A UKRAINIAN SPRING

      Last week, while the world watched the Olympic games beaming out from Sochi, Russia, the capital city of neighboring Ukraine, began to burn. Unrest and peaceful protests had been growing since late November after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal with the European Union and strengthened ties with Russia. Fighting broke out the day after Russia bought $2 billion dollars worth of Ukraine’s government bonds, an act which solidified ties with the East.

      According to the New York Times, the protest turned violent ‘shortly before 8 p.m.’ on the evening of Tuesday February 18, 2014 in Independence Square when riot police began firing on the protestors. By morning, over eighty were dead and over eight hundred were wounded. Then, change came quickly. By the weekend, an imprisoned opposition leader had been freed and the president had left the capital. A warrant has been issued for his arrest for murdering his people.

       Astrologically, the fighting began less than 3 hours after the nodes changed signs with the North Node moving into Libra and the South Node into Aries. Prior to this time, the North Node was in Scorpio, ruled by Pluto,which is currently embroiled in a t-square with Jupiter and Uranus, which was activated that night by the Moon. The immense power struggle between those in power and the people came to a peak. In the Ukraine, where Pluto rules the 10^th house (the president), as long as Pluto ruled the North Node, the balance was tipped in the president’s favor.

         But when the nodes changed sign, with the North Node in Libra, Venus became the new ruler. In the Ukraine chart, Venus rules the 4^th house of the opposition party and was transiting conjunct the country’s North Node, showing a shift of power that now favored the opposition. The fighting lasted a few hours and when the smoke cleared, a new day was dawning.

          For the next eighteen months, while Venus rules the North Node, the opposition will be empowered to act. However, in the short term, with transiting Mars co-ruling the 10^th and conjunct the transiting North Node and ruling the South Node, a weakened and embittered president is taking a stand. Now safe in Russia, Yanukovych has called the take-over a coup, while Putin has ordered 150,000 troops to the shared western border for training exercises.  While in the days to come there will be much posturing and instability, the astrology shows definitively that Yanukoych’s power is gone.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN THE LUNAR NODES CHANGE SIGNS

     At 9.50 am on February 18, 2014, the lunar North Node will leave Scorpio and enter Libra, while the South Node will move from Taurus into Aries. Due to the role of Venus shifting from ruling the South Node to ruling the North Node, the ingress will significantly impact the public’s mood and priorities.

     To know where we’re going, we need to know where we have been. Since August 29, 2012, at 11.06 p.m, the North Node has been ruled by Pluto (and Mars), and the South Node by Venus.  During this period, the country has been under the extreme influence of far-right conservatives (Pluto in Capricorn). We have been at war, threatening more war, and the covert killing by drones is on the rise. Corporations are having a heyday--their influence over elected officials is unabashedly obvious. When looking at minimum wage, gun laws, social programs, it’s quite clear who elected officials represent. Recently, especially with Saturn in Scorpio in mutual reception with Pluto, political scandals have come to light, along with the astonishing revelation that what would appear to be corrupt practices by our politicians are legal and protected by law.

     With Venus as the ruler of the South Node during this time, the Federal Reserve has been printing money (quantitative easing) and cheap money has flooded the economy. This has been a great boon to the stock market, but not so helpful to the pocketbooks of everyday people who have seen their personal wealth decline. It has not been a good period for women – who are generally paid three-quarters of what men are paid to do the same job. Women have also seen restrictions and invasive intrusions in regards to their physical bodies and what is, and should be, their private, personal business.

      When the nodes change signs, and the North Node moves into Libra, there should be some restoration of balance, of diplomacy (trumping war), and the recognition that fairness affects relationships (whether it be same sex marriage or women seeking birth control), and that compromise, cooperation, and finding the middle ground is conducive to a positive outcome. After all, sugar attracts more bees than vinegar.

With the South Node in Aries, the dominating patriarchal influence should ebb, as should the continual drumbeat calling for war. There will be less emphasis on ‘me’ and more on ‘us.’ We are, after all, in this together.  

       The chart at the moment of the ingress provides more information about the upcoming twenty-one months when the nodes traverse Libra-Aries. Set for Washington D.C., Venus sits atop the chart at 19° Capricorn, and has dignity by triplicity. At the Midheaven and ruling the Ascendant and the intercepted 6^th house, the country’s and people’s resources, workers, and health issues, will be among Venus’ primary concerns. In the sign of Saturn, we can expect more women law-makers, and more lawmakers to take women’s issues seriously.

       Mars in Libra, ruling the South Node and conjunct the North Node, poses more of a problem. Mars is in detriment in Libra, though has some dignity by Terms. Typically, a planet in detriment has a tendency to act badly, and since Mars is the ruler of the South Node, the action will likely lead to loss, which will be outwardly expressed given Mar’s conjunction to the North Node. Mars in Libra can be a warrior in the name of peace. Associated with the South Node, it can pick battles it’s too weak to win. At least Mars is helped by the trines from retrograde Mercury and the Sun that is in the final minutes of Aquarius. Perhaps Mars can learn from previous mistakes and try something innovative and far-sighted that will be in the best interest of humanity. At least with Mars in Venus’ sign, he is constrained by her pragmatism: there’s no will or money for war; perhaps the time has come for diplomacy and lots of sugar.

       The moment of the ingress is marked with an emphasis on the aspect of the day, which is the square between Uranus and Pluto, currently activated by Jupiter in Cancer, and at the time of ingress, by the Moon—forming a tense grand cross. The Uranus-Pluto square can be viewed as the conflict between the populace and corporate power. It is increasingly apparent that laws (Jupiter) are undermining the will of the public. Add the Moon in Libra into the mix, and what the people want is a level playing field. This is thwarted by the squares, and domestic laws that protect and enable corporate power (Pluto).  The opposition of the Moon to Uranus suggests that the struggle to force meaningful change will be thwarted. Some have argued that we have no government for the people and that the country is being run by corporate representatives. Over the next twenty-one months we should see the awareness of this and the conflict it engenders playing out on the national stage.

BRIDGEGATE

As the North Node passes through the final degrees of Scorpio, the revelation of the misuse of political power has been nothing less than jaw-dropping. A case in point is Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, and a crisis that began on September 9, 2013, with the closing of two of three toll booths on the George Washington Bridge reserved for Fort Lee residents that backed up traffic four days.  The story was reported in the press on October 1, 2013, along with the suggestion that the traffic jam was retaliation against the Fort Lee mayor for refusing to endorse Christie’s re-election. The governor dismissed the report, blamed the snarl on a traffic study, and declared that no one in his office had anything to do with it. The scandal exploded on January 8, 2014, when reporters obtained emails documenting that the order, in fact, did come from his office and a deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly.
        Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA) for emails are an absolute boon for astrologers because they contain the time a correspondence was sent. We thus have a precisely timed chart for the scandal which began with Bridget Kelly’s 7.34 a.m. email: Time for traffic problems in Ft. Lee. An event chart can be interpreted using horary techniques and is reproduced below. Here, the central question of the event is: who ordered Bridget Kelly to send the email. Did she act on her own initiative or did someone higher up give the green light?

Aug 13, 2013; 7.34 a.m. Trenton, NJ

        Since Bridget is the one initiating the action, she is represented by the 1st house. Her boss is shown by the 10^th. Both these houses are ruled by Mercury, which provides an important piece of information—they’re on the same page. Since Mercury can’t rule both the worker and the boss, and because the 1^st house holds Venus in Virgo, representative of a female worker, I will assign Venus to Bridget, and leave Mercury in Leo as ruler of the 10^th for Christie. Immediately, from the principle of rulership, we can answer the question: to whom does the aide answer to? The answer is Mercury, for Venus is in Mercury’s sign. (If Venus were in her own sign, she would answer to herself.)

        What can be said about Mercury? If we turn the chart and re-number the houses from the perspective of the 10^th (i.e. using the 10^th house as the 1^st), we find Mercury in the 3^rd house of communication and cars, and by extension, traffic. Mercury is in Leo, describing a leader, and fitting symbolism for the governor.  Mercury is in a partile quincunx to Pluto, the planet of rage, retribution and revenge, that is sitting on the cusp of the turned 8^th, which is the storehouse of contents of the personal unconscious that contains unprocessed emotion; planets situated here have a high potential of acting out destructively. According to news reports, the most likely explanation for the traffic jam was political playback to the mayor of Ft. Lee for refusing to endorse Christie’s upcoming re-election bid. The quincunx is an aspect of frustration and a situation that one can do nothing to about. Christie (Mercury) doesn’t have enough power (Pluto) on his own to punish the mayor for this slight. However, Pluto is opposite Jupiter in Cancer, and the byzantine state machinery has the clout to extract revenge.

          Mercury is separating from a square to Saturn in Scorpio, which is in mutual reception with Pluto in Capricorn, an apt description of a top secret scheme to use government power to get revenge. As a former federal prosecutor, Christie is well-aware of the evidence required to obtain a court conviction for political corruption. He will do his best to leave no paper-trail that authorities can use against him (Mercury square Saturn). Saturn is in Bridget’s 3^rd house and she too knows this has to be kept quiet from the public (Saturn conjunct Moon).

       Mercury is trine Uranus in Christie’s turned 11^th house of friends, and when the NJ state legislature held a hearing about the lane closures, Christie’s friends invented a cover story of a scientific traffic study (Mercury trine Uranus).

      In a horary or event chart, the Moon is always a major player and will illustrate how the story unfolds. Here the Moon is in the 3^rd and the event began with a message to shut down traffic. Separating aspects show the past and the Moon is separating from a trine from Neptune in Pisces conjunct the turned 10^th house. Christie’s short-term plan is to win a far-reaching re-election on a platform of bipartisanship that will sweep him onto the national stage. Then the Moon made a conjunction to Saturn, and some elected officials refused to afford Christie his coveted endorsement.  His response was a secret plan to punish lesser minions that had the temerity to stand against him (Saturn in mutual reception with Pluto). The email is sent out and  the plan for traffic problems (Moon square Mercury) is put into play with the help of appointees at the Port Authority (Moon sextile Pluto trine Jupiter).

       But then the Moon hits the North Node, the story leaks out, and investigators begin to dig more deeply into the closures and new upsetting revelations come to light (Moon quincunx Uranus): Christie may have used federal funds for the cleanup of Hurricane Sandy to reward political friends (Moon trine Chiron in Pisces) and penalize political foes.

        Following this (the period we are now in) the Moon is moving through Scorpio and making no contacts. We are awaiting the outcome of multiple investigations. The next aspect the Moon will make is a trine to Mars, which bodes well for the governor. Mars rules the radical 8^th house of investigation and 9^th house of law, and it seems unlikely a smoking gun will be found. There will be no hard evidence that ties Christie directly to the crime. However, almost immediately, the Moon squares the Sun in Leo, an indication that signals the end of Christie’s reign. His presidential hopes are over.  He is damaged, possibly impeached. Next, the Moon sextiles Venus (Bridget Kelly), which suggests the aide Christie called an ‘idiot’ will not betray her boss. She is still in his sign and on his side. How much help she can give him is questionable though, as Venus in Virgo is in fall and without dignity or standing. The final aspect the Moon makes before leaving Scorpio is a contraparallel to Mercury, a reiteration of the early square, and a difficult aspect for the 10^th house ruler, suggesting a conclusion for the governor that does not end well.  

The end of the matter is shown by the 4^th house ruler, Jupiter, which is activating the square of the moment between Uranus and Pluto. The outer planet square began in June 2012 and will last until March 2015 and brings to light the conflict between the common people (Uranus) and a government that works for the wealthy. What Bridgegate has brought to light is the manner by which elected officials use the state machinery (Jupiter) to reward and punish (Pluto) friends and foes, while completely disregarding the harm, hardship, and inconvenience inflicted on the public (Uranus) whose interests elected officials are supposed to represent.

        Since this is a blog on the nodes, I will end with a summary of the scandal as shown by these points and their rulers. Saturn and the Moon in Scorpio are conjunct the North Node, a statement of dark political retribution acted upon outwardly. The North Node ruler is Pluto, in mutual reception with Saturn, sextile the Moon, and opposite Jupiter, telling a tale of usurping state power for personal revenge. The South Node ruler, Venus in Virgo, shows the source of vulnerability: an aide who left a written record. Mercury, the radical 10^th house ruler is at the South Bending of the nodal axis—a definitive statement of a long fall from a high place.