With plenty of contacts between Venus and Mercury, October was an eventful month, especially for legal decisions. We had the headline-grabbing acquittal of Amanda Knox, jailed for the murder of Meredith Kercher, after her appeal hearing in Italy. This occurred when both were part of a stellium of planets in Libra, sign of justice and the law.
Later with Venus and Mercury having ingressed into vindictive, sometimes vengeful Scorpio, from where they opposed the Moon and Jupiter, politician, Liam Fox, was forced to resign amidst scandalous rumours about his association with Adam Werritty. A few days after the ingress of the Sun into Scorpio, Colonel Gaddafi, Libya’s notorious dictator, was shot dead by rebels in the eastern desert of the country as he tried to evade arrest.
Towards the end of the month, as a retrograde Jupiter in conservative Taurus edged towards a trine with survivalist Pluto in the sign of the establishment, Capricorn, UK Prime Minister, David Cameron experienced a large backbench rebellion over the issue of the UK’s EU membership. This came on the eve of emergency talks amongst European leaders about about how to save the European Union from financial collapse.
On the day in question (25th), only responsible, slow-moving Saturn remained in even-handed Libra – the sign of Cameron’s Sun – the rest of the personal planets having moved into ambitious and occasionally ruthless Scorpio. At the time, the Sun in Scorpio was opposing Jupiter – rather symbolically descriptive of the bold but rather disloyal rebellion. However, cautious Saturn was also sextiling warlike Mars in Leo – the sign of royalty and charismatic leaders. It is also the sign ruled by the Sun; whilst Mars is the traditionally considered to be the ruler of Scorpio. Astrologically, this resulted in a mutual reception – in which both planets swop places – which in effect, reversed the effect of the Sun-Jupiter opposition, ultimately resulting in a resounding defeat for the rebels when the matter was put to a vote in the House of Commons on the 25th.
In his speech the next day, Cameron was reported as saying: “It wouldn’t be right for the country right now to have a great big vote on an in-out referendum”. Note the Jupiterian connotations of the words ‘great big vote…’ It is also no coincidence that the move appeared to have been motivated by concerns about the financial viability of Europe and the prospect of the UK being drawn into bailing out many of the EU’s failing banks – an issue ruled by materialistic and conservative Taurus – the sign in which Jupiter was located at the time of the motion.
The hand of Pluto can also be seen in the idea of an in-out referendum. Pluto is a very all-or-nothing planet– so the call for decisive action concerning Great Britain’s involvement in Europe is very in keeping with its rather extreme, survivalist nature. It is interesting that Cameron had to resort to fairly punitive, some might say, Scorpionic measures to keep his MP’s in line though – a three-line whip. A BBC news report the following day reflected this very clearly:
‘Asked whether he regretted the order – which meant any Conservative MP who voted against the government would be expected to resign from government jobs – he said: “No I don’t, in politics you have to try to confront the big issues, rather than try to sweep them under the carpet and that’s what we did yesterday.”’[i]
A statement redolent with Scorpio-like undertones…After this incident, politicians will be in no doubt about the fact that David Cameron is a man to be reckoned with – and many will probably respect him more as a leader as a result.
As for Europe, with transformative Pluto’s continued presence in Capricorn, sign of the establishment, it seems that major reform, possibly even the dissolution, of those institutions based on shaky foundations, isinevitable. However, as Cameron himself has hinted at, the timing is everything, and trying to force the UK government and its people to make big decisions about its role in Europe “could cause great uncertainty and could actually damage our prospects of growth.”
References:
Astro-Insights Blog 