Cardinal T-squares and emotional crises, extremism, protests and speeches
At the end of September, many of us found ourselves embroiled in emotional dramas, crises of conscience and calls for change as the Full Moon in Aries on the 30th made a conjunction to Uranus. As well as creating a polarising schism between our heads and our hearts, especially in relationships, this conjunction may also have served to activate and/or amplify the effects of the Uranus-Pluto square, which peaked on September the 19th, forming a T-square, with Mercury at its apex.
Given Mercury’s involvement in the above T-square, it also is interesting that around this time, UK PM David Cameron made two speeches to the United Nations General Assembly about the Arab Spring as well as the subject of political extremism – a key emerging theme that seems to be a signature component of the current set of Uranus-Pluto squares. On September the 22nd, just three days after the Uranus-Pluto square, he told delegates that rather than be apathetic, the international community should unite together and seize the “massive opportunity” to spread democracy represented by the Arab Spring, and not ignore or desert those who expressed the desire for more of a say in their political futures. Using very Uranian language, he called for the UN to find a new way of working and urged members to do more than just sign resolutions, saying: “To fail to act is to fail those who need our help.” He added that “…the Arab Spring is a massive opportunity to spread peace, prosperity, democracy and vitally security, but only if we really seize it.”[1] In a second speech on the 26th he called for more to be done about Syria and pledged further aid to help the victims of this on-going civil war.
It also seemed significant that while the square was active, there was a resurgence of violence and protests in many regions of the Arab world, including Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Pakistan[2]. Much of the violent protests were focused around the broadcasting of an anti-Islamic film in the US, resulting in the killing of two American diplomats in Libya. Here, the role of communications and the broadcast media in igniting the situation seems to point to Mercury’s involvement in this particular Uranus-Pluto contact. The role between the two certainly seemed relevant to President Obama, who gave a speech to the UN on the 25th, the day before Cameron’s, denouncing the film and calling for Muslim leaders to condemn extremist attitudes and intolerance, quoting Ghandi who said that, “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.”
However, he also made it clear that, “There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents”, thus defending one of the cornerstones of democracy – the right to free speech[3].
Jupiter, eclipses and the power of words and ideas
Here I think it also worth mentioning the on-going influence of the recent Gemini-Sagittarius set of eclipses, as well as Jupiter’s current passage through Gemini, both of which suggest that the debate around media ethics, religious and political tolerance and the power of words, thoughts and ideas, are not going to go away for some time. For a review of my May-June 2012 mundane eclipse predictions, visit: http://www.astro-sphere.co.uk/EclipseChronology.htm .
As predicted, we also saw the return of political unrest in Greece and renewed signs of economic meltdown in southern Eurozone countries such as Spain, leading to further calls for a definitive solution to the Euro Crisis. Traditionally, the Moon is associated with the public and crowds of people, so the fact that we were seeing angry mobs calling for revolution seems symbolically fitting with the lunar conjunction with Uranus, planet of revolution in fiery Aries, the sign of youth and war, in conflict with Pluto in Capricorn – symbolic of authoritarian establishments and elitist institutions.
Despite all the predictions of doom and gloom regarding the world economy being made by various economists, one man, 89 year old Israeli President Shimon Peres, offered another perspective of the current situation – one that chimes well with the best possible potential outcome of the Uranus-Pluto square: Speaking at a recent economic forum in Italy, he remarked,
“Today what we call crisis is more of a profound change that we were not organized to meet properly.“[4]
References
Astro-Insights Blog 
[…] since 2011 and which will continue to be a challenging presence throughout most of 2013. (See my Sept 2012 column for details of the last Uranus-Pluto contact.) These events are characterised by a combination of […]