Apple Cake

When I first looked at the chart for this New Moon on November 13th, I decided it was much more preferable to bake an apple cake than write about the Moon!!   And anyone who knows me knows I am not at heart a baker!  We have seen some very difficult and dark scenarios play out through this latest eclipse period and I suppose I had been hoping against hope to see some easing of hostilities with the New Moon.   However, unravelling current scenarios is very much like peeling an onion – we have to remove many layers before we reach the soul point at the very centre and make any progress.  

 So I baked an apple cake and eased myself into this important New Moon of extremely ‘fixed’ and deeply intense energy.  We see a line-up of Sun, Moon, Mars and Ceres (Goddess of the Harvest) all in Scorpio, opposing Uranus; Uranus symbolises disruption, revolution, sudden extreme events, shocks and volatility through which we can arrive at an awakening point.   The key placement of Ceres in the mix suggests that disruption could affect us physically in terms of planet Earth (we are seeing volcanic eruption on Iceland).

 Mars, the God of War and the ruler of this New Moon, is strong in his own sign. He actually rules two signs, Scorpio and Aries.   However, Mars in Aries and Mars in Scorpio are very different energies and, in a state of conflict, will behave very differently.  In Aries Mars goes to war in a direct fashion, with a clear strategy and with the God of War leading from the front.  In Scorpio Mars fights a ’dirty’ war where we have no idea who is really leading. 

 Scorpio buries and conceals, propelled by festering and toxic wounds.  Intentions are hidden and concealed.  In the chart set for London the New Moon falls in the 12th house, the house where things are hidden, so we have a double whammy of secret issues.   It’s really going to be necessary to dig deep to gain any clues.  Modern astrology would cite Pluto as the ruler of Scorpio.  Pluto has just turned direct as he starts to bring to an end his stay in Capricorn.  He squares the Nodes (our karmic destiny) and Eris, which brings up an energy of disruptive transformational change that has a huge effect on our futures.

 Mars represents masculine, assertive, aggressive energy, whilst Venus is symbolic of the feminine.  And we see Venus at this New Moon also in a sign she rules – Libra, symbolising balance, harmony, the scales of justice.   She is strong but she has no planets by her side acting as bodyguards as Mars does.  Plus Mars and Venus are not in accord – there is a semi square between the masculine and feminine principle.  And Venus at this New Moon is still a warrior queen, rising before the Sun.  This Venus is no shrinking violet – she is standing up to Mars.   But who or what is Venus?  Venus is usually representative of a woman and in Libra perhaps she has something to do with the justice system.  She will use her talents as a warrior queen, but she could also fight dirty using her feminine guiles to lure and capture.  But again I ask – who or what is she?

 The New Moon also makes a trine (harmonious aspect) to Neptune.  So this Scorpio New Moon, who will act covertly with hidden and concealed intentions, is totally able to confuse, deceive and act subversively (Neptune).  We have a veil drawn over something that is already hidden, covert and buried!  Uranus opposing the New Moon is at the same degree where he will be in April next year.   This is where he will conjunct Jupiter, expanding the extremeness of his energy.  Additionally he will be at this same degree at the total Solar Eclipse, visible across America, next April.  So this is a loaded New Moon containing elements of more to come.   The opposition of Uranus to Mars is exact just prior to the New Moon, and to the Sun and the Moon just after.  This means we have a period around this lunation where, quite frankly, anything could kick off during those days.  Additionally, a New Moon sets the scene for the whole month.  But, as we have echoes here going forward to April 2024, I don’t think we are likely to see a conclusion of current events any time soon.  In fact, it may be more that the stage is actually going to be set now for this period next year.

 Interestingly, if I overlay the chart for the New Moon, the Sun/Moon line not only clips the south of the Gaza strip, it also tracks through Ukraine and Crimea, so this latter area is also not done with yet.   The Mars line runs through Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the east of Ukraine.   So I think we perhaps move into a new phase of this horrific violence because it involves emotively the ‘seat’ of the history of the Bible- the ‘beginning times’. 

 Many point to this most recent conflict as prophetically the enactment of the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelations – the final chapter of the Old Testament.  What we should perhaps be clear on is the meaning of the word apocalypse.  The colloquial meaning is of mass destruction, damage on a catastrophic scale, the final destruction of the world as in the book of ‘Revelations’.  However, the original meaning is actually to pull the lid off something or ‘revelation’ itself, just as this last book of the Bible is titled.  I find this really interesting – if we are at this biblical point will we actually begin to see an unveiling of what is secret and hidden?  And with that perhaps some kind of awakening?

 The book of Revelations tells of the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, personifications of Death/Pestilence, Famine, War and Conquest that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses.  The Christian interpretation of the Four Horsemen is as a vision of harbingers of the Last Judgment, setting a divine end-time upon the world.  We could envisage the pandemic as symbolic of the First Horseman, and ensuing Famine, represented by the second Horseman, caused by the loss of grain harvests due to war, as well as potentially results of suggestions of geo-engineering, dimming the Sun and the race to Net Zero - the covert war of the technocrats against the ‘useless eaters’.

 We are now with the third horseman of war – perhaps the endless wars described by Orwell in 1984 – but not yet at the fourth and final conquest point.   However, we should remember that Orwell and his contemporaries, such as Huxley and H.G. Wells, mixed with the political intellectuals and influencers of their time within the Fabian Society - one of the first ever political thinktanks.  So perhaps they were aware of the ideologies of certain areas of society, particularly the technocratic element, even if it might take another hundred years to achieve.  Orwell in 1984 spoke of a society that lived with the sense of a perpetual ongoing war.   Great Britain had become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, led by Big Brother.  The Ministry of Truth and the Thought Police were engaged in an omnipresent world of surveillance and constant propaganda, wiping out any sense of independent thinking.    War eats up the surplus of consumable goods, whilst preserving a particular mental atmosphere that such a type of hierarchical society needs. Perpetual war extracts cheap foreign labour, distracts the masses and keeps citizens poor in order to preserve this hierarchical society.  War, however, has lost all meaning – it is never ending because it is meant to fuel the wheels of the military industry and keep the people in a fear state.

If we dig very deep we see wars that have been and probably still are secretly funded by both sides or by darker more unknown forces within governments; and we see such hubris surrounding the Western camp where Europe in particular has thrown themselves unquestionably in support of the USA.  The war in Ukraine is unwinnable as it stands, despite what the propaganda of the media says.  Russia is not cracking and will not crack – they are creating their own group of allies.  Where are we now in terms of the chessboard that we really need to exit from - we are pawns?   Has a hand been played that is masterful or has the oppressor made a move that will backfire and push him into a corner? 

 I’m grateful to one eagle eyed reader of my last blog commenting on the words:

Oh, where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?

My brain had played a bit of a trick on me - I had read what I wanted to read, which was the rubble of our sins rather than the rubble or our sins.  Not a lot of difference I know, but it does make a difference.  I was looking at the fact that our sins had caused the rubble, or the mess we are in now, which is certainly partly true.  But the meaning I think is more: do we just clear up the rubble and mess we have made and do a surface job to make it look better, or do we delve down and really deal with what has caused our problems in the first place?  The first option leads us back to a continual loop of endless self-destruction, whilst the second requires the much harder work of looking at ourselves and where our actions will take us in a few years’ time.

 And that is the hub of where humanity finds itself now.  How do we find a path through the chaos and the rubble of what is buried and hidden, when it looks as though all the odds are stacked against us?   Astrologically we need a strong Saturn to do that – Saturn is the planet of taking responsibility for our decisions.   What do we have?  Saturn is now direct, but he is still in Pisces, so in many ways this crisis is one of spirituality and spiritual beliefs and has to be dealt with from that starting point.   We all have to raise our awareness and, therefore, our consciousness.  Mercury (planet of the mind and thought) is in Sagittarius – we must fly high and look at everything from the point of view of the bigger picture, rather than being distracted by every small detail.  We have an opportunity at this New Moon with an opportunistic aspect to a strong Venus, who governs our conscious outlook, to do this.  We need to balance and weigh up so that we can awaken to new perspectives, new perceptions and new possibilities of the Revelation.  Who gets a payback?  Who really benefits?

 Mainstream media will not look after us.  It has been infiltrated by Orwell’s thought police to influence events and to make money for its backers.  Politicians have not been elected to serve us.  They also are now there to carry out the technocratic desires of a state/corporate partnership to make money for their backers.   Big Pharma is not there to make us healthy and well.   It is there to make money for its backers.   Big data is notthere to keep you safe.  It is there to make money for its backers.

 My very eagle-eyed reader also made a second comment that I would like to share: ‘I love reading your outpourings! Rare for an astrologer to be on the ball with everything and see through so much in the same way as some of us...what a time we've chosen to live through’.  Indeed what a time we have chosen to live through.  Back in the day, when astrologers were respected members of a community, their job would be to advise Kings when to go into battle and how to remain in power.   If they got their prediction wrong, they would literally lose their heads.  Astrologers were the mathematicians and the astronomers and would have had to be well versed both politically and geo politically on foreign affairs.  Astrology only ‘works’ if it is used within context.  My fellow professionals should be leading the way, at such an important point in our history.  I should not be a rarity.  I should be the norm.  If we only say what is acceptable and as others want to hear it, we make ourselves complicit.

 Now that events have taken us back to the biblical heartlands, are we now in the eye of the storm?   Are we now on the road to the apocalypse in the sense of its meaning as a revelation?  Have we reached the apple at the centre of my apple cake?  As I said earlier – astrology only works if it is used in context.  To do this following the money usually applies and the context in the Palestine area is not only oil and gas reserves off Gaza but also US and Israeli long-held desires to build the Ben Gurion Canal at the northern end of the Gaza strip, rivalling the Suez Canal and reclaiming from Egypt much lucrative trade – anyone remember the Arab/Israeli war/Suez crisis of 1956? 

 The invention of the internet and personal computers has made us lazy.  Too lazy to actually think.   But, if we want to avoid living in a continual loop of the same events playing out, such as in the series Westworld, we have to fly high and take in an overview.   To do this we need to raise our awareness and our consciousness so that we can understand at least the bare minimum of geopolitics.   It’s as serious as the continuance of the human race - and at some point conflict will happen in our own back yard, rather than in a location thousands of miles away.  

 This New Moon is a perfect point to look at our deep-seated core beliefs and whether they are useful to us at this point in history.   Are these beliefs just something we accepted parrot fashion many years ago, and now retain just because we cannot believe the opposing view could hold any validity?   With a New Moon sitting with Mars and Ceres trine to Neptune, this is the perfect opportunity to put energy into dissolving and releasing ourselves from deeply rooted beliefs that actually prevent us from taking on an awakening journey. Instead we see sectors of society tearing each other apart – and humanity along with it.  The old rule book is about to be ripped up come what may and we have the choice to live in a post-apocalyptic world which is either one of continual endings and destructions or one of new beginnings where, because of ‘the revelation’, we can come together to find new innovative types of solutions.  These will not be the same old solutions contained in the continuous cyclical loop we have lived through – they will be a part of a new beginning that takes us on to a new type of society.