Hello from Cassandra
In Greek myth Cassandra was a Princess of Troy. She was born with both a gift and a curse - her gift was her ability to see into the future, but her curse was that no one believed her. During the battle of Troy she warned that if the ‘Trojan Horse’ was allowed through the gates the city would be destroyed and taken. Her warning was ignored and Troy fell to the Greeks.
The Cassandra syndrome is recognised today in situations where valid alarms are raised but are disbelieved. It is often seen in relationship issues where one partner finally confesses about the reality of living with the other partner, who is seen from the outside as being a person with seemingly charming and impeccable behaviour. I thank my friend and fellow astrologer, William Stickevers, for reminding me of this myth. Sadly I see a lot of Cassandras today who are trying to warn but instead are ridiculed. Are the Cassandras always destined to be disbelieved until it is too late?
The Full Moon of July 3rd - a powerful Super Moon - falls across the Cancer/Capricorn axis, with the Moon (the people) in the sign of Capricorn, signifying government and large corporates, and the Sun (the leaders) in the sign of Cancer (the home, the family). Perhaps it is pertinent to remind ourselves that corporates always seek profits and governments always seek control of the people. I see the Moon here as the Cassandras. The Moon symbolises the people, so in the sign of the Government she behaves like the whistle-blower because she exposes what is happening at high levels. She trines Jupiter – she is trying to increase awareness.
Morpheus warned Neo in the film ‘The Matrix’ – “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." In my experience once you see, you see and then you cannot unsee. And then you become a Cassandra.
At the Full Moon Pluto, Neptune and Saturn are all retrograde. The Sun has Mercury (communications and the media) at his side, whilst the principles of male and female, Venus and Mars, together square disruptive Uranus. Very interestingly the asteroid Kassandra – yes there really is one - is in a tight square (conflict) aspect to the Full Moon. Astrology is awesome when it pans out like this! Pluto still squares the nodes (destiny axis) as he has done for some while now; something is destined to change our lives in a very powerful way, and the energy will change up a gear as the nodal axis changes signs this month from Taurus/Scorpio to Aries/Libra. Taurus/Scorpio symbolises values and finance vis a vis resources, whilst Aries/Libra symbolises the balance between living as ‘I’ versus the ability to live with ‘you’ in a shared reality; the balance between the warrior and the peacemaker.
Our financial systems in the West are very unstable, despite what we are told; they are built on debt, so will the movement into new signs bring some kind of crescendo? Aries is the sign of the warrior and we can already see an escalation of some kind within Russia. We have just seen a bizarre incident where the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group appeared to be trying to bring about an insurrection against Putin and Moscow. Putin, believe it or not, is a moderate. We always demonise our opponents – Gaddafi, Assad, Saddam Hussein, to name but a few. Putin came into the war ostensibly to defend Russian citizens in the Donbas area, whilst NATO appears to have had different ideas of the end goal. There are many hardliners within Russia who would prefer a much harder stance within the war. The Wagner Group are mercenaries so was there a higher offer? Or was this a piece of pure theatre? Did we actually witness a double blind? The chart I use for Russia has Neptune currently stationed on its descendant signifying undercurrents of deceit, chaos, confusion and betrayal. Equally it could signify the Russians throwing a veil across their enemies – Russia and Putin are notorious masters of chess. A dangerous game is being played out here with a nuclear armed country, particularly if it is an orchestrated tactic to escalate actions. Ridding Russia of Putin at all costs will likely go as badly as ridding America of Trump. Western tactics notoriously backfire.
All the astrology has been pointing to some kind of big change within society. Jupiter/Saturn cycles mark socio-economic development and, therefore, how societies and civilisations are structured. Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions happen every 20 years, but they are part of a cycle of greater interlocking cycles. The 20-year cycles are part of a bigger 200-year cycle of meetings in a particular element. The 200-year cycles form part of a bigger 800-year cycle of movement through the four elements, which in turn is part of a 2400-year cycle of movement through the whole zodiac. In December 2020 we began a new 200-year cycle in the element of Air, this one beginning at 0 Aquarius – the sign of technology, science and scientific revolution. Back then I wrote that we could be on the brink of something as great as a civilisation change, partly because it wasn’t just a meeting between Jupiter and Saturn – Pluto was in the mix too, so I reckoned we were seeing some kind of huge lesson/change/power struggle for the world.
The Jupiter archetype is one of the search for meaning and growth, associated with philosophical beliefs and ideals for the future, whilst the Saturn archetype is where we find reality and boundaries. With Saturn we have to put in effort and hard work to achieve the Jupiterian visions. The cycles are marked by Jupiterian periods of inflation, expansion and growth as well as by Saturnian limitations, scarcity and recessionary times. But bring Pluto into the mix as well and we are talking some kind of huge fight for power and control.
One cycle seeds another. The Industrial Revolution that we saw in the previous Earth cycle was born out of the vision of the previous cycle in Fire, which brought the invention of steam, mechanical power and electricity. It was the Fire cycle that gave rise to the idea of a mechanistic universe and materialistic science, which led on to the Earth cycle of mass production, the growth of factories and big business and migration as people moved from their rural homes to more urban living. Over time business became automated by the growth of the computer industry, which in turn would feed into the development of AI, symbolised by a cycle of Air. The transnational corporate was born during the Earth cycle, propelled along by the technocratic wealthy patrons who sought capitalism, economics and money. The Earth cycle was the beginning of the ‘self-made’ man rather than money being handed down via aristocracy.
Now we are two and a half years into an Air cycle. Air by its nature represents the ‘mental’ – our thoughts and feelings. And, as I have spoken about many times, we see a battle for our minds.[1] Most people don’t realise that their opinions are not really theirs, but instead the product of orchestrated mind influencing. Earth is tangible but Air is invisible and intangible, so we don’t see it coming. Air facilitates the transmission of sounds, wifi, electro magnetic impulses for instance. Air is the wind which when it blows hard you can feel but you still can’t see. Air is a carrier – it carries dust, viruses, things like that - so Air can be polluted and toxic, but unless you can smell what is in the Air you don’t necessarily know that it is toxic. Air contains the CO2 that plant life needs and, therefore, we need to survive. And yet we are told it is not desirable and we have to achieve a dream of ‘net zero’. And a big proportion of society has believed it. Ideas live in the air, computer storage/data lives in a ‘cloud’. Has a perfect storm of ideologies been created? Air is the atmosphere – the space above us where flying vehicles travel and where the rest of our Universe resides. It covers the realm of Space, space travel and other beings who may reside there; if the whistle-blowers are correct we may learn about them sooner rather than later!
Interestingly we are also transitioning from a 20-year period of Pluto, planet of transformation, in Earth (Capricorn) going into Air (Aquarius. Pluto’s entry into the Air cycle happened at 0 Aquarius exactly the same degree as the start of the new Jupiter/Saturn cycle – so we have a re-triggering and a re-highlighting. Although Pluto only has a 20 year stay in Aquarius, we are likely to be looking at a micro view mirroring of what the Jupiter/Saturn elemental change will hold and how change in society begins.
Pluto has just spent a short time in Aquarius, not really getting beyond 0 degrees and will not enter fully until January 2024. We saw a huge explosion of interest in ChatGPT, which suggests that AI is going to play a big part in how we live in the future. The AI genie is out of the bottle now – it cannot go back. It will for sure completely change the job market and how we earn our money - those who are adaptable are the most likely to survive. Who can actually be sure that they will not be rendered jobless? The testing of a universal basic income led people to breathe a sigh of relief that if in the future there would be no job for them, they would at least be paid something. Do they really think that millions and millions of people are going to be paid to do nothing!? The use of robotics will become much more common –the Age of the Machine.
We also saw whistle-blowers in America speaking about big cover ups of reverse engineering from extra-terrestrial beings and craft that had been recovered, – as well as the millions of dollars that had been siphoned off into the secret ‘space account’. Are we seeing preparation for E.T. disclosure?
Society is becoming increasingly digital and that only increases exponentially with the arrival of AI. Individual critical thinking is already hard to find, and the new gold is data – your data! Ancestry, one of the biggest sources of personal data, has been bought by the Blackstone Group, the largest private equity group, in turn owned by Vanguard, BlackRock et al. So much more control in the hands of these hugely wealthy technocratic corporates who control political decisions and politicians. What will all this data be used for?
Cryptocurrency is almost mainstream now, but the idea of digital currency is being seized upon by governments. Linked to a whole personal digital blockchain in future, your whole life can then be monitored, but more frighteningly your access to what you can or cannot purchase and your personal freedoms in general can be switched on or off. Insidiously we are heading towards a digital society where everything will be done online. Even nature could become digital access only as all assets become ‘owned’ by the industrialists and for an industrialist everything can be monetised. Protesting digital masses pose very little threat to their leaders – they can be easily silenced and their ability to protest turned off with a mere switch. Smart cities, 15 minute cities and increasing use of facial recognition could be used to control free movement. Your life will be controlled by ‘stakeholders’ (corporates) who have bought into governments. In a state/corporate partnership Government is concerned with the needs of the corporate and the corporates are concerned with keeping their client – the government – happy. The public – you and I – becomes part of the profitability. This is fascism/totalitarianism by another name.
In a digital society the once human interactions become digital interactions. Our future may be one where our doctors for instance are merely avatars - our medicines produced through AI. We have been through a testbed for just this and the mRNA treatments can be tweaked against any disease without the need for longterm and, therefore, expensive testing. The companies who produce these types of medicines have already spoken about them in terms of ‘the software of life’ and companies that had produced nothing until the gene therapy treatment came into being now begin to partner up with technology companies such as IBM for future genetic/genomic treatments.
Pluto also represents empires and empires have risen and fallen throughout history. America is an empire, and they are currently going through their own transformation (Pluto return). With countries queuing up to join the BRICS nations could we indeed be watching the rise of the East once again. The Mongolian Empire peaked under Genghis Khan as we entered the last Air Cycle in the 13th century, also in the sign of Aquarius. Western empires today are based on debt whilst Eastern nations actually have resources.
2024 and 2025 augur some big changes which I will talk about in more depth in my next blog. Looking forward briefly, the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in 2024 signifies to me the peak of the changes heralded by the Saturn/Uranus square we recently had. Although the actual aspect has passed it is still in context, and a now weakened Saturn (government/corporate) allows Uranus to act both suddenly and unexpectedly, particularly when Jupiter meets Uranus in April 2024. Here we could be talking about the rise of digital technology and digital identity, extreme science, ET disclosure or extreme weather/geological events. This leads into the summer of 2025 when we have a big proportion of planets in early degrees of their signs which suggests some kind of new beginning for society. At the same time we enter a new Saturn/Neptune cycle beginning at 0 Aries - a degree that holds global significance.
In a digital, technocratic world everything becomes an asset and the technocrats’ dream is to own all assets and all aspects of our lives. Nature’s natural abundance would be the property of corporates to be altered and used to suit their will. In their view humanity becomes merely a debased androgynous product. “I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it,” Morpheus said to Neo, words that could just as well have been spoken by Cassandra more than three thousand years previously.
[1] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/MINDSPACE.pdf