying and mapping of the celestial skies. 

They are like the technical workers in hospitals who run the machines and map out the human body with X-ray machines, CAT scans and such.

But they do not diagnose. They should not philosophize.

They do not give advice to clients, to patients. They do not interpret.

That is the Doctor’s job.

That is the role of the Astrologer in the celestial science.

And today's astronomers don’t like that.

You see?

So the next time an astronomer tells you that Astrology is junk: 

Ask the astronomer what the first month of the year is and his or her answer will tell you exactly all they know about Astrology – which is exactly: zero - > except for what they see in the daily Sun-sign horoscope pages, which astronomers, in their ignorance, think is real astrology.

Here's some news: it's not.

Let’s get back to the most famous of all astrologers and astronomers – Claudius Ptolemy:

The arguments against astrology have been longstanding, vigorous, and consistent over the years – while flooded with defects of logic, and ignorance, such as what we witnessed from the astronomer Mr. Kunkle up there in Minnesota.

Presented here is clear evidence of the roots of the continued wood-headed thinking about astrology as opposed to what the science actually is in reality and practice.

Astrologers say that the attacks of conventional astronomers are incited by their need to control people with their ideology, much like the lies of man-made global warming - exposed in Climategate.

The ancient world in the first and second centuries C.E. set the tone for the most fundamental objections of astrology by powers of the time, according to Edmond H. Wollmann, in his 2001 work, titled: ‘A Comparison and Refutation of The Historical Arguments Against Astrology.’

Here are quoted extracts of the famous mundane astrologer and Father of Astronomy, Claudius Ptolemy, who set the standard and tone to rebut these attacks by astronomers and their associated critics, in seeking to control society by attacking Astrology.

Stay with me here.

Cicero set this tone for arguments against astrology in "On The Nature of The Gods" and "Divination" when he writes:

"Let us now speak of the Chaldeans and of the phenomena whereby they foretell the future. 

But let us have done with witnesses and apply our reason to the problem.

Those who accept the birthday calculations of the Chaldeans present their case somewhat as follows: in that constellation-studded belt which the Greeks call the Zodiac there dwells a certain force which is so puissant that each individual part of the belt controls and alters the heavens in its own particular way, according to the constellations which are in its section of the sky (or in contiguous sections) at any given time.

This force is affected in various ways by those stars which are called ‘planets’ or ‘wanderers.’ But when they have moved into that sign of the Zodiac under which some person is being born, or into a sign which bears some relation or affinity to it, then there comes into being what they term a ‘triangle’ or a ‘square.’ 

And since the rising and setting of the constellations produce endless varieties of weather and climate and since, further, the Sun works those wonders which we behold with our own eyes, these proponents of astrology believe that it is not merely a matter of probability, but of absolute certainty, that, just as the heat or coldness of the air is regulated and determined by this mysterious power, so children at birth are animated and molded by it, and that every human being has from it his mind, character, temperament, body, vocation, and fate."

Astronomers who attack astrology, but have not studied it further than your simple Sun-Sign pop-culture astrology, claim, as Parke Kunkle did that –

1. It is impossible to make precise observations of the heavens at the moment of birth (or conception)

2. People born at the same moment under the same constellation have different destinies.

3. People born neither at the same moment nor the same constellation die at the same time.

4. Animals too would be subject to the same fate as human beings born at the identical moment.

5. The diversity of races, customs, and creeds regardless of whether or not people were born at the same moment under the same constellation, is incompatible with astrological tenets.

But the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy – The Father of Astronomy, mind you - who knew the extreme ignorance of the average person with regard to astrological application - reinforced the direct link between astronomy and astrology.

Ptolemy explained, in great detail through his application and delineation of astrological mathematics in his famous book "Tetrabiblos" (four books) - with all that was needed to refute all the attacks by astronomers against Astrology.

Here, Claudius Ptolemy answers with the authority of a master astrologer.

He introduces, from the very start, the complexity of Astrology, which he says escapes the cognition of most people – especially conventional astronomers - by the forces of powerfully delineated astrological techniques.

Ptolemy states –

“The studies preliminary to Astrological prognostication are Two: 


The first - alike in order and in power, leads to the knowledge of the figurations of the Sun, the Moon, the stars and of their relative aspects to each other and to the earth.

The other - takes into consideration the changes which their aspects create, by means of their natural properties, in objects under their influence.

It is, however, a common practice with the vulgar (the ignorant) to slander everything which is difficult of attainment.

And surely, they who condemn the first of these two studies must be considered totally blind, whatever arguments may be produced in support of those who impugn the second.

There are also persons who imagine that whatever they themselves have not been able to acquire, that then it must be utterly beyond the reach of all others' understanding.

While others again will consider as useless any science of which (although they may have been often instructed in it) they have failed to preserve the recollection, owing to its difficulty of retention.”

Ptolemy also argues that any flaws are the effects of the incompetency of anyone doing astrological delineations rather than practicing the true science itself.

This is a powerful and accurate assertion included here - which must be overcome by all opponents of astrology.

Ptolemy, the Father of Astronomy, goes on -

"Since it is thus clearly practicable, by an accurate knowledge of the points above enumerated, to make predictions concerning the proper quality of the seasons, there also seems no impediment to the formation of similar prognostication concerning the destiny and disposition of every human being. 


For by the constitution of the Ambient, even at the time of any individual's primary conformation, the general quality of that individual's temperament may be perceived; and the corporeal shape and mental capacity with which the person will be endowed at birth may be pronounced. 


As well as the favorable and unfavorable events indicated by the state of the Ambient and liable to attend the individual at certain future periods. 

Since, for instance, an event dependent on one disposition of the Ambient will be advantageous to a particular temperament. 


And that resulting from another, unfavorable and injurious. 


From these circumstances, and others of similar import, the possibility of pre-science is certainly evident.



There are, however, some plausible assailants of this doctrine, whose attacks although greatly misapplied seem yet worthy of the following observations:

In the first place, the science of Astrology demands the greatest study, and a constant attention to a multitude of different points. 


And, as all persons who are but imperfectly practiced in it must necessarily commit frequent mistakes, it has been supposed that even such events as have been truly predicted have taken place by chance only and not from any operative cause in nature. 


But, it should be remembered, that these mistakes arise, not from any deficiency or want of power in the astrological science itself, but from the incompetency of unqualified persons who pretend to exercise it. 

And besides this, the majority of persons who set themselves up as professors of this science, avail themselves of its name and credit for the sake of passing off some other mode of divination. 

By that means defrauding the ignorant and pretending to foretell many things which from their nature cannot possibly be foreknown; and consequently affording opportunities to more intelligent people to impugn the value even of such predictions as can rationally be made.”

The practicing professional astrologer can easily sympathize with Ptolemy’s view because it is a logical analysis of the facts of astrological application.

Ptolemy's logic is immaculate.

Wollmann says that:

“Propaganda regarding astrology has been and continues to be, so extreme to this day, that astrological factual histories and contributions to the whole of human existence are excluded from academic considerations two millennia later - despite the evidence of astrology's powerful connection as foundation on the whole of modern society.


Ptolemy clearly serves with foresight with the production of ‘Tetrabiblos,’ because he argues from the perspective of physics in his time and hence avoids the oracular divinations of the Chaldeans that propose being born under such and such a star alone indicates such and such a destiny.


He therefore raises the bar in the study of Astrology to the level of physics - complete with mathematical complexity and variables of astronomic motion and effects on the Earth and all life - to challenge the best of his times.


 Like astrologers in our day, Claudius Ptolemy kept the valid and powerful science and art of Astrology alive and where it belongs - in the hands of the wise and insightful true skeptics who are unaffected by defective and fallacious propagandists seeking only to control the rubes."

Need any more be said of Parke Kunkle and the astronomers who attack astrology without the knowledge, talent and skills to perform the complex tasks and services of astrologers today?

So, like the little old lady with the keen eyes - to the astronomer who caused this travesty about Ophiuchus, and those who spread their ignorance of the signs of the Zodiac - I ask:


~

Global Astrology
Mundane 2011 Forecast:
'The Year Of The Rabbit'

Some will find that the trends observed over the previous year of 2010 will continue unabated into 2011, while others may be surprised at the coming events of 2011 which point us towards the trends of the near future.

I remind those who follow astrological time that the year of 2010 will extend to the vernal equinox of mid-March 2011, this is the true start of the new astrological year.

Those who read Global Astrology know I considered 2010 to be an historic year, which the events of the year have proven to be.

The year of the first phase of the Cardinal Crisis will continue into the early years of the Twenty-Tens.

In this edition of Global Astrology, we explore what some of the transits of 2011 has to offer in these changing and challenging times.  

We examine the climate and weather with a view of Australia's massive floods, La Niña and my astrometeorological forecast for Winter/Spring 2011.

As we approach 2011, it is well known that most of the world is in dire straits after the Bank Crisis of 2007 began the global economic crisis that is ongoing.

In the midst of this world crisis we inquire about Jobs, The Economy and Legacy of The Baby Boomers. 

World transits show that the generational transition from the establishment of Baby Boomers is ending, as a new establishment, Generation X, begins which will dominate the next 20 years. We ask: "Is Generation X Our Noble Generation?"

We read the insights of writer Chris Hedges in our times, we further explore our present times in 2011: A Brave New Dystopia?

I live the life of an astronomer. A stargazer over the years, I've braved sub-zero temperatures on long nights to view and calculate the planets in their rapid motions.

During these observations, my mind often leads me to make forecasts, according to the positions of the celestial bodies relative to the Earth.

I observe the Sun carefully every day. The feeling ... of calculating the future is like this, my life as a mundane astrologer...



According to the Chinese zodiac calendar system, by early February we are ending the year of the Tiger of 2010. 

Twenty-Eleven is the Year of the Rabbit. This precedes the year of 2012, which will be the Year of the Dragon.

These Chinese ancient references are astrological. Those born in the years 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999 were born in the Year Of The Rabbit.

It is a symbol of endurance, fortune, luck, keen instincts and of rapid opportunities in Chinese mystical culture.

These cycles are those of Jupiter (every 11-12 years) and symbolize how Jupiter's transits can influence those born during particular years as it transits around the Zodiac.

Jupiter will be active in 2011 and marks that a new 12-year cycle is at hand. Let's take a look at some of the planetary forces in play during the new year.

Mundane Forecast
Twenty-Eleven: Year of The Rabbit
"Great Jupiter is now my name,
The second planet, strong in fame.
 
I am moist and truly warm,
By nature I can do no harm.
 
Two signs I have, their houses mine:
Archer and Fishes, which golden shine.
 
Seek and prove me there, I pray:
Much good will surely come your way.
 
When in the Crab, I'm lifted high.
Weaker, in the Goat, I sigh.
 
My passage round the twelve Signs is
In twelve long years accomplished."

- Poems of the Seven Planets

Jupiter/Uranus In 2011
&
The Lunar Nodes: 
Dragon's Head & Tail
Sagittarius and Gemini

By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S

After the first phase of the Cardinal Crisis transits of 2010, the coming astrological year of 2011 opens not only a fresh new decade, but also the second chapter of the cardinal world transits.

The global economy is in dire straits in the waning months of 2010. Double-digit unemployment amid staggering financial losses means economies of scale will not recover fast enough to counter the social defragmentation now underway. 

As nations grapple with threats of years of forced austerity, the coming "Year of the Rabbit" signifies a year of sacrifices for many, as well as rapid opportunities for those who are quick and nimble.

The transpersonal world transits of 2011 will continue the themes of 2010 with one difference: the year 2011 can be applied to make progress for those prepared and who have favorable transits to do so.

Here is a brief mundane review of 2011. You will find references to astrological terminology, so if you do not understand, please ask questions in the comment section and I will do my best to answer.

However, don't allow any lack of advanced astrological knowledge stop you from reading on.

This is because if you are able to gain the basic sense and overall tone of my mundane messages, and apply them to your daily understanding of what's going down in the world, then you will discover things are not always as they appear to be on the surface.

Many people already know this, but want to know the general direction of the future. In light of this, one must turn to astrology, for this is the only method for humanity to gain a sense of the coming trends which may, or may not, shape our world in the years to come - and your own personal future.

 A Year Of Endings and A Year Of New Beginnings...


Try to see 2011 as a year to get a fresh start towards making the Twenty-Tens a decade you can survive and one you can manage well.

Life is generally about good managing, both personal and transpersonal.

While the former is more or less easily accomplished when it's only you making the decisions, the latter proves much more difficult - especially when you've got groups of people in positions of power who've been screwing a lot of things up.

That affects you. It causes disruption and makes a mess of all your personal aspirations and goals.

And they don't ask you what you think.

You see, they think they know it all, and when events prove that they do not know it all, then they point fingers away from taking blame, say "oh well," and go on their merry way - often coming out richer than they were before. Or so they think...

We all know how difficult the past several years have been. There's been too much change, much of it negative, which has taken place in a short period of time, not allowing people to prepare and to adjust.

Many people have been forced, through no fault of their own, to quickly change direction to unannounced changes towards goals that are not your own.

In short, you've been forced to compensate for messes created by others.

This has affected careers and personal lives badly. These negative events emerged out of an highly ideological and narcissistic age now coming - thankfully - to an end.

World transits show that if you want to make up for lost time and get that head start you've been praying for - one which promises better results than the last three years have given - then 2011 is the year for you.

The year of 2011 really does not get its true start until March, when the new astrological year officially kicks off the year.

So, during the months of January and February you still have time to prepare for making a new start.

Overall, the years of 2011 to 2014 continue strong cardinal transits involving the signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, so expect bumps in the road along the way.

The real changes to come for 2011 gets going in March when several important planetary transits make ingress, or entry into tropical Aries.

Jupiter's transit in the tropical constellation Aries and sidereal constellation of Pisces in 2011 is the start of a new 11-12 year phase for Jupiter. It signifies better times ahead for those who have had hard times over the past decade.

Jupiter will enter tropical Aries on January 22, 2011 after performing its last exact major conjunction to Uranus on January 4, 2011.

This conjunction, that began in June 2010, signaled rapid changes throughout the globe, and we have seen signs of this in the year 2010.

Moving past its conjunction with Uranus, transiting Jupiter is fast in 2011, entering Aries in mid-January, then tropical Taurus by June and afterward turning retrograde at the end of August 2011.

The months between mid-January and late August 2011 offer to those willing to make choices about adjustments and major shifts in their lives to be able to make considerable progress.

This means being nimble enough to avoid the stumbling blocks in the way.

Jupiter's influence will make favorable transits to individuals who have Jupiter by conjunction, in Pisces, Aries and the first four degrees of Taurus in 2011.

By conjunction, any planets in tropical Aries will certainly feel these favorable Jupiter inclinations.

By sextile and trine aspect, Jupiter's influence by transit offers creative ways to escape what has been outworn - and to discover ways to begin anew.

Many around the world will find that 2011 offers them a new start in life. It is wise to grab hold of the brass ring during Jupiter's transit in Aries - not to look back - but to look forward.

Let's take a look at the planet Jupiter.


Ancient mundane astrologers claimed to be able to hear the sounds of the planets during times of their deep meditations while sky-gazing.

This was called the Music of the Spheres.


The Greek mundane astrologer Pythagoras is credited with originating this notion of an orderly cosmos of angels singing the praises of the Immortal God as they turned the planets in their flights around these spheres.

According to the mundane astrologer Johannes Kepler, this connection between geometry and musical harmony - called musica universalis - forms the central core of mundane astrology and its forecasting of the future.

Mundane astrologers state that the Sun, Moon and planets also revolve around Earth in their proper mathematical harmonic spherical orders.

These spheres, moving among the constellations of the Zodiac, form whole-number ratios of pure musical intervals, creating musical harmonies at varying rates.


These ratios are astrological aspects: conjunctions, sextiles, squares, trines and oppositions, along with other harmonic mathematical aspects which form between the planets as they transit, along with the driving heartbeat of our local star - the Sun.

This is Astrology: the relationship of living in harmony with the rhythms of the universe.

Kepler applied the concept of the Music of the Spheres in his mundane work from the year 1619, titled, Harmonices Mundi - forming the direct relationship between astrological aspects and functional harmonics that affects all life - physical and metaphysical - on Earth. I use this knowledge in my own astrological forecasts.

Though conventional scientists scoffed at such things as the music of the spheres, it was not until recently that it was proven to be indeed true.

Hear for yourself, the harmonic ratio qualities of the planet Jupiter, the music of its own sphere:



Jupiter's transit phase, beginning anew in tropical Aries, show that times are indeed changing, so anyone able to let go of the things which have outlived their usefulness will do well in 2011 and in the years to come.

For individuals, one of the best ways to make a new start is to set down your long-term goals first, so that your short-range goals are always in tune with your personal aspirations.

Pace yourself well in 2011. Resist temptations to rush into projects, relationships, and travel without first thinking. Or to give into the reactionary impulses of others without first asking if this is the long-term direction you've outlined for yourself in the new decade.


In the wake of the global economic crisis and double-digit unemployment, people will find themselves much more concerned with getting on with their personal and career lives.

The anger and resentment of the world's public will undoubtedly grow in 2011 in the wake of the Bank Crisis which has led to the shrinking of global economies. People are rightfully pissed off and will surely show more of their anger in 2011.

One of the keys to success is not to allow frustrations to deviate you from finding your way.

Remember, the times are new, so pacing yourself well will do much good to contain the unruly energies of the times.

Aries is a very individualistic Sign, and under the powerful transpersonal planetary influences it is all too easy to fall into traps: rushing about, acting and reacting solely by impulse, with built-up expectations and frustrations abounding from years and months of delays and barriers.

The strong, but confusing energetic inclinations in Aries are at times malefic and can be harmful, especially at the start of Spring 2011.

You will feel the transits of Jupiter and Uranus in Aries in 2011. Their inclinations spur needs to do something, anything, too quickly.

These big-time cardinal energies are transpersonal - in that their transits affect everyone in a wide variety of ways.

However, while the impulses of Jupiter are mainly favorable, the energies of Uranus can be unstable, quirky, dangerous and sudden.

Under the influence, people tend to rush first, to take shortcuts and think afterward. Avoid this, as others are bound to involve you in accidents if you allow them.

The month of April 2011 is one such month to avoid impatience. Look for signs of reactionary and headstrong behavior and steer clear.

Coming out of traditional winter in the northern hemisphere, transits show the months of March and April 2011 require a calm and cool head.

The strong inclinations of the planets in those months reveal pent-up energies looking to blindly vent - yet transits are unfavorable.

If you are going to chase the rabbit in 2011, know your astrological transits and remember - keep your eyes open.


Accidents, violence, and all manner of transgression are bound to occur worldwide because of the inclinations on unenlightened people.

Be observant during the months of March and April. Use those months to continue to work on your personal long-range goals and plans, rather than to simply react blindly along with others.

Prudence, patience, common sense, a healthy pace, mixed with intelligent planning along with balanced emotional and mental discipline effectively harnesses the planetary energies of Aries in your favor.

Doing things the right way, showing maturity, while thinking things through before acting simply on impulse - will produce the positive results you want.

Now, let's take a look at the transpersonal energies the world will undergo into this new decade of the Twenty-Tens.

Uranus, the planet that takes 84 years to circle the Sun once, will begin a new orbital cycle when it reaches the 0-Aries point on March 11-12, 2011.


This is a major transit relative to the Earth which will be felt by the entire world throughout most of the Twenty-Tens.

Uranus, more than any other planet in our solar system, lies closest along the orbital plane as our Earth. This is important to remember, as it reflects the sudden impacts felt via Uranus' transits to and from other celestial bodies by mathematical aspect.

Uranus will spend seven (7) years transiting tropical Aries and opens a new astrological cycle which plays an important role in the continuance of the cardinal crisis transits.

Uranus takes 84 years to complete a single revolution around the Sun, so a year on Uranus is 84 times longer than a year on Earth. The planet spins in place around its own axis (an imaginary line that runs down the middle of the planet) once every 17.25 hours, just as Earth spins once every 24 hours. The ends of the axis mark Uranus' north and south poles, just as Earth's axis marks the North Pole and the South Pole on Earth. Uranus rotates about an axis that tilts 98° into its orbital plane (the plane created by Uranus's orbit around the Sun). Because of this severe tilt, one pole of Uranus points almost directly toward the Sun during half of Uranus's 84-year orbit, and the other pole points toward the Sun during the second half. This creates 42-year-long seasons of complete light and darkness, alternately, on each end of the planet. Uranus orbits the Sun, varying from 2.74 x 109 km (1.70 x 109 mi) to 3.00 x 109 km (1.86 x 109 mi) in distance from the Sun. The orbit of Uranus traces out a flat region of outer space - called the planet's orbital plane. This plane of Uranus lies very close to Earth's own orbital plane. As a result, Uranus always crosses the same region of Earth's sky.

In mundane astrology, Uranus plays the transpersonal role of electric-action, the maverick under the influence of very unstable energies which can be impulsive, that can "shock" and occur suddenly - especially forceful in Aries, a sign traditionally ruled by Mars, and well known for its malefic and violent inclinations.

Spring 2011's transits show aggressive acts in theaters of war that need to be very carefully managed in order to save lives and achieve objectives.

The planetary inclinations of the months of March and April are especially violent. Old conflicts, as well as new ones, can and will proliferate in 2011 unless wise and calmer heads prevail.

 Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, with 63 percent of the American public now opposed to U.S. involvement there, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey. Just 35 percent of survey respondents say they still support U.S. involvement. 

The increase in opposition to U.S. involvement comes as pessimism about how the war is going is rising. According to a poll done Dec. 17-19, 56 percent of the public believes that "things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan." 



The Los-Angeles Times reports, "This has been the war's deadliest year for non-combatants and combatants alike, with civilian casualties for the first 10 months of this year running 20% higher than the same period a year ago, according to the most recent figures available from the United Nations." The number of foreign troops killed in the nine-year war has hit an all-time high, with more than 700 lives lost. 

Nearly 500 U.S. service members were killed in the year 2010 alone, according to the site iCasualties.org. A new report by Reporters Without Borders also finds that Afghanistan remains extremely dangerous for journalists.

 Afghanistan's innocent civilians
Credit: scrapetv.com

There was a "major increase" in the number of reporters kidnapped in 2010, with Afghanistan a hot spot of trouble. 

"The case of French TV journalists Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier and their three Afghan assistants, held hostage in Afghanistan since 29 December 2009, is the longest abduction in the history of the French media since the end of the 1980s," writes the organization in its report. 

There are approximately 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. Last year, President Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops be sent there. He has promised the United States will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011.

Uranus' crossing over the vernal equinox point signifies the opening of a major new era by transit with the planet heading towards a series of square aspects to transiting Pluto in Capricorn through to the mid-2010s.

This means that 2011 is bound to see a rise in extreme levels of violence in regions where violence has been widespread, such as Afghanistan and in Mexico, where drug cartels continue to slaughter the innocent in ways unimaginable to most people.

Most of the planets are transiting in the southern hemisphere of the Zodiac, with the exception of Jupiter and Uranus, which will lead entry into tropical Aries, to be followed in April 2011 by the Sun, Mercury, and Mars.

The months of March and April feature tense transits inclined towards illness from the climate as well as by accidents and violent inclinations, especially during the month of April 2011. Caution is advised.

This combination of planetary energies during the first half of 2011 calls on people to maintain common sense, patience and prudence to counter strong, and impulsive inclinations towards impulsive acts.

Accidents are strongly highlighted during the month of April 2011.

In many ways, April is a life and death month. It is advised to avoid extended travel and for those engaged in military action to use extreme caution in fields of battle as the Aries transits are particularly strong during that month.

In mundane astrology, the planet Uranus is an octave of the planet Mercury, and as such it has direct access to the human mind and body via the electromagnetic form of nerve currents.

This produces discord in the nervous system and can drain energy quickly, sort of a kind of rapid power surge. This can overwhelm the nervous system, producing unstable events which are unexpected and sudden.

Uranus also opens the doors to outside influences, mainly through people and groups, among them, those who are emotionally and mentally unstable - inclining towards violence.

An Iranian police officer strikes a man with a baton near Tehran University, Iran.

The inclinations of Uranus are very impulsive and unexpected, often resulting in malefic events: acts of blind violence often fueled by narrow ideologies and stubbornness.

The electromagnetic vibrations of Uranus can also disrupt technology: computers, networks, power grids, radios, vehicles and machines that depend on electricity to function. Back-up plans and systems are a must under Uranus' influence.

The impact of Uranus as it begins a new orbital cycle around the Sun while also relative to the Earth by transit can be utilized well if one understands that new kinds of information can be gleaned when in positive use.

Viewpoints can be changed by the electric insights of Uranus, offering new possibilities as long as intentions are to do no harm to others.

Observe the nervousness of other people to gather if Uranus is in play, as it often will be during the Twenty-Tens.

This is because of the planet's squares to Pluto between 2011-2015, as well its aspects to planets transiting in the cardinal Signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn will tend to force matters. Like trying to force a square through a round hole.

These cardinal energies are powerful when Uranus is involved, so expect the unexpected, especially among individuals and groups who fall easily under its unstable inclinations over the course of the decade.

In Aries, Uranus inclines towards violent acts, fueled by instability of the emotions and the mind. This can produce sudden events that are unfavorable to all.

To cure the negative inclinations of Uranus, the antidote are healthy Religious Thoughts which counteract the discordant vibrations produced by Uranus.

Hear the vibrations of the planet Uranus, the "music" of its own sphere:



When applied consciously, the positive spiritual thought forms can transform these stellar compounds into acts that can become fortunate, rather than malefic.

Uranus will be very active during the Twenty-Tens, transiting in the tropical constellation of Aries, so it is important to guard against head injuries, accidents and acts of violence by impulse.

Below, a brief look at the planet Uranus.



Remember, use patience and prudence in all matters to avoid falling under the sudden and violent inclinations associated with this maverick and electric planet.

Lunar Nodes Change Quality From Cardinal To Mutable

A new kind of era lasting 18.5 months also begins early March 2011, as the transiting Lunar Nodes enter the Sagittarius-Gemini axis.

The Moon's nodes will leave the Capricorn-Cancer axis by March 3, 2011 and ingress onto the Sagittarius/Gemini axis.

In Mundane astrology, the Moon's nodes are exalted in these two signs. The Dragon's Head is exalted in Gemini. It's Tail in Sagittarius. 

However, in 2011 and 2012, the Dragon's Head does not transit in Gemini, but in Sagittarius.

The sign position opposite a planet's sign of exaltation is considered to be its fall. As the exaltation is a place of great strength and integrity for the planet. The fall is a position of weakness and distortion.

Basically, the world's transiting North Node of the Moon, that is exalted in Gemini, will rather transit in the opposite sign of Sagittarius, while the South Lunar Node, the Dragon's Tail, will transit in Gemini.

This switch in nodal quality by what amounts to a converse exaltation of the Lunar Nodes will make the 18-month period from March 2011 to August 2012 eventful to say the least.

The energies are mutable, and seek action, so the 18-month cycle stretching from March 2011 to the end of August 2012 is a time for increased vigilance when it comes to choices and decisions.

It signifies national and international challenges in a world emerging out of a negative, reactionary and ideological age.

From irrational religious extremism, to wars and acts of transgression, the world, as it enters the early years of the Twenty-Tens, rapidly undergoes societal changes that are as much individual as they are transpersonal.


We are entering a transitional decade that is at best cloudy because of the inclinations of global transits and the current evolutionary condition of humanity.

Again, times are changing, so those best equipped to adjust to these changes on many levels will be best suited towards handling the Twenty-Tens.

The year 2011 is a year to put into place personal aspirations and goals, but to be patient as well in seeing one's plans through.

The overall transpersonal energies affecting the world must be taken into account when making important decisions.

Cardinal transits are known for wanting to initiate, but those who are not used to handling such powerful planetary inclinations are bound to rush headfirst into things before thinking things through.

In many ways, the year 2011 is one of uncharted waters. There is so much change needed, and desired, that the impulsive energies of Aries can overwhelm unless one thinks before acting. This can save lives.

This "Year of the Rabbit" of the Chinese calender shows a unique flavor to 2011 that can be useful for those who have been frustrated by the lack of progress over the past several years.

Jupiter's influence during 2011 is one of opportunity, but with caution, as Uranus' unstable presence over the 0-degree Aries point is bound to incline towards sudden and sometimes shocking events throughout the globe associated with natural disasters, technology, along with rebellious populations upset with their governments and the health of their economies.

New faces on the scene will replace old ones. What is outworn and outmoded will be refreshed by the incoming new. However, most things will take patience, prudence and persistence to forge a better way forward into the Twenty-tens.
~

We now look at the world's climate with my astrometeorological overview of Australia's Floods in the southern hemisphere, La Niña, and Winter/Spring 2011 in the northern hemisphere.

The Cardinal Crisis
Winter/Spring 2011: 
Australia's Floods, Scheat & La Niña's Deep Freeze

By Theodore White, astrometeorologist.S

As you read this, say if you are in eastern regions of the United States, you may be surprised to be experiencing warmer temperatures, with rain, even fog, coming after the Christmas 2010 Blizzard which dumped over two-feet of snow across the northeastern U.S.

So, during January 2011, you may be perplexed as to the extremes between the cold and warmer temperatures going into early winter 2011.

Try not to be perplexed by the ranges of the cold of outer space; the solar, lunar and planetary transits. These are the causes of our climate and weather.

Transits show that into early January, a major shift in the jet stream will clear out the cold air in two-thirds of United States, but briefly. Arctic air is on the way this winter with more snow and freezing rains.

This shift of the jet stream will drive colder air south into the Colorado Rockies and Texas, as well as into the southwestern and western U.S., including California, now feeling the impact of La Nina. But in early January, warmer air will flood northward into parts of the eastern U.S.

However, expect polar air to stick around for a while, stretching from the High Plains states into the Rockies and southward, straight into Texas. Be prepared to experience some of the coldest temperatures in 22 years.

The arctic temperatures will feature unusual levels of precipitation over the winter and spring months, from the west and south, that produce freezing rains and ice storms into the Midwestern, Southeastern and Eastern states.

Regions which have had heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions, as a result of deep snow cover left behind from December's weather, will experience snow melt in the first week of January 2011 as temperatures briefly warm up into the mid-to-late 40 degree Fahrenheit range and higher, into the mid-50s.

Expect urban flooding from piled snow and be aware of black ice on the roads late at night.
 
In the U.S., warmer temperatures will stretch from the Southern Plains and fill in with warmer air towards the northeastern U.S. with high pressure.

I expect January's warm temperatures to extensive enough that the next storms to come for the Midwest, South and Northeastern U.S. will bring mixed rain/snow events.

However, this brief break in January, along with the extremes of weather and temperatures, are simply a brief respite from the true winter that is just ahead.

Prepare for a deep freeze: featuring ice storms, heavy snows, along with frigid arctic temperatures in January, February, March and April.

According to my calculations, the months from February through April constitute the full strength of Winter 2011 and the peak of La Nina.

It is advised to expect an extreme winter season that will constitute those three months: a deep freeze, with heavy snows, gusting winds, and ice storms.

Astrometeorology is the science of forecasting climate and weather by astronomic means.

The first application of astrology was concerned with the cultivation and production of food and the forecasting of the weather and climate. Astrologers were the inventors of what is called meteorology.

Our world's weather and its climate is caused by the motion and condition of the Sun and the modulating influences of the Moon and the planets.

I read these transits and determine by their configurations relative to the Earth, what the world's weather and its long-range climate will be like in the future.

For several years I have forecasted that the world's climate would be entering a state of transition and called it "extremes of weather."

These extremes are signs of a climate transition from solar-forced global warming to that of global cooling.

We are in the 30th year of a overall 36-year cycle of global warming, which began in 1980-81.

Global cooling is coming, according to my long-range calculations. It will arrive by the year 2017 and last 36-years until the year 2052.

Until 2017, we have six years to go of solar-forced global warming. I expect warmer temperatures to return which will complete this last phase of a cycle that began in 1980-81.

However, the cold anomalies we've witnessed in the climate since 2005 are signs of a larger, more significant global cooling to come in the 2020s, 2030s and 2040s.

What we are witnessing with these cold climate events along with extreme ranges of temperatures along with the heavier than normal rains is a global transition cycle - that  takes years to complete - it is underway.

Back in 2006, I forecasted the world would experience the onset of El Nino in late 2009 to 2010 to be followed by La Nina, a cooling of the Pacific Ocean's equatorial waters - affecting the climate of half the planet.

The events of December 2010 is a harbinger of the colder-than-normal temperatures and strong storms in the northern hemisphere.

It is my forecast that the winter and spring seasons of 2011 will feature colder and wetter conditions along with coming polar air.

During the month of January, do not be dissuaded by sometimes warmer than average temperatures.

The strength of winter, believe it or not, will not compare to the climate events of February, March and April 2011.

The winter and spring months of 2011 will be notable for a much colder and wetter climate conditions, which will give way to months of cooler-than-average temperatures lasting through spring and into early summer.

I forecasted 2010 would be a year of major weather and climate events, according to my astrometeorological calculations.

The major planetary aspect which causes floods on this scale is the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus to the fixed star Scheat, in the constellation Pegasus, which I highlighted in 2009 and 2010 on Global Astrology.

For years, I have been concerned about this major planetary conjunction of Jupiter-Uranus taking place near Scheat, which causes environmental disasters associated with the water and the air.

There have been major floods in 2010, which I called the Year Of The Flood in my climate forecasts. We have seen huge floods in countries such as China, India and Pakistan, as well as floods in various regions of Europe and the United States.

We've also seen recently witnessed mass die-offs of various species of fish and birds around the world under these stellar influences.

Jupiter and Uranus have been within close orb of Scheat in 2010, and both planets, now moving direct, are forming a tighter exact conjunction to this fixed star between January and March 2011.

Jupiter will race by the last degree of Pisces in 2011, however transiting Uranus will hover around the 0-Aries point, and remain in conjunction to Scheat throughout 2011.

In mundane astrology, the star Scheat, at the last degree of tropical Pisces, is well known to be associated with major storms and floods that result in mass destruction and death by drowning.

I was not the only astrologer to have concerns about the role of this deadly fixed star.

Nearly one year ago, in January 2010, astrologer Jamie Funk of Darkstar Astrology wrote of the astrological history and extreme dangers associated with Scheat. It is a well-written piece for anyone who would like to learn more about the association of fixed stars and planets by major aspect in mundane astrology.

This double planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus to Scheat has been the most pressing worry when it came to my astrometeorological forecasts - especially concerning world flood events - that along with the presence of La Niña, will continue to extend its destructive power into 2011.

For more evidence of this, please consider...

The Cardinal Crisis
Australia's 'Biblical' Floods


 By John Pye & Kristen Gelineau
Associated Press

January 12, 2011 -- BRISBANE, Australia - Deadly flood waters that have cut a swath across northeastern Australia flowed onto the streets of the nation's third-largest city, forcing people to flee suburbs and skyscrapers as rescuers elsewhere searched for 67 people still missing.

Almost 20,000 homes in Brisbane were expected to be swamped in the city of about 2 million by the time the Brisbane River reaches its expected peak January 13, 2010, Mayor Campbell Newman said.


The figures were constantly being revised as the threat became clearer - and it was getting consistently worse.

See -> video of crisis in Queensland.

At least 22 people have died in Australia's northeastern state of Queensland since drenching rains that began in November 2010 sent swollen rivers spilling over their banks, inundating an area larger than France and Germany combined.

 click on graphic map to enlarge

The crisis escalated when a violent storm sent a 26-foot (eight meter), fast-moving torrent — described as an "inland instant tusnami" - crashing through the city of Toowoomba and smaller towns to the west of Brisbane on Monday.


Twelve people were killed in that flash flood, and 67 remain missing.

Emergency sirens wailed throughout Brisbane on Wednesday afternoon. Boats torn from their moorings floated down the rising river along with massive amounts of debris.

A popular waterside restaurant's pontoon was swept away by the current and floated downstream.

Some streets and riverside parks were covered with water, though no major flooding was reported early Wednesday.

 A man is awe-struck as he looks at debris floating down a flooded street in the inner Brisbane suburb of West End January 12, 2011. 
image: Xinhua/Reuters

Two evacuation centers have been established in the city and Newman said up to 6,500 were expected to use them in coming days.

Officials have urged anyone in a growing list of low-lying suburbs to prepare their homes, then get out to stay with friends and family and keep off the streets.

"This incident is not a tourist event - this is a deeply serious natural disaster," Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said. "Stay in your homes. Do not travel unless it is absolutely necessary."

The Brisbane River broke its banks on Tuesday and was continuing its rise Wednesday - partly controlled by a huge dam upstream that has had its floodgates opened because it is brimming after weeks of rain across the state.

Water levels were expected to stay at peak levels until at least Saturday, but many people won't be able to access their homes for several days beyond that, Bligh said.

Some residents waited in line for up to four hours Tuesday to get sandbags being handed out at emergency services depots.

 An aerial view photo of Brisbane taken on Jan. 11, 2011. Forecasts show 6,500 properties will be flooded in the Australian city of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland.
credit: Fu Chengwei/Xinhua

Supermarket shelves were emptied of bottled water, milk and batteries.

Energex, the city's main power company, said it would switch off electricity to some parts of the city starting Wednesday as a precaution against electrocution.

Almost 70,000 homes were without power across Queensland by Wednesday afternoon, Bligh said.

"I know that this is going to be very difficult for people," Bligh said.

"Can I just stress: Electricity and water do not mix. We would have catastrophic situations if we didn't shut down power."

See Australian Floods -> Interactive Map.

Darren Marchant spent all day Tuesday moving furniture and other household goods to the top floor of his home, near the river in the low-lying Brisbane suburb of Yeronga, which is expected to be inundated.

His wife and four children left to stay with relatives after police came and asked everyone on their street to evacuate.

Marchant and two neighbors watched in awe as dozens of expensive boats and pontoons drifted past.


"We were watching all kinds of debris floating down the river - one of the (neighbor's) pontoons just floated off," he said Wednesday. "It was amazing."

For weeks, the flooding had been a slow-motion disaster, devastating wide swaths of farmland and small towns and virtually shutting down the state's vital coal industry.

 click graphic map to enlarge

On Monday, the crisis took a sudden, violent turn, with a cloudburst sending a raging torrent down the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane.

Houses were washed from their foundations and cars tossed about like bath toys in what Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson described as "an inland instant tsunami."

Hundreds had to be rescued by helicopter Tuesday and helicopters and other emergency vehicles were moving into the worst-hit parts of the valley on Wednesday.

Bligh warned that the death toll would likely rise as rescue officials gained access to the devastated areas.

  A man and his dog struggle through flood waters in Dalby, Australia after the Myall Creek burst its banks for the third time in a month.
Image: Newspix/Rex Features

Relentless rains that have been pounding the region cleared Wednesday, but Bligh said while the break in the weather would help rescue officials, it would have no impact on the flood threat to Brisbane.

"We can take no comfort from that blue sky," Bligh said. "The water and the rain have already done their damage - they are in the catchment, and they are on their way down the river system."

The city of Ipswich, home to about 15,000 people, was swamped Wednesday by the water heading Brisbane's way.

By the afternoon, 3,000 properties had been inundated, and 1,100 people had fled to evacuation centers, Mayor Paul Pisasale said. Water levels there were expected to hit their peak later Wednesday.

In Brisbane, the river is expected to crest Thursday at levels higher than those of a devastating 1974 flood, though the damage is expected to be less because that flood struck with little warning.

The mayor urged people to stay away from downtown, and most office towers stood virtually empty Wednesday.

"This is a truly dire set of circumstances," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.

 Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Steph Stewardson, a graphic designer, said there was an exodus from a downtown area around lunchtime Tuesday with people streaming out of skyscrapers as the river broke its banks.

Stewardson, 40, hopped in her car and crossed the swollen river to collect her dog Boo from daycare while waters started covering the boardwalk stretching along its banks.

Stewardson took shelter in her house and plans to stay there - for now.

"I'm about 800 meters (half a mile) from the river on a hill, so I think it's going to be OK," she told The Associated Press.

Bligh said last week the cost of the floods could be as high as $5 billion, the latest figure available.

  The damage caused to a building after a flash flood tore through the town of Toowoomba, Australia
credit: Newspix/Rex Features

The floods have also reached the bordering state of New South Wales, with about 4,500 people stranded, though the situation was not yet as dire as in Queensland.

New South Wales is Australia's most populated state and contains its biggest city, Sydney.
~

Four children, including a toddler torn from his mother's arms by a killer current, are among 10 people confirmed drowned in flood waters. 

 Floodwaters on Ruthven Street, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia

 By Natasha Bita, Lauren Wilson & Milanda Rout

The Australian

January 12, 2010 -- Authorities are warning that the death toll will at least double today, as police and rescue workers continue searching wrecked cars, flooded houses and raging creeks in the aftermath of the deadly "inland tsunami."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh last night said grave concerns were held for 15 people. "We do need to brace ourselves for a significant death toll here, and there are a number of children involved," she said.

 Brisbane Valley Highway near Fernvale.

"Keep your children away from parks, gutters and drains, and keep your older children from playing in water."

The identified victims include Steven and Sandra Matthews, who died saving the lives of their daughter Victoria, 15, and son Sam, 20, by pushing them into a manhole in the ceiling of their home at Murphys Creek.

Police have found the bodies of a girl, a boy, a woman in her 30s and an elderly woman at Grantham.

 These two images at the same location were taken exactly 24 hours apart (10.30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 & Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011) looking from the southern side of the Mary River at Lamington Bridge on Gympie Rd, Maryborough. The water level rise in a single day is amazing.
photo: Alan Betteridge


A woman in her 40s and a boy were found drowned in a car at Toowoomba, and an unidentified person was found at Gatton.

A three-year-old boy drowned at Ipswich, after flood waters pulled him from his mother's arms.

Worried relatives used the internet yesterday to seek news of loved ones.

 Exhausted, 13-year-old Taylah Scott takes a break from cleaning atop the ruins from her house on Kidd Street, Emerald, after record flooding.
credit: Jodie Richter/Courier-Mail

A Toowoomba flood information page, established on Monday on the social networking site Facebook, was inundated yesterday with posts by friends and relatives seeking information about family members and friends who had not been heard from since the wall of water ripped through the town on Monday.

Those seeking news included family friend Liza Bateman, who said 21-year-old John Ellis had not been heard from since midday on Monday when he was at the corner store at Murphys Creek.

Ms Bateman said his family was desperately concerned for him.

Trish O'Brien used the social networking site to express her concerns about her son John Nicholson, his wife, Rebecca Xanthopoulos, and their baby daughter, Sierra, whom she had not managed to contact since floods ripped through Toowoomba.

She told The Australian last night she was awaiting word from her son and extremely worried.

While photos of other missing people were posted by friends, their families could not be reached last night to confirm whether they were still missing.

 A flood gauge measures the rising flood waters on the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton, Australia
credit: Jason Golik

Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday warned people nervously awaiting news, that the nation needed to "brace itself" for a death toll that was likely to rise.

"To those people who are bereaved, to those who are waiting for news of their loved ones, I want to say to them, as Prime Minister my thoughts and my sympathies are with you; the thoughts and sympathies of all Australians are with you in these dreadful and difficult circumstances," she said.

The Facebook press office did not respond to questions from The Australian about reports that the memorial site for Toowoomba flood victims had been vandalized by "trolls" uploading pornography.
~

I urge everyone reading this to be of any assistance they can to our Australian mates now fighting for survival in yet another region of the world struck by La Niña's heavy rains and mammoth floods.

The end-of-year 2010 reports have confirmed my earlier long-range climate forecasts with a long list of events, including great floods.

Please consider, 

2010's World Gone Wild
Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions, Heavy Rains, Mammoth Floods & Blizzards

By Seth Borenstein & Julie Reed Bell
AP

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 - the deadliest year in more than a generation. 

More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

"It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.

"The term `100-year event' really lost its meaning this year."

And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say. Even though many catastrophes have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and weird year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes. 

Poor construction and development practices conspire to make earthquakes more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable buildings in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes, the river breaches, or the tropical cyclone hits, more people die. 

The January earthquake that killed well more than 220,000 people in Haiti is a perfect example. Port-au-Prince has nearly three times as many people — many of them living in poverty — and more poorly built shanties than it did 25 years ago. 

So had the same quake hit in 1985 instead of 2010, total deaths would have probably been in the 80,000 range, said Richard Olson, director of disaster risk reduction at Florida International University. 

In February, an earthquake that was more than 500 times stronger than the one that struck Haiti hit an area of Chile that was less populated, better constructed, and not as poor. Chile's bigger quake caused fewer than 1,000 deaths.

In the summer, one weather system caused oppressive heat in Russia, while farther south it caused flooding in Pakistan that inundated 62,000 square miles, about the size of Wisconsin. 

That single heat-and-storm system killed almost 17,000 people, more people than all the worldwide airplane crashes in the past 15 years combined.

"It's a form of suicide, isn't it? We build houses that kill ourselves (in earthquakes). We build houses in flood zones that drown ourselves," said Roger Bilham, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado. "It's our fault for not anticipating these things. You know, this is the Earth doing its thing."

No one had to tell a mask-wearing Vera Savinova how bad it could get. She is a 52-year-old administrator in a dental clinic who in August took refuge from Moscow's record heat, smog and wildfires.

 Record smog in Russia

"I think it is the end of the world," she said. "Our planet warns us against what would happen if we don't care about nature." 

Here's a quick tour of an anything but normal 2010:

HOW DEADLY?

While the Haitian earthquake, Russian heat wave, and Pakistani flooding were the biggest killers, deadly quakes also struck Chile, Turkey, China and Indonesia in one of the most active seismic years in decades. 

Through mid-December there have been 20 earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher, compared to the normal 16. This year is tied for the most big quakes since 1970, but it is not a record. Nor is it a significantly above average year for the number of strong earthquakes, U.S. earthquake officials say. 

Flooding alone in 2010 killed more than 6,300 people in 59 nations through September, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, 30 people died in the Nashville, Tenn., region in flooding. 


Inundated countries include China, Italy, India, Colombia and Chad. Super Typhoon Megi with winds of more than 200 mph devastated the Philippines and parts of China. 


Through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters in 2010, compared to 15,000 in 2009, according to Swiss RE. 

The World Health Organization, which hasn't updated its figures past Sept. 30, is just shy of 250,000.

The last year in which natural disasters were this deadly was 1983 because of an Ethiopian drought and famine, according to WHO. Swiss Re calls it the deadliest since 1976. 

The charity Oxfam says 21,000 of this year's disaster deaths are weather related.

HOW EXTREME?

After strong early year blizzards - nicknamed Snowmageddon - paralyzed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and record snowfalls hit Russia and China, the temperature turned to broil.

The year may go down as [one of] the hottest on record worldwide or at the very least in the top three, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The [assumed] average global temperature through the end of October was 58.53 degrees, a shade over the previous record of 2005, according to the National Climatic Data Center. 

Los Angeles had its hottest day in recorded history on Sept. 27: 113 degrees. In May, 129 set a record for Pakistan and may have been the hottest temperature recorded in an inhabited location. 

In the U.S. Southeast, the year began with freezes in Florida that had cold-blooded iguanas becoming comatose and falling off trees. 


Then it became the hottest summer on record for the region. As the year ended, unusually cold weather was back in force. 

Northern Australia had the wettest May-October on record, while the southwestern part of that country had its driest spell on record. And parts of the Amazon River basin struck by drought hit their lowest water levels in recorded history. 

HOW COSTLY?

Disasters caused $222 billion in economic losses in 2010 - more than Hong Kong's economy - according to Swiss Re. That's more than usual, but not a record, Schraft said. That's because this year's disasters often struck poor areas without heavy insurance, such as Haiti. 


Ghulam Ali's three-bedroom, one-story house in northwestern Pakistan collapsed during the floods. To rebuild, he had to borrow 50,000 rupees ($583) from friends and family. It's what many Pakistanis earn in half a year. 

HOW WEIRD?

A volcano in Iceland paralyzed air traffic for days in Europe, disrupting travel for more than 7 million people. 

Other volcanoes in the Congo, Guatemala, Ecuador, the Philippines and Indonesia sent people scurrying for safety. 

Ecuador Volcano escape

New York City had a rare tornado and a nearly 2-pound hailstone that was 8 inches in diameter fell in South Dakota in July to set a U.S. record. The storm that produced it was one of seven declared disasters for that state this year.

There was not much snow to start the Winter 2010 Olympics in a relatively balmy Vancouver, British Columbia, while the U.S. East Coast was snowbound. 

In a 24-hour period in October, Indonesia got the trifecta of Terra terror: a deadly magnitude 7.7 earthquake, a tsunami that killed more than 500 people and a volcano that caused more than 390,000 people to flee. 

That's after flooding, landslides and more quakes killed hundreds earlier in the year. 

Even the extremes were extreme. This year started with a good sized El Nino weather oscillation that causes all sorts of extremes worldwide. 

Then later in the year, the world got the mirror image weather system with a strong La Nina, which causes a different set of extremes. 

Having a year with both a strong El Nino and La Nina is unusual. 

 La Nina

And in the United States, FEMA declared a record number of major disasters, 79 as of December 14. The average year has 34. 

Through September, the 2010 disaster death toll had already surpassed such notable years as 2004, when the South Asia tsunami struck, and 2008, when Myanmar was hit by a massive cyclone and China suffered a devastating earthquake. 

A list of day-by-day disasters in 2010 compiled by the AP runs 64 printed pages long. 
~
Astromet Forecast
Winter/Spring 2011: A Colder & Wetter Climate

Forecast By Theodore White, astrometeorologist.S

 The climate. It is something that affects us all. Back in 2006, when I forecasted a La Nina would follow an El Nino going into 2011, it was difficult for conventional forecasters to believe it was true.

Yet, the Sun, which entered Solar Cycle #24 in December 2008, has remained in minimum for sunspots.

I expect this condition to change in the second half of 2011 going into 2012 with new solar activity, featuring a wake-up call for the world when it comes to the immensely powerful magnetic energies of the Sun.

Going into the end of the decade of the 2000s, the astronomic transits I've calculated clearly showed a El Nino/La Nina climate phase would dominate the period of 2010 and 2011. 

We have now entered the second phase - a cool and wet La Nina cycle, which I expect to last for nine (9) months overall, to about mid-August 2011. 

This would feature cooler-than-normal temperatures with a wet/cold climate. The worst months of La Nina's impact are the months between February and April 2011.

I expect temperatures to be quite cold, with any precipitation coming in the form of heavy snows and ice storms.

Be prepared. Use January to gather your emergency supplies. If you think winter has done its worst in December 2010, you haven't seen anything yet.

I recommend caution during the winter and spring 2011 seasons, as I expect colder-than-normal temperatures to worsen and last through spring in the northern hemisphere.

The much colder and wetter climate will give way to public health concerns as populations are subject to upper respiratory diseases. Take care to mind the air your breath and remember to wash your hands frequently.

Accordingly, I expected colder than average temperatures featuring wetter storms that bring heavy snowfall and ice storms in the northern hemisphere. I've issued a long-range weather warning for the Winter/Spring 2011 seasons for the northern hemisphere.

This cooling of the Pacific going into Winter 2011 feature colder than average temperatures and wetter storms that would impact both the northern and Southern hemisphere.

This has occurred during the spring season in the southern hemisphere, which has been cooler than normal with snow falling in regions looking forward to the start of summer.

As the December 2010 Northeastern U.S. blizzard was taking place, all of northeastern Australia was being evacuated, in what many call "biblical floods."

 According to the Bureau of Meteorology, "Australia had its wettest September-to-November spring on record." In addition to the flooding of crops, the storms have impacted grain harvesting and coal production.

Meanwhile, Domodedovo Airport, the largest airport in Moscow, Russia suffered a power outage in late December 2010 due to the heavy snow storm the area suffered.

Sheremetyevo Airport, another nearby jet way was suffering from dozens of delays and cancellations because of icy rains, which left over 600 passengers stranded.

In the northern hemisphere, the western coast of the United States experiences heavy rains and cooler temperatures bringing with it flooding, mudslides and heavy snows in the Southwestern U.S., where shocked residents in Phoenix, Arizona saw snow.

The eastern third of the United States recently experienced a blizzard over the Christmas holidays, effectively shutting down traffic across the northeastern U.S.

In Europe, colder than normal temperatures also shut down international travel with heavy snows. In Russia, rains turned the streets into ice as travel was limited there.

What all of this shows is the onset of La Nina and the combined influences of planetary transits that cause polar air variations and flows across the planet.

In the northern hemisphere, this means a much colder than normal winter season which has been my forecast for this time period for years.

 My calculations show that La Nina will last about nine (9) to ten (10) months.

This strong La Nina, with its colder, wetter climate, will feature gusting winds, arctic temperatures, heavy snows and ice storms between the months of February, March and April 2011 - which I consider to be months of true winter this year.

Get ready to battle ice - as a result of the colder temperatures and heavy precipitation, I urge those reading this to make preparations for very cold temperatures and ice storms which are very dangerous in urban settings.

Extra sources of energy will be needed for power outages, so the month of January gives you time to purchase power generators for blackouts caused by the fierce winter storms, especially ice storms.

Expect the colder temperatures to persist through the months of May, June and July for most of North America until warmer weather finally sets in fully by the month of August.

Because of the cooler-than-normal temperatures, winter will extend into the spring months of 2011, so we may have a "missed spring" season, due to the inclinations of the planets and the condition of the Sun.

 Stay safe out there.

~
The Cardinal Crisis
Jobs, The Economy & Legacy Of The Baby Boomers

By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S

 It isn't pretty out there.

The difference between those who say "two-thousand and eleven" from those who simply say "Twenty-eleven" depicts the difference between those looking backward from those who choose to look forward.

As we enter the year 2011 it is estimated that in the United States alone, somewhere between 8-15 million jobs were lost in the last three years.

This economic depression came about mainly through horrid abuse, corruption, greed, and mismanagement by the Baby Boomer establishment, which seems incapable of anything but running 100+year-old companies into bankruptcies, all the while fleecing and destroying from within, asset-stripping nearly every institution into rubble.

People ask me why I am so down on the Baby Boomer generation.

I always answer the same: "Because my eyes are open."

BRIEF LEGACY OF BABY BOOMER GENERATION AS ESTABLISHMENT: (1993-2011)


$15+ trillion dollar U.S. national debt (and growing), millions of uninsured (children & elderly), millions of people in bankruptcy & illegal foreclosures, double-digit unemployment, disappearing middle class, poverty rising, economy wrecked, housing industry crashed, commercial real estate torpedoed, tens of billions of dollars stolen, laundered, wasted.


Generational looting of banks, corporations, institutions via massive financial scams and frauds, roads & bridges deteriorating, air polluted, pharmaceuticals in water, hormones in food, crumbling infrastructures (sewer & electrical.

Collapsing educational system abused and fleeced of resources and money by Boomer administrators and teachers from within, skyrocketing high school drop-out rates. Neglected schoolchildren fed psycho-tropic drugs to attend elementary schools.

College students put in lifelong debt by overpriced money-sucking vulture universities that hand out paper degrees students cannot use to gain jobs, outworn/outdated methods that lead nowhere.

 Pallets of stacks and stacks and stacks of Benjamins - $100 USDbills- sitting in Iraq


Cities and states going broke, communities and neighborhoods falling apart, pension systems on life support, government-for-profit (bureaucrats and politicians), ideologically-motivated scientists, lawyers, judges, boards, executives, diplomats. 

Boomer self-serving careerists and hegemonic entitlement bureaucracy at the expense of everyone else, trillion-dollar wars, healthcare costs out of control, manufacturing base stripped clean and shipped out, entire companies and industries lost, human resources means no resources, military stretched thin, porous borders to allow American Baby Boomer excessive drug use causing tens of thousands of Mexican slaughters.

Widespread Boomer narcissism, double-digit divorce rates, one-parent families, intolerance, atheism, inappropriate sexual, violence and angst rampant in society, fear of everything with security cameras everywhere, Boomer hatred and mistreatment of younger generations. 

Collapse of art industry, music industry, the arts and sciences, country divided (ideologically, spiritually, politically, religiously, racially) U.S. disliked by most of the world… Monica-gate, Election frauds, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Climategate, Foreclosuregate, Cablegate, Wall Street-gate, Investment-gate, Hedge Fund-gate, Bank of America-gate, etc., etc.

All this, and more, has been on the menu for far, far too long.

It has been a total recipe - for disaster.

It comes just as the new world transits of 2011 brings the end of the road for the Baby Boomers as ruling establishment since 1993.

How the Baby Boomer generation will come to terms with the wholly negative impact on the world during their time as establishment I do not know. 

As this aging generation enters its final year of 2010-11 as establishment, society will have to undergo a radical transformation in order to get people - working again.

That will not be done with the Baby Boomer generation in charge. We've been there - done that.

Generally, after March 2011, world transits indicate a shift towards the new establishment of Generation X.

This large generation, born 1961-75, is the key towards returning the world economy back to health, as well as managing it through the next two decades.

The entry of Jupiter in tropical Aries starts a new 12-year cycle. Jupiter's opposition to Saturn in Libra in 2011 marks the end of the 1990s-style of management and the beginning of new global leadership for the 21st century.

The years between 2011-2014 continue this theme of transitions that has been ongoing since the late 2000s. However, this time, the transition is truly generational - on a larger scale.

Both Jupiter and Uranus have been transiting in the late degrees of tropical Pisces. A major transit denoting significant and historical changes at hand. We have seen this reflected in the world events of 2010.

Beginning in January 2011 and continuing through March and April 2011, both planets will enter tropical Aries, a point on the zodiac signifying new starts.

During the spring months of the northern hemisphere most of the planets, excepting Saturn in tropical Libra, will transit the southern hemisphere, but will emerge into Aries, opposing Saturn, and transiting in tropical Aries, a sign known for new beginnings.

This particular March and April asks us to be patient, not impulsive, and mindful of the longer-term future while not ignoring the needs of the present.

Mundane transits confirm that we are now in a global generational transition between that which has outworn itself for the times, and that which is new.

The passage of the Baby Boomer generation into their elderly years will give way to fresh opportunities that are exciting and rewarding for those who prepare and look ahead.

This means adapting to the near-term while preparing for the future. The new establishment of Generation X arrives at a time in history where their nativities show they are clearly needed.

World transits clearly points us to the fact that as one generation ages and leaves as establishment, that this new generation enters to not simply clean up the mess left behind, but will also be asked to forge positive healthy visions to lead into the future.

That future is nearly here now.

It will fall on the shoulders of Generation X to return common sense, sanity and stability in this new era.

For those who would look for positive ways to progress into this new decade, consider:

The Cardinal Crisis
Generation X
Our Noble Generation?

By Tim Daniel

 A Noble Generation is one that first ensures our survival and then secures a better future for us all, not just for themselves.

That means it must be fearless and highly skilled. It must be realistic and adaptive.

It must be able and willing to break the old rules and run sequential experiments until new rules emerge from the confusion.

It must be tough enough to overcome the flack it catches for doing this.

Then it must be willing and able to build new, thriving endeavors around those new rules and successfully engage the rest of us in those endeavors.

A Noble Generation must be realistic, creative and social.

Generation X is a perfect match for such a daunting assignment.

Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981, is our “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Generation.


They were mocked and put down as being somehow flawed. They have been overlooked and under-studied by marketers and politicians.

There isn’t a lot of money to be made or elections to be won by understanding and responding to their concerns.

But now a dark and stormy night is upon us. We need precisely the set of traits that gave this generation a bad name in their youth. They are destined get us safely through this Night.

 They have the right stuff:

Warren Buffet says the only real security lies in your own skills and in the collective skills of organizations you belong to or support in some way.

Generation X gets this hard truth in their bones.

Generation X, 1977

Their life experiences taught them they could trust no one but themselves and the few collective endeavors they have personally experienced as legitimate.

They were the most aborted generation in history. They grew up in the highest percentage of divorced homes to date in history. During their childhoods the percentage of kids left alone after school went from 20% to 47%.

It turned out to be a lifetime theme. They were left alone to figure it out on their own because their early boomer parents, teachers, coaches, clergy and politicians were incredibly self-absorbed and self-serving.

They sold Generation X all sorts of stuff that turned out to be harmful.


So how did they respond? Xers realized right away that what is being sold all too often benefits the seller at the buyer’s expense.

They realized the rules they were taught benefit the rule-makers more than the rule-followers.


The authority figures who failed them always used lofty words and intricate processes.

So Xers learned to value the results of the idea over the process used to get there, the tangible impact on real people over its ideological purity or pedigree.


They developed incredibly accurate “b.s. meters.” They cultivated an uncanny ability to cut through the crap and look for whatever really works – and will keep working; not just for the individual but for the whole.

So like all great generations - they embody some big paradoxes. Big paradoxes tear less hardy generations apart.

Noble generations wrestle with the paradoxes and come out the other end with stunning, original, creative breakthroughs.

Here are three of the paradoxes that have shaped this remarkable generation:

First, they are very self-reliant and independent, but they are equally motivated to figure out what actually works to create the kind of community that was not there for them when they needed it most.

Here’s what has worked for them so far: They are pragmatic, quick and sharp-eyed. They cherry-pick what works out of any system and leave the rest.

They are able to step outside themselves enough to learn how the game is really played, rather than ranting that there is a game being played at all, something they rarely saw their boomer elders do.

As a result they are the most street-smart generation we have had in a long time. They are resourceful and adaptive by necessity.

Gen X, New York, 1976

There was no welcome mat set out for them economically, so they became problem-solvers, innovators and entrepreneurs, creating their own careers by their own rules.

Second, as forward looking as they are - they have a living link to our most noble traditions. They use the best of the past to inform their visions of the future, while not simply trying to re-capture the past.

 They are the last generation who know what a book is for and how to read one. They know you don’t read a great book, a great book reads you.

It’s not how many books you’ve gotten through – it’s how many books have gotten through you and changed you.

Gen X, Brooklyn, 1975

They were the last generation who were told – “come home before the street lights come on.”  Which meant two things: 1) Self-guided play, outdoors, without a screen and 2) you can trust the neighbors.

 Gen X - 1975

Third, they have been let down by almost every authority they have trusted, yet they still believe in the need for legitimate authority.

Slowly they are realizing the one authority that won’t ever go away, one that can teach them whatever they need to know is – nature.

In nature they see themselves – realistic, unending adaptation to an uncaring but wonderful world, producing new things that are at once beautiful, durable and useful.

 They know what it feels like to be uncared for.

Now they look at the future and are worried.


This feels familiar. The future is currently being uncared for by the very same people who didn’t care for them, the people currently in charge.

But this time they are not powerless. Far from it.

They have never just sat passively on the sidelines. They are doers. They take initiative and responsibility. They will do it again.

They will step up, mimic nature and show the rest of us how it’s done.


 They are here, already among us, just in time, hiding in plain sight.

 Gen X, 1976

Find them. Listen to them. Follow their funny-looking noses. I promise you – they will lead us to a new golden age.
~

The Cardinal Crisis:
 A Brave New Dystopia?
Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. No children. No future. No hope. In the year 2027, eighteen years since the last baby was born, disillusioned Theo (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of the human race when he is asked by his former lover to escort a young pregnant woman to safety out of the country as quickly as possible. In a thrilling race against time, Theo will risk everything to deliver the miracle the whole world has been waiting for.

By Chris Hedges
Truthdig

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s "1984" and Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World."

The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right.

Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control?

 In a photo taken October 2007, an Inter-city American Transit Bus equipped with a test set-up of a new surveillance system that will eventually be installed on the entire fleet. There are 4 cameras (that I could count) and (supposedly) one microphone that can monitor conversations and noises in, or near, the front of the bus's rider compartment. If I remember right, the price tag for this "added protection" is about $600,000 per vehicle!
Credit: Robert Whitlock

Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression?

It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right.

Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement.

Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually dis-empowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement.

While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished.

Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from "Brave New World" to "1984."

The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy.

It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy.

We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions, to one where we are overtly controlled.


 Orwell warned of a world where books were banned.

Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books.

Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear.

Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure.


Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished.

Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information.


Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell.


Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement.

Orwell understood the enslavement.


Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake," Orwell wrote in "1984."  "We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.

What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.

All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.

They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.

We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means - it is an end.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" in his book "Democracy Incorporated" to describe our political system.

Aldous Huxley

It is a term that would make sense to Huxley.

In inverted totalitarianism, the sophisticated technologies of corporate control, intimidation and mass manipulation, which far surpass those employed by previous totalitarian states, are effectively masked by the glitter, noise and abundance of a consumer society.

Political participation and civil liberties are gradually surrendered.

The corporation state, hiding behind the smokescreen of the public relations industry, the entertainment industry and the tawdry materialism of a consumer society, devours us from the inside out.


It owes no allegiance to us or the nation. It feasts upon our carcass.

The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation.

Corporations, who hire attractive spokespeople like Barack Obama, control the uses of science, technology, education and mass communication. They control the messages in movies and television.


And, as in "Brave New World," they use these tools of communication to bolster tyranny.

Our systems of mass communication, as Wolin writes, "block out, eliminate whatever might introduce qualification, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything that might weaken or complicate the holistic force of their creation, to its total impression."

The result is a monochromatic system of information.


Celebrity courtiers, masquerading as journalists, experts and specialists, identify our problems and patiently explain the parameters.

All those who argue outside the imposed parameters are dismissed as irrelevant cranks, extremists or members of a radical left. Prescient social critics, from Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are banished.

Acceptable opinions have a range of A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Huxley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as well as an endless and finally fatal optimism.


We busy ourselves buying products that promise to change our lives, make us more beautiful, confident or successful as we are steadily stripped of rights, money and influence.

All messages we receive through these systems of communication, whether on the nightly news or talk shows like "Oprah," promise a brighter, happier tomorrow.


And this, as Wolin points out, is "the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face."


We have been entranced, as Wolin writes, by "continuous technological advances" that "encourage elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, actions measured in nanoseconds.


A dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose denizens are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge."

Our manufacturing base has been dismantled.

Speculators and swindlers have looted the U.S. Treasury and stolen billions from small shareholders who had set aside money for retirement or college.

Civil liberties, including habeas corpus and protection from warrant-less wiretapping, have been taken away.

Basic services, including public education and health care, have been handed over to the corporations to exploit for profit.

The few who raise voices of dissent, who refuse to engage in the corporate happy talk, are derided by the corporate establishment as freaks.

Attitudes and temperament have been cleverly engineered by the corporate state, as with Huxley’s pliant characters in "Brave New World."

The book’s protagonist, Bernard Marx, turns in frustration to his girlfriend Lenina:

"Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?" he asks.

"I don’t know that you mean. I am free, free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays."

He laughed, "Yes, 'Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We have been giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way."


"I don’t know what you mean," she repeated.


The facade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s "Brave New World" to Orwell’s "1984."

The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back.


The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security.

The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity.

The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called "near poverty," coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.

We increasingly live in Orwell’s Oceania, not Huxley’s The World State.

Osama bin Laden plays the role assumed by Emmanuel Goldstein in "1984." Goldstein, in the novel, is the public face of terror. His evil machinations and clandestine acts of violence dominate the nightly news.

Goldstein’s image appears each day on Oceania’s television screens as part of the nation’s "Two Minutes of Hate" daily ritual.

And without the intervention of the state, Goldstein, like bin Laden, will kill you. All excesses are justified in the titanic fight against evil personified.

The psychological torture of Pvt. Bradley Manning - who has now been imprisoned for seven months without being convicted of any crime - mirrors the breaking of the dissident Winston Smith at the end of "1984."

 Bradley Manning at his 7th grade science project

Manning is being held as a "maximum custody detainee" in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia.

He spends 23 of every 24 hours alone. He is denied exercise. He cannot have a pillow or sheets for his bed.

 Army First Class, Bradley Manning

Army doctors have been plying him with antidepressants. The cruder forms of torture of the Gestapo have been replaced with refined Orwellian techniques, largely developed by government psychologists, to turn dissidents like Manning into vegetables.

We break souls as well as bodies. It is more effective. Now we can all be taken to Orwell’s dreaded Room 101 to become compliant and harmless.

These "special administrative measures" are regularly imposed on our dissidents, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was imprisoned under similar conditions for three years before going to trial.


The techniques have psychologically maimed thousands of detainees in our black sites around the globe.

They are the staple form of control in our maximum security prisons where the corporate state makes war on our most politically astute underclass- African-Americans. It all presages the shift from Huxley to Orwell.

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling," Winston Smith’s torturer tells him in 1984. "Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."

The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression.

Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government.

We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras.


Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners.

 TSA airport scan of child

And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity.


The enemy is everywhere.

Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced.

The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity.

Toronto, Canada: G-20 Protests

But they sent a clear message - DO NOT TRY THIS.

The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak.

 The agents - our Thought Police - seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people.

The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting "providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations."

Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?" Orwell wrote.

"It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined.

A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less, but more merciless as it refines itself."
~

This Dystopia of our present world was previewed by a Capricorn performer 28 years ago. 

Though many people did not listen to the warnings, I knew this expression of the signs in the world at that time would come close to the truth of the kind of world we see now, in our present times of global dystopia.

See that 1983 expression here:

~
Dates of Cardinal Crisis Transits
Mundane planetary configurations & dates 2010-2011
Compiled by Theodore White; mundane Astrolog.S

  • April 6-7 - Pluto stations retrograde at 5-Capricorn
  • April 7, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Virgo
  • April 26, 2010 - Saturn opposes Uranus (4th opposition)
  • May 23, 2010 - Jupiter opposes Saturn (first time since 1990-91)
  • May 27-28, 2010 - Uranus enters tropical Aries
  • May 30th, 2010 - Saturn stations direct motion at 27-Virgo
  • June 5-6, 2010 - Jupiter enters tropical Aries
  • June 6-7, 2010 - Mars enters tropical Virgo
  • June 8, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus at 0-Aries
  • July 5, 2010 - Uranus stations retrograde at 0-Aries
  • July 8, 2010 - Jupiter turns North in declination
  • July 11, 2010 - New Moon total eclipse at 19-Cancer (not seen in N. America)
  • July 21, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Libra for good
  • July 23, 2010 - Jupiter stations retrograde
  • July 25, 2010 - Jupiter Squares Pluto
  • July 26, 2010 - Fifth Saturn/Uranus opposition
  • July 31, 2010 - Mars & Jupiter turn S in Declination
  • July 31 - Mars conjoins Saturn at 0-Libra
  • August 3, 2010 - Jupiter, retrograde, Squares Pluto again
  • August 6, 2010 - Venus turns South in Declination
  • August 13-14, 2010 - Uranus re-enters tropical Pisces
  • August 16, 2010 - Jupiter Opposes Saturn
  • August 20, 2010 - Mercury retrogrades in Virgo
  • August 21, 2010 - Saturn Squares Pluto
  • September 8, 2010 - Saturn turns South in declination
  • September 8, 2010 - New Moon at 15-Virgo
  • September 8, 2010 - Venus enters Scorpio
  • September 8-9, 2010 - Jupiter re-enters tropical Pisces
  • September 12, 2010 - Mercury stations direct
  • September 14, 2010 - Pluto stations direct
  • September 14, 2010 - Mars enters Scorpio
  • September 19, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus for first time in Pisces
  • October 8, 2010 - Venus retrograde in Scorpio
  • October 29-30 - Venus turns to "morning star" phase for ten months
  • November 6, 7, 2010 - Neptune direct in motion
  • November 18 - Venus stations direct
  • November 18 - Jupiter stations direct
  • December 5, 6- Uranus stations direct motion
  • December 10-30 - Mercury retrograde
  • January 4, 2011 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus a third time
  • January 22, 2011 - Jupiter enters Aries
  • Jan. 25, 26 - Saturn stations retrograde 17-Libra
  • February 25, 2011 - Jupiter Squares Pluto

  • March 3, 2011 - Transiting Lunar Nodes shift to Mutable Quality of Sagittarius & Gemini
  • March 11-12, 2011 - Uranus enters Aries (first time in 84 years)
  • March 28, 2011 - Jupiter opposes Saturn 

~
Mundane Survey Of Global Events: 2010-2020
 The Cardinal Cross of August 2010: This chart, set for London, England, shows the Cardinal Crisis in action for most of the world as global transits set the tone for the early years of the 2010s.
 
World events are strongly highlighted. From the crisis in the Middle East, to crisis in Thailand, Greece, Europe, Asia, Korea, and North & South America.

The Cardinal Crisis is basically forcing long-standing, unresolved issues to the surface, demanding change, betterment, and, as a result, evolution, from how people live and work, to how public and private institutions serve their wider communities.

The events of the world from now to the mid-2010s are reflective of the decisions and actions of the 1990s and 2000s that are now being exposed by the global transits.

Geopolitical stresses will force leaders to tackle a host of challenging issues worldwide which  require creative vision and a new way of looking at the world to promote peace and advance healthy progress into a new decade.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton with her diplomatic team in China in May 2010.
Credit: AP

Revelations from WikiLeaks release of tens of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables causes stresses to build between nations and their populations, as the freedom of information and expression is pitted against an oligarchy protesters say is bent on protecting only themselves.

A gagged demonstrator holds placards during a protest over the December 2010 arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London.
Credit: Carl de Souza/AFP


Pakistani protesters rally to condemn the arrest in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, seen in poster, during a protest in Multan, Pakistan, on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010.
Credit: Khalid Tanveer/AP


Massive street battles in the nation of Greece because of heavy sovereign debt and deep economic austerity measures and general strikes across Europe threaten peace and stability in the European Union.
Groups battling severe economic austerity measures in Greece urge Europeans to "rise up" during the late spring and summer of 2010.

 The crisis in the Middle East beckons between Israel, Gaza, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and the Arab states highlighted threatening war over international aid to Palestine.


 The crisis on the Korean Peninsula will continues to be tense, threatening to re-ignite a war between both North and South Korea.


 Thailand's crisis is far from over. The coalition government is due to fall from the repression of groups intent on ending what they see as a illegal killer government.


 The economic crisis is also far from over. The pressures on Wall Street, bankers, hedge fund moguls and mortgage servicers will increase in 2011 with calls for sweeping reforms across the board - pitting a budding plutocracy against popular outcries for change.


The climate & weather will become major news again with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, climate extremes of hot and colder than normal temperatures, La Nina, droughts, and most of all floods, as world transits strengthen into 2011:

 Nature Erupts: Volcanic activity increases as Uranus enters Aries.

Criminal underworlds: As Saturn transits Libra and Scorpio, while Pluto transits Capricorn and forms a square to Uranus in Aries, the vicious drug cartel wars raging in Mexico expands, threatening relations with its neighbors and the United States.

 Mexican Drug Wars: Mexican federal police & forensic experts inspect the scene after two men were shot dead by unknown gunmen in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on May 26, 2010. Ciudad Juarez has been hit by waves of very brutal drug-related violence, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world.
Credit: AP

The Economy
  That 1,000 point drop: May 6, 2010 proved to be one of the strangest days in the history of the Dow Jones. A mysterious "1,000-point" plunge in the afternoon hours, blamed on a "fat finger," lost money for tens of thousands of traders and nearly collapsed the stock market. Federal authorities investigate, but the "glitch" still has not been explained months later.

So, in my mundane perspective, the world is, in effect, dealing with the outworn views and methods of the past, while seeking to forge a new way forward into this new century.

The year 2010 is a transition year, and will be historic in my view. In 2010, we are in the predawn of a new age, and some are in the sunset of a old age, mainly that of the late 20th century.

The year 2011 is the start of a new cycle, mainly brought on by the official entry of Uranus into Aries, the first time in 84 years.

This cycle opens up the decade of the 2010s, and practically dominates it with a long-running square aspect to Pluto in Capricorn.

The year 2012 is a strong astrological year. It is dominated by Gemini for the most part, as well as the popular-culture fears of the Mayan Calendar system along with announcements of the "end of the world." 

According to my mundane calculations, the world will not end in 2012, but those who press on with such foolishness will cause enough general worry and concern that some people may be needlessly upset, that is, until the year 2013 arrives.

~ Mundane Review: 2011-2015 ~
World Forecast By Theodore White; mundane Astrolog.S
Θεόδωρος

There are six (6) major transits of the Cardinal Crisis Years - signified by the planets involved & their inclinations:


- Saturn opposes Uranus -
2008-2010
Frustrating attempts to change existing conditions
The new versus the old
Virgo/Pisces - Aries/Libra

Negative attitudes within personal areas of responsibility against those of personal freedom. People generally demand strict obedience to their authority but will rebel against authority at the same time.

Much cooperation is needed to avoid falling into the unfavorable inclinations of Saturn's opposition to Uranus.

A sustained cycle where much insight, honesty, and awareness is needed to offset the powerful tendency to be rigid and unforgiving in personal and professional affairs.

Extreme viewpoints expressed by the ignorant and mentally ill fall under this influence. Loud public pronouncements shouted with wild mannerisms expressing inconsistent attitudes can be observed.

Common sights are: bugged-eye pundits uttering unsubstantiated personal opinions as facts; personal attacks, insults, and acerbic comments designed to bring attention to oneself.

Impulse, haste, snap judgments, immaturity, poor communication skills lacking any sign of social grace and basic manners can be observed.

Negative emotional attitudes bordering on signs of stress and mental illness is also quite common.

There is widespread conflict between the old order and the new emerging order. This is generational.

Groups and individuals battle against corruption of the old establishment, while the old establishment denies losing their clout, and remain fixated on old methods, rejecting anything "new" that threatens their established order.

Concepts and ideas in economic, business and political affairs tend to be impractical, unreliable, and eccentric. Economic life continues to run at a low ebb.


These conflicts play out with professional and personal relationships in a pre-revolutionary manner - pushing relationships to breaking points.

Saturn's opposition to Uranus is unfavorable when dealing with joint accounts, finances, corporate business affairs, inheritances, insurance, and all economic matters important to organizations, groups, and individuals.

The economic climate is highly stressed, with conflicts between the "old" and the "new" at extremes and waiting for the breaking points to arrive.

Selfish motives within organizations, and groups tend to be those where others try to take credit for the work of others in order to advance their own careers leading to estrangements between associates, colleagues and friends.

Ulterior motives abound, as do negative emotions, rampant cynicism; along with personal and professional betrayals. The feelings are quite intense, as oppositions tend to be.

Saturn's inflexibility grinds against Uranus' desire for significant change. The events that have taken place in the world since 2001 is now moving into the "release" phase and into the second decade of the 2010s.

As the fifth and last Saturn/Uranus opposition peaks by July/August 2010, we should observe strong emotions worldwide; seeking a "release" from the pent up energies, anger, and recriminations that have built up over the recent decade of the 2000s.


- Saturn Squares Pluto -
2010
 
Power Plays, Plots, Cold, Evil & Unsympathetic People
Libra/Capricorn

General signs of paranoia exists within groups and organizations is one feature of a Saturn/Pluto Square. 

The large-scale implications of actions taken in government, business, and political groups often force people to face dangerous situations of a sinister nature.

The will power of those involved in personal and professional intrigues is heightened to the point of very negative inclinations with some people using coercive methods to achieve what they perceive as success.

Under Saturn/Pluto this can feature acts of blackmail, threats, and plots at the highest levels of government, within political groups, and corporations.

Paranoid individuals with extreme opinions, and viewpoints is also common under  A Saturn/Pluto square. 

The emotions can be deep, but the insights are often clouded by dishonorable associations and emotions to individuals and groups who do not have the best interests of others at heart.

Some individuals will find themselves battling against corruption and rampant dishonesty within organizations, or within associations, be they professional or personal with attacks on their reputation coming as a result of fighting dishonest persons and groups.

The coming revelations of widespread corruption in global financial markets, on Wall Street, and other stock markets will be under the Saturn/Pluto square.

Forcing major players to fight for their freedom because of accusations of the theft of tens of billions of dollars leading to a worldwide global recession.

Corporate power plays take center stage under the cardinal crisis transits with increasing political pressure and regulatory scrutiny on major banks, insurance companies, and those implicated in widespread financial malfeasance over the last decade.

The focus on these areas: unemployment, insurance, housing, stock markets, hedge funds, secret bank accounts, general economics, political and government affairs, alimony, and inheritances - is all common under the influences of Saturn's square from Libra to Pluto in Capricorn.

It is also common under these inclinations for opposing groups and individuals to use negative, dishonest, and evil means to obtain personal/profession advantages over others; or attempts to hide past acts of malfeasance to avoid implicating others involved in acts of corruption.

This often backfires under the Saturn/Pluto square and results in public scandal along with damage to the reputation and the careers of those who used negative means to gain what they "perceive" to be an advantage.

Nowhere does "do unto others as you would have them do unto you' applies more than under a Saturn/Pluto world square.

The effect on personal and professional connections can be long-lasting with people completely breaking off any further association with friends, family and colleagues.

Power struggles - both internal and external - is a main theme of a Saturn/Pluto Square.

The will-power is increased, but the personal judgment is often very poor. This gives way to intense emotions that are not clearly understood enough to make valuable judgment calls on all levels of decisions.

Often, decisions are based on perceived "associations" with others who are not one's friends, nor who share one's common interests, except to advance their own personal interests while using others as a means to and end. Very common under Saturn's square to Pluto.

After the square aspect passes, the events which have taken place under its influences are fully revealed, leading to permanent estrangements from those once trusted and valued as friends, associates, or lovers.

Saturn's continued transit through Libra (2010-2012) then features a full distrust and estrangement from those who used dishonest means during the Saturn/Pluto inclinations. 

These estrangements will last a very long time and trust will never be restored after the world square aspect has moved out of orb.


- Jupiter Squares Pluto -
Coercions, False Promotions, Litigation & Dishonesty
Aries/Capricorn - 2010-2011
Opposition from Jupiter in Cancer to Pluto in Capricorn arrives 2013-2014


The Jupiter/Pluto Square acts much like that of Saturn's square to Pluto. Jupiter's motion into Aries in mid-2010, and then again in February 2011, will square Pluto in tropical Capricorn.

The same kinds of conflicts under Saturn's influence by square to Pluto comes into action with hasty, impulsive and headstrong promotion of one's opinions as facts to gain a perceived advantage over others.

Temptation is strong with inclinations to use dishonest means to get what one thinks they want.

Rampant litigation under Jupiter's inclinations lead to a rush toward legal wars without first seeing the bigger picture. With the Jupiter square to Pluto: it is the forest first, the trees second, but do make sure you count each tree.

The contradictions of this is simple:

Jupiter's square to Pluto, in combination to its conjunction to Uranus in opposition to Saturn, and by square to Pluto, and back, fully complicates matters, so as to act as a powerful feedback loop with amplifiers about to blow loudly if the volume of intensity is not turned down.

The energies of the Cardinal Cross transits are simply too strong. Patience, slowing down, and reposing are the keys to effectively neutralizing these powerful cardinal inclinations.

Under the Jupiter/Pluto square, serious mistakes are often made preparing legal cases without first laying down the proper practical groundwork.

Often, this comes about because of ego, and headstrong acts featuring arrogance and pride; but wholly failing to take into account the small, but very important details.

The majority of litigation made under these influences will collapse like a house of cards after months of what seemed like a iron-clad case.

The only way to neutralize this transit, as with all the others of the Cardinal Crisis transits is to slow down, and to be strictly honest at all times in all personal and business affairs.

Also, the need to remain detached and practical while plodding step-by-step without ego, impulse, and haste. This is the antidote to the impulsive inclinations of cardinal transits.

Power-plays, and forced acts of coercion, with promotions of extreme expressions of personal, political and religious viewpoints is quite common under this global square.

Often, one's aspirations to remake others comes with neglecting one's own house while confused attitudes about ethics and morality are cast aside in favor of haste and impulse - rushing to judgment.

Struggles with corrupted individuals and groups is also common under a Jupiter/Pluto Square. 

Criminal underworld groups, and their associates often war against one another in the perceived struggle for "power," without understanding the dire future implications of their violent acts which, in time, will return upon the very people involved in these evil affairs.

There can be dubious spiritual practices featuring over-optimistic false spiritual, religious and political beliefs shaped by the realization that there are large-scale forces at work that the individual (s) have been forced to see as a result of changes in lifestyles.

The square aspect in this respect can be positive if the individual (s) remember to not act in haste or impulse in accepting too easily that which is being realized.

Under the cardinal crisis transits, there are efforts by others to remake or coerce others to partake in evil behaviors - effectively using people to do the things which "appear" to advance the interests of those who agree to take part in actions, or groups. 

After the 2010 Jupiter/Pluto Square comes another one by mid-2013 into the year 2014.

This will be part of the Grand Cardinal Cross of 2014 showing powerful cardinal inclinations of haste, and impulse that feeds into the coming Uranus-Pluto Squares of the 2010s.

Again, there is a sense that things are not changing as quickly as people would like them to, and the ramifications of the decade of the 2000s continue to persist into the early years of the 2010s.

Unless the problems of rampant past corruption - especially in the financial sector - then this world Grand Cross, with Jupiter now in Cancer, as part of another series of cardinal crisis configurations - will return to bite back with a vengeance in 2014.


- Jupiter Opposes Saturn -
2010-2012

Bad Business Timing, Questionable Tactics &  Promised Favors Undone
Pisces/Aries - Virgo/Libra
Jupiter at 0-10 degrees Taurus


Jupiter/Saturn oppositions arrive every 20 years. The last one took place in 1990-91. They usually always feature an economic recession, usually deep ones, which can take several years to emerge out of before conditions gradually improve.

Such will be the case with the 2010-2012 opposition of Jupiter/Saturn. During these oppositions expect business to suffer as the generational transition continues over the course of Jupiter's opposition to Saturn.

Because of the poor economic climate some people may resort towards using questionable tactics to get ahead and make money.

With the business climate contracted, some will seek shortcuts and dubious actions to get ahead while others continue to face competition with limited resources.

The desired expansion of business is fraught with frustration after frustration, red-tape, barriers, blocks, delays, and legal problems. Rising defaults & bankruptcies increase as a result of past mismanagement of resources and corruption with credit conditions tighter than normal.


It is an unfavorable time to expand business concerns, or to take chances because of the uncertainty of finances, contracts and commitments from others, who tend to be unreliable due to limited resources, confusion, lack of planning, procrastination, and a general lack of honesty and fair play.

The crush of competition, fighting for a limited amount of customers, with resources lacking can further cause disruptions in professional and personal lives to the point of some leaving entire industries for good.

This will continue under the inclinations of Jupiter's opposition to Saturn.

It is a poor time to seek favors from others, as the business climate of 2010-2012 will continue to suffer from immense commercial & residential real estate losses, double-digit unemployment, and a general sense of malaise from an aging generational establishment.

Those seeing support from official institutions, such as federal, state, and local agencies, may find themselves frustrated with the lack of help usually expected from these offices.

This is because those in positions of power are either on their way out the door themselves, or have become cold and unsympathetic to those in need; preferring instead to look out only for themselves.

While this takes place, many people will see their own personal and professional responsibilities increase; while wages continue to stagnate from the lack of resources, which will be limited because of prior economic corruption and waste.

The opposition of Jupiter to Saturn can test what the true balance really is between being optimistic, and being pessimistic. Much will depend on the ability of the individual to be creative, and patient, while the opposition is underway.

It will not last forever, so those who are looking for opportunities during this time should be aware to remain cautiously optimistic, while clearly seeing what the true barriers to success will be during 2010 to 2012.

Most, if not all of the barriers are those held by people with cold, conservative and uncompromising attitudes. Hypocrisy and distorted moral values is also common under a Jupiter/Saturn opposition.

What used to make sense, and would be expected as normal modes of operation and procedures is perverted by the unyielding attitudes of uncompromising people.

Many of these people will be older, and due to the transit of Saturn, will exhibit rigid views without realizing that in a short period of time after the opposition has waned and passed; that they themselves will receive similar treatment from the very people whom they denied opportunities and relief.

The conflicts which come about during 2010-2012 under the Jupiter/Saturn opposition will tend towards ethics; morals; joint finances, family responsibilities, friendships, associations, romantic relationships, partnerships and corporate struggles that will test the reliability and strength of relationships in general.

The Jupiter/Saturn opposition will begin to weaken in February 2012, and by the end of March 2012, will move out of orb.

By this time, those who were frustrated, or blocked from advancement will find an easier go of things gradually in 2012 as Saturn moves out of opposition to the outer planets, and brings a sense of relief by 2013.

However, memories will be still fresh from the red tape, delays, and barriers put up by those with unyielding attitudes. This will come back to haunt those who denied others the potential for advancement during the 2010s, and leads into the coming Uranus/Pluto squares of the 2010s.

The relief in 2013 doesn't last long due to Jupiter's motion out of tropical Gemini, and into tropical Cancer where Jupiter will transit to oppose Pluto in Capricorn - initiating yet another chapter of the Cardinal Crisis Years.

- Jupiter Opposes Pluto -
August 2013 - June 2014
 Cancer/Capricorn
Part of the Cardinal Grand Cross of April 2014

Forced Reforms, Business Clash, Coercions, International Tensions &  Revolts

By the end of June 2013, transiting Jupiter will have moved out of tropical Gemini, and enter Cancer. Making a nice trine to transiting Saturn in Scorpio by early July, it would appear that the struggles, and tensions of the previous two-and-a-half years are over.

However, this is not so according to the world transits. This is simply a breather with more to come by the following month of August, when transiting Mars conjoins Jupiter in Cancer and oppose Pluto in Capricorn.

Jupiter's opposition to Pluto is a time of what appears to be continued stresses around finances, economics, and what policies should be enacted, and which should not.

There can be tendencies to push things too quickly, to overreach with big plans, and grandiose ideas without firming up foundations.

During the period of the Jupiter-Pluto opposition, it is important to take time to make certain that the practical matters of business and personal life are attended to by balancing one's sense of organization against one's desire to push out and expand.

Under this influence come attempts to force, to coerce, or to remake others - claiming one's desires to reform other while not paying attention to one's own need for it personally. This is also extended internationally.

A fine balance must be taken under a Jupiter-Pluto opposition before initiating wide reforms carelessly without prior deep thought, insight, and understanding of the long-term consequences.

Jupiter is in Cancer - the home sign of the United States - so in 2013 and 2014, the opposition to Pluto can indicate tensions from the people towards government, or, to an administration in power at the time as well as international tensions abroad.

The areas highlighted are those around political policies, philosophical ideology, education, religion, and cultural beliefs and norms clashing against anything that appears to be autocratic in nature.

The strongest date of the opposition is in the year 2014, when transiting Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto form a Grand Cross in the cardinal signs of Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn. The peak of this grand cross is in April 2014.

Jupiter will oppose Pluto, while in square aspect to both Uranus in Aries, and Mars, retrograde in Libra by April 2014. Tensions are high and this grand cross speaks of both international and national tensions at a peak under yet another Cardinal Crisis.

Mixed with a sense of over-optimism, underneath the public feelings at this time is also impatience, and a strong lack of practical common sense that allows many to jump to conclusions - which is part of the cardinal inclinations of haste and impulse once again coming to the fore.

The sense of adventure and grandiose idealism at this time is marked by a hesitancy seen by the retrograde of Mars in Libra at this time.

There are unexpected hostile dealings with foreigners for those outside their home countries, and those overseas tend towards being unpredictable and unreliable.

Spring 2014 into summer 2014 is not a good time for overseas travel. Moreover, the diplomatic tensions are high, so diplomats may come into contact with those in foreign states those who may be difficult to contend with at this time.

Prudence, tact, and foresight is strong advised among all parties, be they individuals, groups, companies, organizations or nations.

The Grand Cross of 2014 signals a sort of "peaking" of the previous cardinal transits of 2010 and 2011 with inclinations of demanding freedom at all cost without taking on the mantle of patience, and responsibility that comes along with demands.

Before 2014, the sense of optimism fueled by the coming and going of the year 2012 when the world did not come to an end, and the inclinations of the year 2013 with a sense of new-found, but cautious optimism, is met by April 2014 with a sense that rebellion and revolt is once again on the horizon.

The international tensions at this time in 2014 will stem from former disagreements and beliefs among nations which appear to have undermined future matters by ignoring principles with empty words - saying one thing, but doing another.

This obviously leads to international clashes when trust appears to be broken between some nations. This shows in world transits of 2014. It is the year of the diplomat.

Mars' retrograde in Libra (March 1, 2014 to May 19, 2014) plays a strong role in the Cardinal Grand Cross of that year.

Wise decision-making is at a premium; so heads of state, and their diplomats should be careful not to overreach, nor to promise more than they can deliver, but to balance threats with peaceful acts, and with careful solutions via prudent diplomacy and tact.

Mars' opposition to Uranus in Aries in 2014 speaks of conflicts, and clashes among states, organizations, friends, and family who take sides on the broader issues of the times. The transit of Mars in Libra (December 7, 2013 to July 25, 2014) is a long one. 

The retrograde of Mars from March to May 19, 2014 takes part during the strongest months of the Cardinal Grand Cross in April & May.

Decision-making is important here, and, with Mars declining in Libra, it is essential to have the right players in position during this time of global transits. The wrong personalities involved as "diplomats" are apt to make things that much worse simply because of their personal and political ideologies.

It is wise to remove ideological hotheads in critical positions at this time in 2014 and to replace them with calm, cool, and smart diplomats who can be trusted and relied upon to create atmospheres for leaders where positive progress can be made.

Compounding this will be a total Lunar eclipse at 25-Libra during the early morning hours of April 15, 2014 that will be visible over the Americas, the Pacific, and east Australia. 

The degrees indicated by Sabian symbols say ~
  • 25º Libra - "The sign of an autumn leaf brings to a pilgrim the sudden revelation of the mystery of life and death."
  • 26º Libra - "An Eagle and a large White Dove Turning into each other."
 My forecast is for an international conflict at this time of the Grand Cross, that continues into July 2014, before either being resolved fully, or which escalates into warfare.

The choices indicated here by Jupiter's opposition to Pluto show that successful advance diplomacy must be made prior to spring 2014, and that signs of the coming conflicts will be seen in late 2012, and early 2013.

Spring 2014 in the northern hemisphere is a tense time of international tension that should be resolved by carefully handling the energies with proper decision-making, diplomacy, and a fine balance between leadership and international cooperation. 

In this way, President Theodore Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly but carry a big stick" applies very well at this time in the world. The energies of the solar year of 2014 are about the promotion of peace, calm, and wise diplomacy. 

Though the ignorant may propound immediate military action; the consequences are far-reaching into the future - so leaders at this time in 2014 will need to exercise wise restraint while carefully balancing the advice of doves and hawks to come to a solution that will satisfy everyone.

Compounding the problem at this time is the fifth exact square between Uranus and Pluto which occurs in April 2014. This is part of the Global Grand Cardinal Cross that year. We will now take a look at the roles these two outer planets will play, along with their powerful inclinations.

 - Uranus Squares Pluto -
2011-2020 overall
Rebellions, Revolts & Revolutionary Sentiments
Aries/Capricorn
early Taurus/Capricorn

If anything defines some of the more tense cardinal energies of the 2010s, it will be the Uranus transit of Aries in global square to transiting Pluto in Capricorn. 

Handling this world square will not be an easy matter after the failures of the past generation to resolve many of the outstanding issues of the end of the 20th century, and the decade of the 2000s.

By July 2011, transiting Uranus will come very close to performing a near-exact square to Pluto in Capricorn, but Uranus will station retrograde on July 9, 2011 - delaying the first exact square with Pluto for 11 more months.

Uranus and Pluto, as slow moving outer planets, will remain in orb for most of the decade of the 2010s. Their most powerful inclinations occur from 2011 to the year 2018.

The first of seven (7) exact squares begins officially on June 24, 2012 with Uranus and Pluto square at 8-Capricorn. This is the first in a series of very powerful world square aspects between both planets relative to the Earth.

The Uranus/Pluto Cardinal squares lasts, overall, from 2011 to 2020.


An unprecedented Seven (7) exact squares occur in just three (3) years: 2012 to 2015
(*) = significant dates

1. June 24, 2012 – first global square at 8-degrees Aries/Capricorn
2. *September 18-19, 2012 second square at 6-degrees Aries/Capricorn
3. May 20, 2013 – third square at 11-degrees Aries/Capricorn
4. November 1, 2013 – fourth square at 9-degrees Aries/Capricorn
5. *April 21, 2014fifth square at 13-degrees Aries/Capricorn
6. December 14-15, 2014 – sixth square at 12-degrees Aries/Capricorn
7. *March 16-17, 2015seventh global square at 15-degrees Aries/Capricorn


The last time Uranus and Pluto met in global square aspect was during the 1930s. This was a decade of reactionary, extreme right-wing politics, revolutionary socialism, rising crime, rebellions, revolts, and restrictive laws gradually reducing freedoms throughout Europe and the then-Soviet Union.

The Bank Crisis and Stock Market Crash of 1929-33 fueled the early years of the Great Depression with rising waves of petty crime and bank robberies. The resulting foreclosures of homes, businesses and family farms amid a depressed global economic system cast a dark shadow over the world.

The NYSE reaching its lowest trading point in history. Weather anomalies under the influence of Uranus in Aries led to the hottest year in U.S. history in 1933-34 with drought and dust storms raging across the American Midwest.

Meanwhile, political extremism ensued with the rise of tyrants, as Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany while in Japan, radical forms of militarism spread so much that it was being openly taught in elementary and high schools.


The revolts, rebellions and revolutionary sentiments under the Uranus/Pluto squares thus paved the way for the Second World War that followed by the end of the 1930s.

Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn revolve their squares worldwide for much of the 2010s, but the most powerful periods are between 2012 through 2015.


This is a time of great upsets within nations which have now experienced at least four to seven years in the wake of the global economic crisis.

Uranus' penchant for sudden change against Pluto's desire structure in Capricorn for a kind of transformational war that butt heads over the "kinds" of new changes to be realized and those not to be supported.

While this is happening, populations around the world seem to have had it to their chins with the constant disruptions of their lives; the losses of lifestyles over the years. 

They react powerfully by demanding immediate changes without question while the forces of the status quo and old establishment refuse to yield - deciding to procrastinate even more.

Groups, organizations and individuals have become radicalized by the events since 2008. So much so, that by the time (June 2012) of the first of seven exact Uranus/Pluto square social unrest is a certainty in regions around the world.

There are increasing signs of rebellions, revolts and foreboding examples of revolutionary sentiments expressed in various nations upset with the status quo, represented by Pluto in Capricorn.

It seems everything is on the table here: economic, social, political and religious structures are be challenged from all sides. People want change, and intend on getting it.

The headstrong inclinations of Aries, with Uranus in it's 7-year transit in this sign, squaring Pluto can indicate sudden deaths coming about unexpectedly; usually through acts of violence, and from common accidents, and unexpected large-scale disasters related to weather extremes.

Past associations, friendships and relationships can become radically changed under Uranus and Pluto's cardinal squares. It is at this time, between 2012-2015 that companies that were hanging on by a thread financially - can suddenly break and fall into bankruptcy.

The entry of Neptune into tropical Pisces in February 2012 will impress dissolution on failing companies afterward, with a slow, but gradual death into the mid-to-late 2010s.

The sudden losses associated with Uranus' transit in Aries can bring about greater financial losses than expected while corporations continue to witness power struggles as the generational transition picks up speed in the early to mid-2010s.

The revolutionary sentiments inclined by Uranus/Pluto come about as a result of the frustrations of the decade of the 2000s.

The global economic crisis, and the resulting societal effects have angered many populations who feel that their governments and representatives were not representing them, but corporate monied-interests that pilfered society's resources.

The resulting backlash featured under the Uranus/Pluto squares of the 2010s will be widespread, and quite unsettling for those involved in the mismanagement of trillions of dollars and euros over the previous decade.

Rising crime can be a problem; also fueled by the lack of resources because of the Banking Crisis of 2008-2012. 

Hasty and impulsive actions to acquire money through illegal acts become more public as law and order seems to be failing to take hold of the rising tide of criminal acts perpetuated by career criminals let out on the streets after being released from prison, but not reformed.

State officials, under pressure financially, are forced to release thousands of prisoners in the early 2010s to relieve the system from overcrowding.
 

State lawmakers all over the U.S., who say they need to save money from the devastating losses in state revenues say must release tens of thousands of convicts from prison in the 2010s, including drug addicts, thieves and violent criminals.

If there has been little reform of the system during the time of incarcerations, then obviously the lingering effects of the economic crisis that awaits convicts on the street can be a threat to public safety under the Uranus/Pluto squares.

By the spring of 2014, things become quite tense again globally with another Cardinal Cross - this time a Grand Cross configuration featuring Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Pluto in the Signs of Libra, Cancer, Aries and Capricorn.

Grand Cross configurations in cardinal signs seek immediate release of strong, emotional pent-up energies.

By April 2014, there is a sense among populations that they have had enough. They eject the usual explainations behind the causes of the economic crisis, which, by this time, will have persisted at various levels significantly enough to cause outright revolts in some nations.

At the same time, international tensions are sure to be high as well. There is a strong need for calm, but strong diplomacy as the Cardinal Grand Cross energies peak by April & May 2014.

Resolution of conflicts between nations can occur by utilizing cooperative stances, as well as using the carrot and stick method to bring unwilling parties to the bargaining tables to resolve differences.

The energies of Uranus Square Pluto can be violent. Accidents, and deaths are caused by haste, impulse, and the refusal to be patient, and tolerant.

Aries is the Sign of haste/impulse, while Pluto seeks general transformation, but through a gradual and steady use of the authority, forms, disciplines and structures of Capricorn.

The clashes between pre-revolutionary forces and those managing the old systems of structure can meet in the middle, but this can only be accomplished through diplomacy, understanding with all sides being flexible.

Uranus' transit in square to Pluto will undoubtedly shape much of the international climate of the 2010s to the point that presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, national leaders, CEOs, managers, and all those in executive positions will have to carefully determine how best to handle their respective leadership roles over the next 10-12 years.

It will not be easy. Those who make the effort to plan ahead, and who are flexible in their thinking, and their attitudes, will do much better than those who are not.

Nonetheless, expect the global square of Uranus to Pluto to be the prime cardinal inclinational force that will make world news time and again through the decade of the 2010s, and into the mid-2020s.
 ~

This is a quiet place in cyberspace
devoted to Astrological forecasting, Internet freedom, sunshine & media transparency, human rights, science, religious tolerance and scholarship

Permission to republish contents allowed with attributions.

Non-public domain contents of this site
not otherwise copyrighted are © Copyright 2011, Theodore White, All Rights Reserved.
Open Source for the Human Soul