June was Jubilee month for the UK. During June 3-6, the nation (plus many Commonwealth countries and well-wishers from around the world) celebrated the Queen’s diamond anniversary with a feast of memorable public events, including a Thames riverboat procession and a rock concert outside Buckingham Palace, along with numerous tea and garden parties. The festivities helped many people to temporarily forget the gloom of the recession and come together with family, neighbours and friends to celebrate a quintessentially English tradition – the monarchy.
Interestingly, this was also a busy time astrologically. Not only was there a stellium of planets, including the Sun – the ultimate symbol of kingship, in the sociable, fun-loving sign of Gemini, but we also experienced a lunar eclipse in Sagittarius at the Full Moon on the 4th. Given that this usually signals the end of one era and the start of another, and it did seem fitting that the younger members of the royal family, particularly those next in line to the throne, took a fairly prominent role in proceedings. It was almost as if the Queen was using this milestone in her reign to hand over to the next generation and semi-retire – fitting for a lunar eclipse, which involves male energies (Prince William – Sun) slowly taking over from female ones (Moon – Queen) and, at the ripe old age of 86, this seems more than fair! As I have written elsewhere, the British Royal Family has a long history associated with eclipses. If you’d like to refresh your memory, visit my Eclipses & History page, along with my comments about the connection between the December 2010-January 2011 eclipses and Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.
Towards the end of the month, the mood grew more serious as the Greeks held their second round of elections and the world waited with bated breath to see what the results could mean for the on-going Euro crisis. These events took place during the build-up to the first exact Uranus-Pluto square (24th) also active around August 2011 when the Euro crisis first came into focus for the world.
As astrologers, including myself, have been saying, this aspect calls for nothing less than root and branch reform of major organisations, including institutions such as banks and governments. It was therefore interesting that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, in a public announcement on the 29th of June, called for a complete restructuring of the UK banking sector in the wake of a fresh scandal concerning corruption, rate-fixing and mis-selling of insurance policies[i]. Around the same time, Prime Minister, David Cameron, fresh from a summit of world leaders who met to discuss the Euro crisis, amongst other topics, hinted at the possibility of a UK referendum on its EU membership[ii].
Earlier in the year (see my Astro-Insights column for January 2012), European governments had the opportunity of harnessing the positive and much more constructive energy of the Mars-Jupiter-Pluto major grand trine in March to stop the rot within Europe’s financial institutions and economies. However, once again, despite urging from various international quarters, no decisive action was taken. Now, with ever more strident warnings being issued by world leaders, including David Cameron and Barak Obama, and with the prospect of a second Uranus-Pluto square looming, it would seem as though Europe’s politicians have between now and the 19th of September to find a definitive political solution to a problem that if left unresolved, continues to threaten the future of the entire global economy.
Astro-Insights Blog 