Monday, March 25, 2024

THE AI APOCALYPSE, THE MEANING OF LIFE and WINGING IT

 I've been continuing to make 10 minute video blogs on astrology. I suggest you subscribe (for free) on youtube, and you will be notified when I publish a new one. For now, I'll just keep this blog for my written pieces.


THE AI APOCALYPSE: WHERE ARE WE NOW?
ChatGPT was launched on 30 Nov 22, as Pluto first entered Aquarius. Bard was launched on a New Moon in Aries, 21 March 23. Gemini, the re-naming of Google's Bard, was launched on 6 Dec 23. So there we have a bunch of astrological signatures for the LLM (Large Language Model) phenomenon.

There are 2 that I want to highlight:

(1) Pluto entering Aquarius. People were both stunned and spooked. These bots gave instant coherent essays in response to questions. But they were eerily human; they were a step in the direction of the Holy Grail of AI, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The robot-takeover archetype was instantly constellated after years of sci-fi films on this theme. Remember Hal? Calls to legislate were widespread, there were hearings in government, and the apocalypse - never far away in one form or another - was widely predicted.

(2) ChatGPT and Gemini were both launched under Sun in Sagittarius. And Google re-named its LLM after a Zodiac sign: we have to pay attention to that, just as we do when astronomers name a planet after a Greek - or Inuit - deity. What we have is the Gemini-Sagittarius axis: on the one hand, information, and on the other, truth and meaning.

Elon Musk, in promoting his own LLM Grok, said that if ChatGPT or Gemini had been around 450 years ago, when Galileo was presenting evidence that the Earth went around the Sun, these LLMs would have said that the Sun went around the Earth. This is because they do not give truth (Sagittarius). They give the conventional opinion (Gemini). Musk's aspiration for Grok is that it should present truth. He has said: "the danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly".

GALILEO

Whatever you think of Musk, he has highlighted the Gemini-Sagittarius axis of LLMs. The challenge is to present truth, not conventional opinon, which is also often politicised - as it was in the time of Galileo, and as it is now around so many subjects, such as climate and gender.

As for the AI apocalypse, that has faded from the news. As has the climate apocalypse: COP28 barely made the front page. Maybe this reflects the shift from Pluto in Capricorn to Aquarius. Pluto is how we survive. Capricorn is cautious. Aquarius is more daring, and has faith in human inventiveness.
 
THE SEVENTH HOUSE
The function of the 7th House is to show us the parts of the psyche that need claiming, that we tend to unconsciously project onto others. The purpose of a transit to the Descendant is fundamentally that of integration. If a significant relationship begins or ends at this time, it is a mirror for the inner work.
 
NARCISSUS

 
CARPE VITAM NOVAM
Major transits from Pluto or Neptune can thoroughly discombobulate us. They can take away people, careers, homes, health, our very sense of who we are. But they also clear the ground for a new self to emerge, the next stage in that mysterious tapestry that is our life, the pattern of which was laid out at birth, and which a good astrologer can divine from the chart.


You may be floundering, but destiny is also calling. There will be certain points during this night-sea journey when it is time for you to make decisions about who it is you are going to be, and what it is you are going to do. You may not think it is possible, that you've always been a certain kind of person, and who you would like to be is too much of a leap, too much of an ideal. But no. The new life is somewhere in the destruction, in the shambles of the old: the way has been cleared for the new life whose time has come.

It is that new life in which you need to have faith. It gives you the power to make the decision about who you are going to be. Seize it, do it, become it, it is what you are here to do.
 
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Pluto abducts, dismembers and renews; Neptune maddens, drowns and re-ensouls.
 
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ASTROLOGY and THE MEANING OF LIFE
What are we here to do? To achieve something? Or to live in balance? A linear model sees life as a progress from higher to ever higher peaks. That, perhaps, is how Aries sees the world. It is new-born, it is naive, and it is fresh. By the time we get round to world-weary Pisces, we are holding our head in our hands, declaring, "All is vanity."

It is Pisces that has the wisdom. Aries energy is vital, or nothing new would ever come into being. But it is Pisces that provides the context. Pisces that knows that life is not a series of glorious achievements, but a circling round the mess that we always were. And being at peace with that. Pisces at its best is looking up at the stars, but from its home in the gutter.

We live among collective pressures to do this, to think that, to dress like this. And who are we amidst all that? For example, the pressures to think in particular ways around gender, climate and race are very strong at the moment, and who can resist that? The way to resist it is by looking at your Mercury, which shows how you think. And find the balance point, which is the opposite sign. Pairs of signs are complete in themselves, they are axes of wholeness.

If you have Mercury in Cancer, you will tend to think in ways that promote your sense of belonging. Which is constructive up to a point. But you can see where you can be compromised: think like this, or you will not belong. The balancing point is Capricorn, whose priority is not belonging but responsibility for the community. He does not let personal needs cloud his judgement. He sets practical boundaries. "Of course there is such a thing as a woman," he will say, "and of course we need to weigh all the climate evidence and not push it all into one narrative."

The chart teaches us that life is a process of continually finding balance, with all the planets. Life is not about going anywhere or achieving anything. On our deathbeds, it is who we are that matters, and this connects us to other people. At your funeral, the eulogy won't be about the car you had or the big house you owned. It will be personal.


Astrology has its roots thousands of years back when we were indigenous. When we knew we belonged to the earth and to the universe, and life was a matter of living in balance with that. Life is a series of cycles, and astrology understands this. By perceiving our individual destiny in the sky, it also understands that we are each intimately connected to the universe.

In this way, astrology brings us back to our indigenous souls. And it holds a defiant two fingers to modern rationality. There is nothing that is rational about astrology at its heart, and yet it speaks so deeply to us.

So you can put down your burden of achievement, and put down your burden of being a 'good' person. As the poet Mary Oliver says:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees 100 miles across the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

That is the indigenous soul for you. "Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

The Native Americans describe this need to find balance using the system of the Medicine Wheel, in which you balance the same 4 elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water that you find in astrology. Balance is a universal.

There IS demand on us. But it comes from within. Life is not about bearing your cross, as Christianity would have it. Yes, we need to learn to bear life's difficulties, and that changes us. But that is within a bigger context of rising to the callings within. We are not here primarily to suffer. We are here to unfold the tapestry that was written in the sky at the moment of our birth. The push to unfold that can be very strong, and it can make us ill if we try to ignore it.

I can feel that the main purpose of an astrology reading is to help people own what it is they love, and run with it, despite their inevitable self-doubts.
 
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I wrote the piece below a couple of days before the Princess of Wales revealed her cancer diagnosis. The post was on Facebook (the Divinatory astrology group, which I admin) and I thought maybe I should take it down. Some people thought I should, others didn't. So I left it up. But we all wish her well. And I feel the point I make here needs making. NB There are different charts, an hour apart, for her. But the difference is not huge.

WILLIAM AND KATE'S MARRIAGE 
 

The rumours you see on the front of the Celeb mags about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales have substance. Uranus is currently conjoining his Venus, while Neptune squares his Descendant. 
 

Meanwhile Pluto is entering the sign of her Venus/Descendant at 7/9 Aquarius. Expect this to take a few years to work its way out. Neptune is due to square William's New Moon in Cancer in the coming 4 years, as Pluto becomes exact in Kate's chart, and we may see both his accession to the throne and the end of his marriage in that period.


William's chart, unlike Kate's, seems quite soulful to me, with his Neptune Rising and Cancerian nature. Who is William already drawn to that addresses that need? Kate's chart is harder - Sun in Capricorn, and Saturn hard-aspecting her Sun, Moon and MC. It doesn't get more ambitious than that. (This is not a criticism, just a description.) She would never sacrifice her position to desire. William, on the other hand, does not have that to lose.

They were both very young when they got together. This may be a natural mid-life process as their different natures gradually reveal themselves. But it will be a field-day for the public.
 
 
HEALTH CHECKS and THE OUTER PLANETS
King Charles and Princess Kate both have Leo Rising, meaning (as in most cases) that Pluto is currently changing signs in their 6th House of Health. Cancer was caught at an early stage in each case, because Pluto was only just starting. So it might be worth getting a check-up if you have this happening in your 6th. Same in 2025 if you have Libra Rising: chances are that Neptune will be changing signs in your 6th. Or Sagittarius Rising: Uranus will be changing signs in your 6th. It could also mean a rejuvenation in your health! Or it might have nothing to do with your health😼
 
 
FROM CAPRICORN TO AQUARIUS
I've spoken to 3 musicians in recent weeks - 2 singers and one violinist - all of whom felt they needed to start going beyond the rules and 'improvising': that can feel superficial compared to the depth and solidity of tradition, but it's actually where the real depth lies, because it's coming from you. It's the transition from Capricorn to Aquarius. It applies to anything, astrology included. Learn the rules, live them, then wing it. That's what I've been doing for years. People feel it, it feels authentic to them, it has a special something, and that is because it's coming from you.

MILES DAVIS

It is a major and crucial transition, that we may only do gradually, and it can happen at any age. There is usually an intiatory fire of self-doubt to go through. You just have to do it anyway. Confidence and ease has to be earned. That is Saturn speaking, from his rulership of both Capricorn and Aquarius.

There is usually a major transit associated with it, because you are claiming something new in yourself, that is more uniquely your own than anything you have lived before. But it needs to be recognised and claimed. You may need to be brought to a point of desperation before you will do it, because nothing else works anymore. You are being initiated into a new level of your being. But when you throw caution to the winds and stop worrying how it will look to other people, there is joy to be found, there is your soul to own. This is the gift of Aquarius' co-ruler, Uranus the outsider.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

MERE ANARCHY IS LOOSED UPON THE WORLD

Astrology provides a compelling myth for how the universe works, that is far older than the Christian story. We feel it in our bones, we cannot resist it. That is what a Creation Myth should feel like. None of this wondering whether the Bible is true or not. Of course, we doubt if astrology is literally true, as we should. But we live in an age where the only truth is literal truth, so that makes us doubt astrology itself. Never doubt that visceral feeling that your story is writ in the sky.


The culture at large has had, since the death of God, no unifying myth. The scientific story is not myth, it is mere fact without the power to take us outside ourselves. As the poets Yeats said in The Second Coming: "Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Astrology has a hold upon the population at large that Christianity does not, that the best efforts of the scientific establishment cannot undo. The non-rational always holds the power. That is why "a man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still." It goes both ways!

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born

Yeats continues, "the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity." We see things falling apart in the rise of relativism and its injunction that there are no absolute truths - it has a point - but goes to extremes in eg the dismantling of gender, about which the worst are full of passionate intensity, denouncing those who do not agree. (The research shows such people to be low on verbal intelligence.)

I want to say that astrology does provide an absolute truth. Our stories ARE written in the sky. Maybe the only absolute truths are mythological? They are absolute because you feel them in your bones, you would die for them.

The lack of a unifying religious myth is, IMO, the central problem of our culture. It is worth recognising that, if you are an astrologer, you do have one, a very ancient and primal one: the idea that your destiny was written into the universe at the moment of your birth. Jung, a somewhat secret astrologer, said the same kind of thing.

Astrology is not an 'add-on' to other modalities, as I have seen it put: it is the thing itself. We have a faith that is deep and ancient, and which is harder than many to get dogmatic about; but people still do in their slavish adherence to 'tradition', as if it is not something that has to be continually re-invented to stay alive.
                                         
PLUTO and the ANIMAL
Pluto is the instinctual, the animal. Aquarius is the human. Humans like to think they are above the animal. Airy Aquarius could write whole books, and create whole theologies, in defence of human superiority.

When Pluto enters Aquarius, there is a reckoning. If the animal has been relegated, his response will be savage. Think the French Revolution, when Pluto was last in this sign, and what Christianity had previously done to the animal. Think about Evolution, with humans implicitly at the top of the chain of being, where God used to be. Think - perhaps - the horrors of transgender surgery on young people as the savage animal response.

Let us welcome the animal. In the words of Mary Oliver's poem Wild Geese: "You do not have to be good.... you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
 
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The Sun tells us who we are, it speaks of the fire in us and its purpose. That is why sunshine is good for you 🦁
                                
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URANUS and JOE BIDEN'S MENTAL CAPACITY
Joe Biden's mental capacity was questioned in a recent report. This is not a good sign for him, in a year in which Uranus will be opposing both his Sun and Mercury. Expect this issue to develop. With Sun and Mercury hidden in both the 12th and in Scorpio, the issue is probably already a lot worse than we know.
 

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Friday, March 01, 2024

KNOW THYSELF and THE LATEST VIDEOS

 KNOW THYSELF

Who we are is a mystery. Self-knowledge lies not in accruing explanations for who we are, but in knowing our callings: doing that which we have to do. The astrological chart shows us the gods, the daemons knocking at our door: that is what the planets really are. Childhood explanations for who we are tend to take us away from the mystery and its creative power.
 

"The soul... hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar." (
Wordsworth)
 
From The Journey by Mary Oliver
"One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do...
 
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My main output continues to be short videos, but I will be giving you the youtube rather than the tiktok links from now on, as they were problematic for some of you. I am having fun making them; there is something I can express through speech that I cannot through writing. Maybe it is the electricity of my Mercury in Aquarius opposite Uranus! Here goes:

 
 
 
 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

VIDEOS

Mars conjoins Pluto on Wednesday, and the world holds it breath as Israel prepares its potentially terrible purge of Rafah.

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There is too much correlation between the movements of the planets and human affairs to say that the planets do not cause events; but not enough correlation to state definitively that they do. As astrologers we dance along the diaphanous pathway between this world and the other, avoiding the temptations of ungrounded mysticism on the one hand, and reductionist material explanations on the other.

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The series of Pluto transits I lived through in the 90s was my real qualification to be an astrologer. It wasn't any courses I had been on, or books I had read, but the hard-won Plutonian knowledge of the soul and it's transformations.

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I have started making videos for Tiktok, maximum 10 mins each. Here are the tiktok links to the show so far 😊 Blogger said they were too big to upload directly

MARS-VENUS-PLUTO IN AQUARIUS

Pluto in Aquarius 

WILD GEESE  (Me reciting a Mary Oliver Poem)

THE ASTROLOGY OF CREATION

 

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

THE FISHER KING

When the king is ill, the country does not thrive. While Big Ben was silent for 4 years from 2017, the country was politically paralysed over Brexit. Symbolism is a real thing, as any astrologer can tell you.



The country needs renewal: that is what King Charles' illness tells us. The Fisher King, the guardian of the Holy Grail, recovered, and his land recovered, when Parsifal asked him, "Whom does the Grail serve?" In our case, we maybe need to ask "What is the point of the UK, who are we now?" We lost an Empire, and tried to find a new purpose as part of the EU. That didn't work out. So who are we? We have an election coming up, but neither party has the vision of renewal necessary for the King to be well again.


Charles has Leo Rising, befitting a king. It is ruled by Sun in the collective sign of Scorpio, conjunct Chiron: his wound is collective. Uranus is currently opposing his Sun, a lightning rod for the country's malaise. In the Fisher King story, the wound is to the groin - the place that generates new life - very appropriate for Chiron in Scorpio.

My theory is that England forgot who she was 1000 years ago, when the Norman (Viking) conquest turned us into a conquering nation, beginning with the rest of the British Isles. The Empire has gone, and Scotland and Northern Ireland may go too. Charles' kingly line began with the Normans: that is one way of seeing the wound that he carries. His illness is that old soul loss healing. Just a theory :)


We may have to wait until next year, when Neptune enters Aries and begins a long slow sweep across the UK's Sun, Moon and Angles, to start to find the way again post-Brexit, with humility and reality: no longer a superpower; and no longer the next best thing, the vicarious power that came with being part of the EU.
 
 
KING CHARLES' HEALTH
Pluto is currently changing signs in King Charles' 6th House of Health, while squaring his Moon/Node in Taurus. This suggests his cancer diagnosis is of major significance. Pluto will not finally leave his 6th House until the end of 2027, giving a possible time frame for his illness. At that point, Neptune will be completing a square to Prince William's Sun-Moon conjunction in Cancer: a defining change for him is also in the offing. Uranus has also just turned direct, opposing Charles’ chart ruler, the Sun. Here is wishing him well!
 
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Everyone is weird once you get to know them. Aquarians are just more upfront, even honest, about it. That is why they are Everyman.
 
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A friend said recently that he felt Gemini was associated with the fairies, and was that the case? I said if it wasn't, it is now.
 
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I think Pluto in Aquarius will see GM crops come into their own, allowing for improved food production in the 3rd world. The power (Pluto) of technological invention (Aquarius.) Much of the opposition to GM, as with oil, is simply hatred of technology and human progress, and Pluto will march through that.
 
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Astrology is poetry.
 
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All the planets from Jupiter outwards are going forward. Time to make new s**t happen.
 
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On 12th Feb, Mars will cross the MC of the Northern Ireland chart, with Venus following soon after. Pluto crossed it 3 weeks ago. An agreement has just been reached on a return to devolved government, after a 2 year gap due to Brexit fall-out. Pluto still has 2 more crossings to go this year. NI is inching towards eventual reunion with Eire.
 
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The world is being held back from the abundant energy that nuclear power promises, and the abundant food that GM promises, by irrational fear of technology and hatred of humanity. The coming age of Pluto in Aquarius will march through this opposition, taking no prisoners, because it is our survival and flourishing (Pluto), through human inventiveness (Aquarius), that is at stake. And our destiny. Pluto is in this sense a protector of what humanity can become. Neptune in Aries will also play its part in this renewal of the collective dream. 
 

Elon Musk, with his vision of humanity as an interplanetary species, symbolises the optimism and inventiveness of this coming age. And let's not forget Uranus moving into Gemini too. A whole new age to look forward to.
 
 
THE AQUARIAN REBELLION AGAINST GREEN POLICIES
The last transit of Pluto through Aquarius saw both the French and American Revolutions: the people rebelling against unrepresentative, authoritarian government. Power (Pluto) to the People (Aquarius.) I think we will see a similar mood in the coming years, this time with green policies as the focus, as they begin to erode people's standards of living. I'm not saying this is good or bad: I'm just saying I think it is what will start happening. They have become the norm, and that is something Aquarius sees the holes in and pushes against.
 
 

In the UK we see it already, with the two main parties, in the run-up to a general election, vying to water down their commitments to net-zero. We saw it in the lack of media coverage of COP28. We see it in the huge protests by Dutch and German farmers against the imposition of green policies, and the rise to power of political parties that reflect this mood. In the US, Donald Trump is well-known for his lack of belief in the climate crisis. The rebellion will also be against the authoritarian, ideologically driven way net zero is often being implemented. The media is likely to tar this political movement with the label 'far right', a term that is gradually losing its meaning through over-use.
 
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If you attempt to turn astrology into a statistical truth, then you disrespect the gods and they will stop speaking to you. Astrology is not scientific. It is not for us to try to probe and judge the workings of the divine. It is for us to stand back in awe.
 
 
VENUS IN CAPRICORN
Venus is now in Capricorn. Not very romantic. Or, at least, not a time for love-bubbles, based around 2 people not knowing each other. That's so yesterday, so Venus in Sag. Venus in Capricorn wants you to listen to your experience, listen to the whole of yourself. That takes time and patience. But it can produce results that actually work, that last.
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Aquarians, if you want to be radical, be conservative. If you want to be even more radical, go to church. Got this idea off Nick Cave in this brilliant interview. Nick Cave has a hell of a work ethic. I looked him up: Sun in Virgo square to Saturn. 
 
 
PLUTO IN CANCER?
In Sardinia, the use of the "femina agabbadòra hammer" was a women's practice. Whenever an elderly man or woman of a given family was dying and in great pain, the family would call for the Accabadòra or Lady of the Good Death. She would usually be a widow dressed entirely in black, who likely inherited her role from her own mother or grandmother. The title Accabadora means "She is the One Who Ends." She arrives with a large hammer of carved olive wood wrapped in heavy wool, and is left alone with the individual who may yet be screaming in agony and terror. 
 

A witness testimonial of the practice translates: "It was dark. The room was illuminated by a single wick in mastic oil. The Accabadòra entered the house -- the door had been left open for her. She passed no one as she enters her patient's room at at the bedside. "She caressed the face of the dying person, chanted the rosary, sang one of the many lullabies usually sung to children. Finally she raised her hammer wrapped in thick, black wool, and gave a quick sharp blow on the skull. 
 
"She then left the bludgeoned patient in quiet peace, and our family blessed and thanked and paid her for her good work as she was leaving. It is a hard job. The Accabadòra may herself be feeble, and is often a friend of the ailing individual. So you must always respect her. "We do not consider her a murderer. In our village she is known as compassionate, a holy assistant in fulfilling the final destiny. Her act is loving and benevolent. She is our Last Mother." 
 
Though usually done with a hammer, each Accabadòra may have her own technique, including smothering with a pillow, or climbing atop the sufferer to wrap her legs around the neck to squeeze the throat closed. The last recorded Accabadòras went about their missions of euthanasia in 1929 in Luras and in 1952 in Orgosolo. But a recent work of fiction about the life of a modern Agabbadòra alleges that the ancient practice still exists in rural parts of Sardinia, where there are no physicians or any other help for the suffering.” 
 
=== Photo: An Accabadòra ready to serve, though her hammer is considerably larger than would be used by a real Accabadòra. Inset: An actual femina accabadòra hammer in a Sardinian museum.
 
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The Ukraine War will have it's Mars Return in early Feb, a Mars (at 22 Capricorn) that is at the same degree as the Saturn-Pluto conjunction the year before. That connection makes this minor war very significant geo-politically. Whether the Mars Return leads to an escalation or to negotiations, I do not know. But new developments are likely around that time.
 
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We belong not to ourselves but to the universe. Ordinary humanity does not understand this, astrologers and healers do.
 
 
PLUTO in CAPRICORN CRISES
Pluto can be associated with crises, inasmuch as they often precede the fundamental restructuring that this planet engenders. Pluto's time in Capricorn has been a time of institutional (Capricorn) crises, beginning with the financial crisis of 2008, the biggest since the 1930s. Then there was the Eurozone crisis, the political crises that led to Trump and Brexit, and then the COVID crisis. Last but not least has been the climate crisis which big business and government (both Capricorn) are being seen to ignore, despite protestations to the contrary, as Pluto leaves this sign.

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The International Climate Conference (COP) started in March 1995. This year it has its Saturn Return at 17 Pisces. Last year's COP 28 was barely front page news. I reckon the age of climate anxiety is starting to come to an end.

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The transit of Neptune through Pisces will be remembered for its religious madnesses around climate and gender and the victimhood of minorities.