THE SOOTHESAYER INTERNET NEWSLETTER

February 2012

Points of Reference:
Full Moon Feb. 7^th at 18 degrees Leo, New Moon Feb. 21^st at 2 degrees Pisces conjunct Neptune, Neptune transits into Pisces Feb. 3^rd and will be in this sign through March 2025, Venus is opposition retrograde Mars at 22 degrees Pisces Feb. 1^st., Saturn turns retrograde at 29 degrees Libra on Feb. 7^th., Mercury is conjunct Neptune on Feb. 14^th., Mars is retrograde in Virgo throughout the month.

Hot Topic:  Mars in Virgo – Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs!

 Virgo is the sign most associated with work, jobs, and conditions under which persons are employed.  It is also a sign associated with health issues and practices and points to a direct link between most people’s physical and psychological health and having adequate employment.   During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Neptune, the planet of idealism and disillusionment was transiting the sign of Virgo.

Now that we are in a hauntingly similar cycle of massive unemployment, the politicians are campaigning with “jobs” slogans and “jobs” solutions, most of them blaming each other for either being ineffective or down right destructive to the jobs market.  The current transit of Saturn in Libra wants “justice and fairness” and “equal opportunity” which, most will agree, is currently absent from the scene.

Our economy is analogous to a person who smoked five packs of cigarettes, put away a fifth of scotch,  sniffed a couple of lines of cocaine a day for 25 years and is absolutely amazed that he has suddenly wound up on a stretcher in an ambulance on life supports on his way to the nearest hospital.

Pres. Obama will have the Full Moon right on his ascendant/descendant axis on Feb. 7^th and transiting Mars is conjunct his natal Mars (which sits right on the U.S. Neptune), so, fresh from his State of the Union Address, he is talking about bringing jobs back into the country by rewarding corporations who do so and eliminating tax breaks for those who don’t.  What so many Americans do not realize is that the Chinese Communist Government financed U.S. companies that went there; put up their infrastructure, provided an extremely cheap labor force, and omitted any anti-pollution regulations in the factories.

The President proposes a new program to prevent foreclosures (the first one did not work), infrastructure jobs (which worked in the stimulus package but in a very limited sense), and bringing manufacturing back into the U.S.  Meanwhile, he has appointed OWS hero, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman the co-chair of a committee to investigate mortgage and securitization frauds amid rumors about a possible close to the foreclosure settlement promise.  We need to remember that the collapse of the real estate bubble caused millions of jobs to be lost, leading to more foreclosures, leading to more job losses, etc.  Since all this is tied up in the aspects to the U.S. Neptune (deception and confusion) in Virgo with both Obama’s Mars and transiting Mars in Virgo being involved, I have to question why Pres. Obama has appointed Schneiderman’s co-chairs to be Robert Khuzami and Lanny Breuer who, according to Matt Taibbi in his article in the Jan. 27 issue of “Rolling Stone”, might be targets of their own investigations.  Taibbi says, “Before joining the SEC, Khuzami senior counsel of the fixed-income desk at Deutsche Bank, which was creating exactly the sort of dicy CDOs that this investigation ought to be targeting.”  He goes on to say, “Breuer, meanwhile, worked for the hotshot defense firm Covington and Burling, which among other things provided legal  help that led to the creating of the electronic mortgage registry systems MERS.”  For those of you who do not know, this is the system that is being challenged in State courts as having any legality at all.  This reminds me of when Obama called in Lawrence Summers as his economic advisor in 2008, one of the major guys behind the massive deregulation of banking and finance in the Clinton administration and Timothy Geithner who was head of the New York Federal Reserve when all the bad stuff was going down and has been considered by many as an “enabler” of the bankster cartel.  Schneiderman was doing just fine in targeting illegal practices on Wall Street as State Attorney General. 

I smell a Neptune!!

Unfortunately, unemployment will be with us for many years to come, until the system itself undergoes massive structural changes, moving toward a more authentic version of democratic capitalism and an environment of equal opportunity.

Speaking of the Economy:

Neptune enters Pisces this month, signaling a “sea change” in the collective consciousness about politics and economics for many years to come, and will likely take us into the 2020s before we will see real and tangible results.  Venus will inconjunct Saturn between the 7^th and the 8^th, signaling uncertainty in currency markets.  Mercury goes over Neptune on the 14^th signaling fear and confusion in financial markets.  Mercury in Pisces will sextile Pluto in Capricorn between the 17^th and 18^th which is strong for gold.  Gold and silver have moved strongly upward in late January and, regardless of ups and downs, I think will enter a new and higher level this year between Oct. and December as Saturn in Scorpio will be trine Neptune and later sextile Pluto.

Meetings by the European Union foretell they will soon have a “deal” with Greece to shore up its sovereign wealth and prevent default there and spreading to Portugal, Spain and Italy.  It is yet to be determined if any of these proposals is really workable.  I am skeptical of any agreement forged under Mars retrograde and Mercury going over Neptune.  Although they have risen in price recently, what is preventing gold and silver from rising significantly is a fleeing out of European currencies into the American dollar.  The World Bank has recently predicted a major European recession.    This temporarily helps the Fed sell U.S. Treasuries, but the key word is “temporary”.  China and the UAE have decided to trade oil in the yuan.  The Pluto/Uranus square in a negative aspect with the U.S. Jupiter in June will emphasize a lack of confidence in the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar, as will Jupiter’s transit into Gemini, historically a negative for the stock market in general.  The last time Jupiter transited Gemini was 2001!     We will see weakness in some commodities, but oil, which should be coming down in price due to less usage and massive development of new oil and gas deposits in the U.S., has been kept artificially high by the energy cartel to pay their expenses in off-shore drilling and in the new Bakken field in Canada and the western United States.  These are not ordinary times and all these markets are heavily manipulated.  I have the theory that Fed Chairman Bernanke wants dollar inflation to happen to make it easier for the U.S. to pay down its debt.  As you know, I think all of these trends bode well for the future of gold and silver.  I also think many of the smaller mining companies will be bought up by larger corporations, consolidating operations throughout the world.  We currently have an historic shortage of gold in circulation which will inevitably lead to less supply and more demand. 

Internet Freedom:

Many of us were relieved when public outrage quelled the Congressional passing of SOPA and PIPA, so-called anti-piracy bills that would have allowed the removal of sites so accused from the internet.  In a January 25^th article on Common Dreams.com, reported an international anti-piracy treaty called ACTA which Pres. Obama already signed on Oct. 11, 2011.  International Business Times reports:  “Now that it has been signed, the legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government also have little ability to challenge or amend the treaty, and Americans will be subject to a whole new scheme of laws, restrictions and regulations that could have them facing fines or jail through a process that would likely exist entirely outside the scope of the American justice system.”

National Defense Funding Bill:

Last month, I called your attention to this legislation passed by both houses of Congress that would allow the U.S. military to arrest and detain U.S. citizens without due process.  Well, Pres. Obama signed this bill into law.  Since it is a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, I would hope somebody will take this to the Supreme Court, who is supposed to uphold the Constitution; that is, if they can escape from wherever they are taken away and confined!  Mars (the military) and Neptune (secrecy and deception) are at work here for sure.  I think our government is terrified that public protests will increase throughout the country and get “out of control”.  Four hundred OWS peaceful protesters were recently arrested in Oakland, California.  There are rumors that the ideals held in common by many Tea Party demonstrators will unify them with the OWS movement.  We need to be watchful that our own military are not called forth to arrest and detain our own citizens.  The Uranus/Pluto square, an historic marker for revolutions, is making itself felt.

Feature Article

 Neptune’s Transit into Pisces:

 Previous periods of this transit:  1520 – 1534, 1685 – 1699, 1848 – 1863, 2011 – 2026.

(Entered April 4, 2011 – Aug. 4^th 2011, enters Feb. 3^rd 2012 – March 30^th 2025, enters retrograde Oct. 22nd 2015 through Jan. 26^th 2026.

The lengthy transit of Neptune in its own “home base” sign of Pisces is a subject so vast in its scope that I will be devoting time to it now and in future articles in the coming years.  There is an excellent essay published in the December/January issue of The Mountain Astrologer, by Michele Finey entitled “Into the Blue: Neptune in Pisces” that I would recommend reading.

Neptune was actually discovered in 1846 at a time when it was conjunct Saturn and in the sign it is just leaving now, Aquarius.  Since Neptune is known for its rulership of oceans, fluids, chemicals, it is interesting it was discovered when the planet Saturn, famous for structure and definition, lent it a framework.  Famous for being nebulous, confusing, intoxicating and uplifting, Neptune is a planet of expanded consciousness beyond ordinary perceptions.  It often erodes previous structures and boundaries, whether in politics, religion, or science and is capable of opening up passages to great truths or great deceptions, cures for diseases or snake oil, anesthesia or addictive substances.  So goes the symbol for Pisces; two fish swimming in opposite directions.  Interestingly, this is the ancient inscription associated with the beginning of Christianity at the dawn of the Piscean Age.

In the 1500s, Neptune’s transit through Pisces saw the spread of the Protestant Reformation, (a backlash to extreme corruption in the Roman Catholic Church) challenging the Church’s religious and political authority throughout Europe.  It also saw an outbreak of the Plague, during which time the great seer and physician, Nostradamus, stopped the outbreak in various cities by burning corpses and cleaning up the streets.  In 1522, Magellan circumvented the globe, inspiring world trade, which led to the collapse of the Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations instigated by Spanish invaders.  (Does this remind you of the current furor concerning the end of the Maya Long Count this year?)  In 1692, the famous Salem witch trials took place in a frenzy of religious fanaticism among the Puritan colonists who had traversed the ocean to have the freedom to practice their religion in the New World.

In 1858, the famous Bernadett of Lourdes claimed to have seen visions of the Blessed Virgin and discovered a natural spring there whose waters are thought to this day to have miraculous healing powers.  In August of 1859, oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania fueling the industrial revolution and our current modern civilization’s   dependency on oil for the vast amounts of energy we now use.  This has led to the poisoning of our land and waters, climate extremes, and the challenge to fossil fuel energy usage that we face today.  During this period, Karl Marx published his “Communist Manifesto” and Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species”, both challenging political and economic structures and scientific assumptions of their time.  In the U.S., the abolitionist movement organized itself which led to the Civil War and the end to the institution of slavery.  Florence Nightingale established the profession of nursing, the microscope was developed, and Louis Pasteur discovered bacteria as a source of disease.  Breakthroughs were made with the development of vaccines, anesthetics, cleanliness and hygiene.  In a sense, this time frame was the gateway to modern medicine.

What Now?

Planetary transits mark the rising of themes, issues, and challenges that will insert themselves into our lives no matter what we do.  Whether our responses and choices are destructive or constructive to life on earth will be up to us. 

I think the probable events will contain global water crises concerning our oceans dying, water pollution, an acceleration of the rate of glaciers melting and coastal regions flooding.  Many island nations may no longer exist within a relatively short time period and many native cultures will disappear.  There will be movements that have already started for economic equal opportunity and a “dethroning” of the handful of people who control most of the world’s money and resources.  There will likely be breakthroughs in medicine and cures for major diseases that currently afflict us.  We will have to “clean up” the oceans, waterways, and drill for underground water in desert regions where supplies have been exhausted.  We are currently experiencing mass extinctions of species not known since the dinosaurs went down.  We will be forced to develop and implement new non-fossil fuel forms of energy.    Since Pluto in Capricorn is square Uranus for the next several years, we will experience earthquakes and volcanic eruptions more frequently and of greater magnitude.  Neptune rules liquids, including molten magma movements underground.

Our society will have to come face to face with the fact that turning to drugs, both legal and illegal is alarmingly popular and wide spread.   This may bring about a realization that the trend is symptomatic of a society in great pain and devoid of a soul.  In these modern times, few people have escaped the singular trap consisting of a core belief in a world of mechanistic materialism; that you have to be dead to be scientifically “verifiable”; that you have to be ruthlessly competitive to survive.  This brings with it a terrible consequence; an ensuing loss of a sense of beauty, awe, and spiritual presence.  We may have to face that many people turn to drugs because they are living lives without magic, meaning or a sense of higher purpose.  Others, feeling overwhelmed, turn to religious fanaticism, further partitioning themselves into being “right” and condemning others to being “wrong”.  Neptune and Pisces are all about meaning and purpose, kindness and understanding, openness to discovery, and a sense of “oneness” with the earth and each other.  Albert Einstein, a Pisces, said, “Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle”.   Water, Neptune’s element, is the source of all life as we know it, but is just as capable of drowning life in great floods, storms and tsunamis.  Inherent within Neptune’s grand contradictions resides our power to choose:  escapism or confrontation, lies or truths, fanaticism or spiritual realization, death or life. 

Which will it be?

    Linda

Linda Schurman