White Feathers

Just as the effects of lockdown begin to be felt within our psyches and the prospect of difficult financial issues start to loom in the shadows, Nature in her own inestimable way pulls something out of the bag.   This time it’s the pink Super moon.   Super Moons occur when the Full Moon is at its closest point to Earth, which makes the Moon appear bigger and brighter in the sky.   And we won’t get another one this bright or this close during 2020.  It’s called a Pink Moon because it coincides with the time of the appearance of wild pink flowers in Spring such as phlox.   

 And maybe it is no coincidence that this Full Moon on April 8th is in the sign of Libra – one of the signs most associated with beauty and harmony.   But where’s the harmony and beauty right now you might ask? At a Full Moon the Sun and Moon are opposite each other so they are in opposing signs.   Opposing signs have very opposite energies, so we have an extreme pull to find any kind of balance.   In this case the balance is between Aries and Libra.   Both are signs that want to ‘do’ and to take action (they are in what astrologers call Cardinal signs) – but Aries right now wants to cut to the chase, take up the cudgels, to fight, to assert, to show its force.   He’s a happy Sun in Aries – it’s one of his most favourite places because he can show off all his sword skills, but this Aries is frustrated because there’s not much action to be had right now with quarantine, self-isolation and social distancing. 

 Libra, however, has to do with harmony, balance, beauty, fairness, seeing both sides of any given situation.  We can see the symbol for Libra ♎ as the scales of justice, the bridge between two factions or opposing viewpoints, the setting sun even. Libra is also very much concerned with relationships – and relationships may indeed be suffering now under the effects of this pandemic.  Right now it’s hard to find the harmony.  But it is still there, there are things to appreciate and feel grateful for and indeed it is important that we really try and keep some kind of inner balance alive – perhaps with meditation and a walk in a beautiful area if that is possible for you right now – because there will be another side of this which we will have to deal with in the future.  The beauty of nature almost seems sharper now, the air is cleaner, the birds seem to sing louder.  People are finding new ways of seeing and keeping in touch with friends and loved ones.  And we are being encouraged to make new relationships by helping those in need who we may have never met.   There really is beauty and harmony out there – it’s just that some of what we saw as beauty was just an illusion and there are ‘more real’ things that we should be striving for and holding dear.

 So where is this Moon going to do her Libra stuff? Well for starters she is at right angles (difficult aspect) to the now separating Jupiter/Pluto conjunction.  And what a pressure cooker those two planets in aspect really are.  Jupiter/Pluto can be read in many different ways – big wealth, big secrets for instance.   These two planets will be active in the charts of wealthy, powerful people such as Bill Gates, Gorge Soros and Elon Musk to name but a few - but even the philanthropists have a dark side.  They didn’t become powerful without wanting to push their own cause.   Another meaning of Jupiter/Pluto could also be big regeneration – and I do honestly feel that this is one area that we are heading towards fast.   Life is being turned on its head and we are being very starkly shown what the important things in life really are.   It’s ‘a dark night of the soul moment’ and they are rarely pleasant, but we may see the logic a few years down the line if we heed the warning now.  Jupiter/Pluto is also about huge control or mass manipulation.  And the thing with this is that there is a push for the survival of the most powerful.  Is that what is happening now? 

 The Moon is also in a harmonious aspect to Ceres, the Goddess of the Earth.  She has now moved from Capricorn into Aquarius – we have to adapt and find new ways of feeding ourselves and looking after the planet. Mercury (planet of communication) is still in Pisces – so still thrashing around and keeping his armbands on so he doesn’t drown – but he has begun to not be quite so obliterated by Neptune’s smokescreen.   His goggles are just to keep the water out of his eyes rather than the smoke.

 Both Mars and Saturn have moved into Aquarius with a worrisome aspect between Mars – action, fight, anger - and Uranus disruption, shocks, rebellion.   Mars/Uranus harsh aspects often denote eruptions and in particular volcanic eruptions and accidents.  This could signify crisis points – and that has just been symbolized within my own family with some tragic news. The UK has its own crisis point as numbers affected by the virus peak and we get the shocking news that the Prime Minister is in intensive care.  If we take Mars as signifying the virus, it’s the novelness (Mars in Aquarius) that is the issue and its ability to mutate means that old protocols have to be replaced and replaced very quickly.  But Aquarius is what we call a ‘fixed’ sign, which means that it is actually not that easy to turn on a sixpence.

   So, why the title White Feathers you might ask?  Well when I’m out and about – generally walking my dog – if I spy a white feather I generally pick it up – well unless I’ve come across some kind of bird massacre that might fill a whole pillow that is.  I always think of lone white feathers as having been sent to me as a reminder of loved ones who have passed over – almost as though they are symbolic of angels or messages from the other side.  Just like a pink Super Moon perhaps – they are a message of hope and a reminder to connect with what is important.   And perhaps a pink Super Moon will do the same.  A reminder to appreciate nature and to live in harmony with the cycles, because what we thought was important to us just a few weeks ago may not seem quite so important now.

 This last week on lockdown I seem to have come across an inordinate number of white feathers – my pockets are full of them!!  But last week during two morning walks a white feather floated down in front of me almost hovering waiting to be caught in mid air.  Which I hasten to add I did.  What does this mean I thought?  I don’t know yet – just as I don’t really know quite what is truly happening to us right now.  But I know it was special – well doubly special because it happened twice.   One floating feather was unusual but two…

 Full Moons are like harvest times – they reveal and they coincide with things reaching a ‘point’ or some kind of climax.  And as I said in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ I do feel that this week will see a peak with regard to COVID19 cases.  Jupiter is just separating from his meeting with Pluto, Mercury can see where he is going better and we have a Full Moon – all these are times of revelation.

 As a Gemini I really do try and join the dots to try to understand what is going on around us, particularly at times when we can see clearly that we can’t actually see clearly at all (Mercury with Neptune in Pisces).    An interesting article in the Spectator tried to demonstrate that death rates right now are not wildly dissimilar to a normal death rate at this time of year, particularly at a point when seasonal flu comes into the mix.   Another video from a New York doctor talks of how the infection seems to produce different symptoms to usual pneumonia type illnesses. With COVID it seems that the body becomes starved of oxygen which is not exactly the same as happens with pneumonia or respiratory infections.  Another article talks of how in some cases the virus attacks the oxygen-carrying, red blood cells and ultimately infects the heart muscle. 

 But I need to ensure that I use the right data and that’s what I can’t be sure of yet.  It’s still hard to truly know what news is fake and what news isn’t and I don’t want to be someone who buys into every theory.  I want my news to be the real news.  I don’t want to be seen as another ‘alternative’ type person who just churns out every theory without trying to fact check first. 

 There is a lot of bubbling news linking COVID and 5G which was rolled out in China at the same time as this virus.  Much as there is no such thing as a coincidence in my book, I am still not totally sure of the link – beyond the fact that the fear of the virus and the technology produced by 5G will make us more likely to suffer from the effects of mass digital surveillance (Jupiter/Saturn new cycle in Aquarius).  People are afraid to touch money so there is an encouragement to go cashless – another way forward for digital control.  Digital cameras can track us facially and via our phones, and technology can be used under the guise of keeping us safe to control the masses who will be immune compromised because they will have to have a vaccine; or if there is no vaccine something that digitally maps our health.  I know this sounds far-fetched but the fear from this outbreak makes such a dystopian situation much more likely and much sooner than would ever have happened without the virus.  Another article I have read from the MIT news office describes how medical information can be stored below the skin’s surface.  With this there would be no need for a centralised database, instead the information could be read by a simple smart phone device.

 There is also info circulating saying that this is a bio weapon.  Highly plausible as Wuhan is the site of the virology institute in China that studies bio warfare. But was it accidental or purposeful?  But whichever way it emerged that makes sense to me in terms of why governments went into lockdown mode pretty quickly, something unprecedented. 

 I thought at first if it was a bio weapon it wasn’t perhaps a particularly good one because I would have expected a bio weapon to infect more people to be honest.  I know that the death rate is high but in terms of total population it is not.  But then I was told by someone who works with pathogens, health and safety and environmental science that it is very difficult to produce a virus that has a large ‘kill’ rate, but at the same time travels far enough without killing its host, so that it can infect a very large number of people.  Apparently I’m told that fine balance has never been achieved properly – so this contact suggested that perhaps it could have been a test virus in some way.

 And now things just got even more serious for the UK as Boris, our whacky, gung ho Prime Minister is taken into intensive care.   This now explains what I was seeing as the Sun entered Aries on March 20th.  (Yes we produce a chart for that – mainly because it sets the coming scene for the country this year for three months from that date.) This chart had the Capricorn line up of Jupiter Saturn Pluto together in Capricorn right on the Ascendant set for London.  This indicated something big for us here in the UK, but in terms of the virus I did not know then why it would perhaps be bigger than other countries.  But now it makes sense because it really is a case now of a very basic meaning of that trio – survival and huge huge change!

 Our old normal seems a lifetime away but the white feathers are a message of hope.  A message to look for the beauty – Libra.  I knew things were going to change but I guess I was expecting to be ‘eased into a new normal rather than this ‘pluck and thrust’ action.   Maybe I expected too much.

 Libra however is not just about harmony and fluffy beauty – it is an action sign.   It is an Air sign too.  We can’t sit around and wait.  We have to make our new normal.  Jupiter/Pluto – the pressure cooker - has blown apart and Ceres has to adapt to an Aquarian world.  The group, the community and working together is going to be vitally important.  Everyone can play their part – the young, the old, the weaker and the strong.  We all have something to offer.  Man isn’t meant to be Crusoe – he is a social animal.  Look at nature how the herd protects, how it leads, how it gets its work done.  And how there is a harsher side to nature too.  The really sick and the really weak can’t survive because that’s not how it’s meant to be.  But we think we are better than nature.   

 But what can we each offer?  What do we have?  Where are our strengths and weaknesses?   Where are our talents and what stops us from finding them?  That’s exactly where astrology plays its part.   Your horoscope is like your individual road map in life that shows all of this.  Astrology shows the individual how they can find their ‘harmonious’ best, how they can draw on their strengths and strengthen their weakness.  And it will help to show how each person can adapt to a changed world?

 And changed it will be. I feel the changes brought about by the virus are going to lead to even bigger changes through other events.   For instance, I’ve spoken long and hard about the potential economic breakdown we could face this year and it’s not hard to see that very clearly now. The economic situation could actually prove to be desperate and far tougher for us than the effects of the virus.   Right now this lockdown is going to result in financial suicide if we aren’t careful and I don’t know how we get out of that. I know we can’t compare money to lives, but if we don’t have an economy the knock on effect of helping people with other illnesses later on via a good strong healthcare service is immense.   With difficult economic conditions comes social unrest and that in itself will also give rise to increased mass surveillance, quite apart from the need for surveillance in some form to monitor whether an individual is healthy and free of the virus.

 So how do we move forward?  A new cycle in Aquarius suggests we really need to be thinking outside the box.   Maybe you can’t just go back to doing your work in the same way as you have always done.   As I have said, I do feel we will move further towards Artificial Intelligence, remote working and robotic caring.  But we may all have to reinvent how we earn and how we take care of our money.  Over the last couple of weeks, after my ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ article, I’ve been both connected with new like-minded people and reconnected to people I used to spend time with but lost touch with, as you do at certain stages of life.  I do know though that we are meant to connect more, question more, co-operate more, look more for patterns and cycles and live more in tune with the cycles of nature and the earth.   There is a web of life that joins us and as soon as the natural balance and harmony is disturbed then we have to pay the price. 

 So for now I say take responsibility for your health, well being and immune system, despite what we are told for instance that Vitamin C does nothing to help etc. etc.   It will never be more important than now.   If you have tips and ideas share them and likewise if you have any information that may help me connect the dots please share them with me.

 In the meantime stay safe and well.