The Aquarius Festival 2020

THE AQUARIUS FESTIVAL 2020

9 Feb 2020

© Malvin Artley

Topics (linked to paragraphs): Saturn/Pluto and housing renewal Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius Aquarius The full moon The coronavirus How would you like your peace? George Marshall Jared Kushner Iran and vulnerability Idlib and Erdogan Aussie fires Meanwhile in France A final Brexit note The ‘Never Bernie’ Movement Aquarian economics? In closing

Greetings Everyone!

Saturn/Pluto and housing renewal: Well, we made it through the Saturn/Pluto conjunction, and we survived. Was there any doubt it would be so, as much hype as we heard about it? The world didn’t fall to pieces, although I can think of a few people who might be thinking their world is falling to pieces. We’ll have more about that after the look at the full moon. This period with all the talk of what could happen has reminded me of the 2000 millennium bug and the 2012 Mayan calendar end days. And when those events passed, the world yawned and went on about its business. There is no yawning this time, though. Our international situation is changing rapidly. There are many people with whom I have spoken who have described what they would call the end of an era for them. These are people who had that conjunction on key areas of their own chart. For us here in Rovereto, it marked the end of an old phase of life and the start of life in a renewed house and calmer living. And for us it has been symbolic – a look back at the past, gutting the old. Sometimes rotten structure and rebuilding anew, with an eye toward the future with more solid foundations. That is the essence of what that conjunction represented, and it has had parallels in the lives of many. That also applies to groups and governments. And such changes and reflections have been needed, because if we are to move into the future with certainty and security, the old, broken and useless must be routed out, the bits that still serve re-examined and renewed, and new foundations laid for growth facing forward.

Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius: There is another conjunction coming up, that of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius, and there is quite a bit of talk floating around in the net-sphere about that conjunction, too. That one comes to us, exact, at the Capricorn ingress this year, on 22 Dec. The last one was in May of 2000 in Taurus, in what was another hotly contested election year in the US (Remember the Florida vote recount that brought “W” and then-president Cheney to us?). This year will be no different. Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions have been associated with the appearance of world saviors in past eras, specifically with those in Pisces, which signalled the birth of Jesus, or so we are told. It is a political and religious aspect and signals a new period of law and order, according to the sign in which it occurs. In Taurus, the last time, it signalled the implementation of the PNAC and the attempt to control all of the energy resources (Taurus, energy in the earth) of the Middle East by Washington. We also had the Dot-Com crash (Taurus and finances) and the next bubble that burst in 2008, giving us the Great Recession. The Jupiter/Saturn conjunction before that was in Libra, which saw the institution of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, our current neoliberal system, Libra being associated with the law, sex and money. This time the conjunction will be in Aquarius, which is rarer in that sign than the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn. So, in this letter we will look a bit at what that means, Aquarian-wise, as it will have large implications for what is to be put in place at that ingress and into the next decade especially.

Aquarius: Aquarius is an air sign, associated with the mind in common parlance and with buddhi (pure reason) esoterically. It rules the natural 11^th house of the zodiac, commonly associated with ‘friends, hopes and wishes’. Its modern ruler is Uranus, seen more in its technological and humanistic aspect. The old ruler is Jupiter – expansive, also humanistic, but also judicial and associated with parliaments as representative of the will of the people. Esoterically, taking the latter to a higher level, Aquarius is the sign of the ‘world server’, its symbol being the water bearer. A parliament, or legislative body, is therefore supposed to reflect and serve the will of the people. We won’t say any more about that aspect of it here, given our current opinions about our nations’ parliaments, except to say that the Russian parliament just got overhauled in an effort to battle corruption in that nation and to better reflect what the Russian people have desired for decades, if not longer. We won’t discuss that here, either. There is an article on the blog site that goes into it.

Why is there this talk of parliaments and ‘the will of the people’ at this point in the letter? Aquarius rules the Creative Hierarchy that has providence over ‘the lesser lives’, the “Basket of Nourishment”, or “The Blinded Lives”. These are the elemental forces/lives that comprise the form life of a conscious unit. To explain, we can look at the human body, or human being as a whole to gain some insight. A human being is classed as a ‘conscious unit’. In its simplest definition, a ‘conscious unit’ is a unique sphere of consciousness. That sphere of consciousness can be and most often is comprised of countless discrete energies that operate within that sphere of consciousness. A cell in the human body, or the body collective of any living being, is such a discrete, differentiated force. Those in turn coalesce into organs, depending upon their affinity, which in turn comprise the entirety of the form. Each discrete force is more or less blind as to the larger purposes and direction of the overall unit. For instance, we as humans have little insight into the larger purposes of nations and the evolution of our planet. We often have little insight even into our own individual evolution as expressed through hundreds and thousands of incarnations. We are, in effect, ‘blinded lives’ when we see ourselves in the context of the planetary scale, or even our soul’s evolution. Yet, we all function as a part of a larger group evolution, according to our affinities and antagonisms. It is here that we get to the point about larger governing bodies, because this is important to understand in our immediate circumstances.

In our ideal of democracy in the West we are supposed to believe that each person has a voice in how they will be governed by the body politic. When we function in a true Aquarian sense, that is true. And in this Libran influence that we are currently experiencing in the transition between the Aquarian and Piscean ages, the questions of law and order, partnership and antagonism, gender, finances and so forth are being focused upon and brought eventually to some sort of resolution as we transition more fully with each passing decade into the Aquarian Age. The idea and institution of parliaments/legislative bodies is a relatively new concept and experiment in human life, though it has existed for brief periods in previous millennia. But now, such bodies are pretty much universal in governments. And these legislative bodies are supposedly elected directly or are supposed to be representative of the people they represent. We say ‘supposedly’ here because it is clear by recent examples in the US and UK, for instance, that such legislative bodies frequently act against the wishes of the people and for the selfish interests of many of the people in the legislative body. This breeds corruption, and it is at an all-time high in nations like the United States, which has always had a problem with such corruption. And it is bipartisan there. Corruption hurts and can eventually destroy the health of any nation. One has only to study the history of the Roman Senate during the Roman republic to see what happens when legislators act only in their self-interest. The republic degenerated, became autocratic under the rule of single emperors and eventually fell apart.

The point here is that if the larger collective bodies, as in organs in the body or the overall governing consciousness fail to look after the welfare of the lesser lives that make up that body collective, then illness and possibly even death results. The lesser lives, the blinded lives, must ‘have their say’ and be allowed to function in the way they were intended if a functioning unit is to evolve properly and progress in a positive direction. And this goes back to the Libran emphasis we have now: A balance must be maintained between the needs of the little lives and the desires of the larger unit. All this goes back, for instance, to the factors of economics we have examined in past letters. Some balance must be had between labor and capital, between extremes of communism and capitalism, for instance, if we are to live in healthy societies. What we have seen in recent decades is a growing imbalance in favour of the extreme capitalists and corporate interests, and that takes away from the health of the whole. Thus we see the growing reactions against such a state of affairs in the rising protests against corruption, erosion of people’s economic health and physical health as well in many nations. The counter-reaction is rising, too, by reactionary factions in every nation, who try their hardest to maintain their status quo and control.

We are in the final years of the Stage of the Forerunner, where wisdom is being passed between generations, to be renewed with a new impulse to come, it is forecast, after 2025. This stage, “…is preparatory in nature, testing in its methods, and intended to be revelatory in its techniques and results.”^[1] The efforts are primarily along educational lines, awakening the bulk of humanity to what has confronted them for centuries, as well as what is possible into the future. If we are to move with greater security for all of humanity into the future, then the balance between the masses and the few must be resolved. Wars must end, the rule of international law restored and the dialog between nations more actively promoted and more importantly, engaged. These are the emerging Aquarian impulses. That they are being opposed is evident in the growing resistance to any form of socialized economy, for instance, and in this the reactionary elements expose themselves. If the rising protests across the globe are any indication, the efforts of the materialists are doomed to fail. And they know full well that they have only a very limited time to save what they have thought to have safeguarded for themselves. It is why we see the sudden uptick in crisis situations in many nations. In that, there is a clear way forward, and hope for the many. The majority must find their voice, and that means the people in every land. With that, we move on to the full moon and then to how all this is manifesting at present.

The full moon takes place on 9 Feb 20 at 8:02 UT (6:33 PM AEDT). There is quite a bit of quintile activity in this figure, with a triangle between the Moon, Uranus and Jupiter, the release coming through a quintile between the Sun and Uranus. The potential for the release of creative forces is thus great. Mars goes out of bounds on the day of the full moon, which always brings its share of ‘excitement’, and there is plenty of opportunity for such fun and games in the Middle East especially this time around. We already see it with an increase in Turkish and Israeli strikes against Syrian forces, the latter who are now rapidly clearing the Idlib enclave of takfiris. More on that in a bit. In addition, Sedna makes its direct station on the day, signalling a change of direction in terms of old situations. Again, Idlib and the coming end of the Syrian war come to mind. Pluto was exact on its activation of an eclipse at the 24 Cancer/Capricorn axis on 7 Feb, which has added to increased instability. And finally, Mars began tracking the Sun/Uranus midpoint on the 8^th (day before the full moon), while being out of bounds, having the following connotations: “A person prone to hasty physical action, precipitation and rash action. – Injury, accident.” There are two people we can think of immediately who would be prone to such actions – Bibi Netanyahu and Erdogan of Turkey, as both men are fighting for their political survival, and with both being under severe threat of downfall at the moment. Again, we’ll have more on that in a bit. But now we start with the international scene.

The coronavirus: The first item to address on the international front is the novel coronavirus (article updated) outbreak in China, which has the media in the West all a-flurry with sensationalism. One has to wade through the muck (raking) to get to the truth of the situation, and even then our conditioning about China tends to get in the way. Yes, this is down-playing the impact of the virus, and there are good reasons for doing so. In Italy, for instance, the government has just pronounced the virus to be a national health emergency – with one case reported in Italy (as of this writing). And that is just illness that has not (yet) resulted in a death. It is not likely to result in a death, either. So, what is really going on with this story? Pro-Western readers may not like what follows, but in the long term, the handling of the outbreak by the Chinese is only going to raise the esteem of the government in the eyes of the world’s health professionals and among its people. The reasons for saying that points to China’s Aquarian ascendant in its national chart.

Something remarkable is taking place in China, and this refers not to the virus or China’s astounding growth over the past decades, but instead, of their response to the outbreak. And, as of now and due to those efforts, the virus in China is showing signs that it has reached its peak as an epidemic and will soon decline. What has China done to address this? We have the following:

• As soon as the virus was identified, which was within days, the authorities immediately notified the WHO (World Health Organization). The Chinese have been transparent about their efforts and progress throughout the epidemic. There is a real-time webpage in English with updates on every aspect of the epidemic in China.
• The details about the genetic profile of the virus were known within a week and were shared as open source worldwide. The Chinese learned hard lessons from the 2002 SARS outbreak. The Russians and the Chinese set to work on a coronavirus vaccine, which should soon be available. A test kit for the virus was available within a week, compared to two months for the Ebola virus, via the CDC, or a month and a half for the swine flu.
• The government immediately quarantined the epicentre of the outbreak, an area that involves 56 million people and is one of their major business hubs. Containment is a first priority for any such outbreak.
• The people have been motivated and are actively cooperating with the government, and this as they miss their biggest holiday of their year. They support the efforts of their government.
• The government immediately set out at building two hospitals specifically to handle the cases of the virus.
• The speed and nature of the scientific response by the Chinese to the virus has been described as “breath-taking”, and this from the head of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus.

If you are now thinking, “Yeah, but…” or “Rubbish!”, all I will say to that is to investigate the facts. Because, along with the immediate response of the Chinese to the situation, the total information war against China also started in parallel by various press outlets worldwide and on social media. The disinformation campaign has been as breathtakingly negative as the positive Chinese response. This has been especially true in the US, Hong Kong and the UK. Travel bans to and from China have been instituted, in distinction to the flu epidemic now underway in the US. There are no travel bans to the US, yet there have been 10,000 deaths and 180,000 people hospitalized in the US alone in the 2019/20 flu season. Why is there no media scare campaign about that, no travel bans, no quarantines, no rush to get people cured? All we hear is, be sensible and get a flu shot. What is wrong with this picture? Are we starting to get the picture? There are certain points to keep in mind here, and then we will move on.

We just had the Festival Week for world servers, which was supposed to work to promote goodwill between people and nations. What we are seeing instead in various media are stepped-up efforts to vilify certain peoples and nations instead of promoting dialog. We don’t need to list those nations or groups. We all know who they are. Such ‘news’ is thrust in our face every day, reinforcing stereotypes, racism and old prejudices, stoking fears and seeking to pit ‘us’ against ‘them’. This is not Aquarian, which instead promotes dialog, friendship and the will of the people. Vilification is the old way, the negative Piscean way, which says ‘my way or the highway’. Well, we are all on the same ‘highway’. There are passing lanes on any highway, too, and so long as we buy into such separatism the emerging world passes us by.

Call the preceding about the coronavirus pro-China if you like, but it would pay to ask ourselves what other nation would have responded in kind as China has to such an emergency. What is the state of health care in or own nations? As Americans we are treated as cash cows when we are sick, it would appear. The Chinese are treating their people with this disease free of charge. And probably from this outbreak will come extra funding for their own health care system and a possible overhaul of the same, which is in need of more communism, having taken up the Western model instead when it began its experiment of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. It is learning hard lessons from that experiment as well. We are looking at an Aquarian effort at present in China, in line with that nation’s ascendant in their national chart. Their response to the coronavirus has been to mobilize the people in cooperative effort, to act scientifically, with current and emerging technology, with openness and international cooperation. Yes, there is soap box in these statements, but unless we confront disinformation as we are seeing it with China, Russia and other nations we stay stuck in past patterns and miss opportunities for the future. China is not the enemy. Lies and disinformation are. Probably like the majority of you, I don’t appreciate being lied to. This is an important and evolving development, and follows on the Saturn/Pluto conjunction. China is addressing its past and moving forward, having taken its lessons from past mistakes. There have been a few other important events since the Capricorn letter, too, but from nations who have not learned from the past, it would seem.

How would you like your peace?; To other matters, on the 28^th of last month, Trump rolled out “President Donald J. Trump’s Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People”. It was immediately widely condemned, with only a few nations having cautious optimism. The leader of the Palestinians, Abbas, has severed all ties with Israel and the US as a result. Only Israel in particular was enthusiastic about it. Although the announcement played to domestic politics in Israel and the US, there was also a more subtle, and we might say insidious side to it, in that it was a direct statement about American and Israeli exceptionalism. It confirmed the Zionist bias in Washington and in a quarter of the American populace and affirmed the intention that Israel is to be the regional hegemon. The word ‘vision’ is mentioned 28 times in the document. As to the domestic politics with the rollout of this plan, as was the case with the creation of Israel, there was indeed a large element of domestic politics in it – probably to the largest extent – in that it was also designed to strip pro-Israeli Jewish voters away from the Democrats in an election year, as well as being an effort to avoid impeachment (Trump) and jail (Netanyahu). The trouble is, visions often do not work out into reality, especially if one fails to take into account certain other related realities, whatever those may be. There was another vision for Israel in the past, too, which did work out into reality, and which has resulted in many ‘unintended consequences’. We refer here to the creation of Israel as the current state and the effects that has had on the region.

We just had the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn in the 12^th of this month. The Israeli state has that same conjunction in its chart, but in Leo instead of Capricorn. That in turn is square their nodal axis, with the nodes forming the midpoint between the two. It was, shall we say, an ‘interesting’ choice of days to form a state. That setup is also very descriptive of what the Israelis and the surrounding peoples – especially the Palestinians – have endured: “The misery of the masses, common suffering shared with many people together.” There are several charts floating around for Israel. Their ‘declaration of independence’ chart is set on the 14^th of May at 4:15 (rectified), which gives Libra rising and a very interesting Sabian symbol for the rising degree: “An airplane sails, high in the clear sky”. With Israel’s Sun/Mars square, we see Israel’s constant air strikes on its neighbors in the context of certain warnings given by the US Joint Chiefs to Truman regarding the recognition of the Israeli state in 1948.

George Marshall, of Marshall Plan fame, was Truman’s Secretary of State. He warned Truman about recognizing Israel. Snippets from a recent article:

“…the realists and military men in Truman’s Cabinet opposed the creation of Israel…it led to “the wars that [George C.] Marshall feared recognition of Israel would ignite…the failure of Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab League, Europe, Russia, the United Nations and the United States to achieve peace and the balancing creation of a state of Palestine remains a consequential, bleeding global ulcer…establishing and recognizing a state of Palestine is vital to U.S. national security and to defending Israel’s long-term security in the region.”

Truman overruled Marshall. The rest, as we say, is history. The point here? – With this announcement by Trump, in a sense we have come full circle with Israel. As was stated in the Chinese New Year letter, “The time for decisions has come. There is no turning back.” Everyone in the region will now have to decide their course ahead for the immediate and long-term, and it presents them with some rather uncomfortable realities, notably for Israel. There is certainly no turning back for Trump, Israel or the Palestinians now, or Bibi Netanyahu either, who was indicted on three charges of fraud the very day of the announcement.

This plan, which has further inflamed public opinion in the Middle East (and really across the globe) plays into a larger picture, which was outlined in the Chinese New Year letter, especially as it relates to Iran. The rigid ‘anti’ stance against Iran has been described as a smoke screen, obscuring the continued theft of land from the Palestinians over the years. As a consequence of this deal, as we say in the vernacular, “It’s on now!” meaning conflict is probably inevitable. On the other side, Trump’s announcement has greatly clarified many issues about which past administrations and other governments have danced around but never really stated. There is nothing further to be stated about the matter from Washington. This is an end-game and the gauntlet has been thrown down to the Palestinians: accept or face the most serious of consequences. It was a very sobering day for the Muslim world. And as inept as Kushner is, the deal may as well have been a declaration of war, knowing full well the Palestinians and much of the Arab world would never accept it.

Jared Kushner stated he read 25 books before he came up with the plan. We have to wonder about the authors of those books, given what has been presented, and given his statements about the Palestinians. A recent comment for comparison illustrated the strangeness of Kushner’s assertion: “I’m no doctor, but I have read 25 books on open heart surgery. I’m qualified to replace that heart valve for you now.” This deal was designed to provoke conflict, not promote peace, to play solely to Israeli interests and is humiliating to Palestinians and Muslims in general. This is no ‘peace plan’. It has been called “a Palestinian Versailles”. One can just imagine how most Americans would feel if they were told to disarm themselves, move off their land, and submit to someone else’s guarantees of ‘security’ for the sake of a pay-out at some future point if they behave themselves, and knowing full well how (un)reliable Washington is to their word. Iraqis can tell them a few stories about that. For their part, the Lebanese have a rather humorous take on the deal.

Washington and Israel are so enmeshed these days that the only way forward in resolving the Palestinian conundrum would seem to be either a collapse of one of the two or both governments and the loss of influence of the Israel lobby in Washington – in other words, the Zionist ideology would have to be abandoned – or a war in the region that definitively decides the matter of Israel/Palestine. Israelis, if they want a war with Iran, are not thinking things through. And now they will have to deal with a more belligerent Arabic-speaking population and region. Positions are so entrenched now that it would take extraordinary diplomacy to resolve the impasse that has been in place since the creation of the Israeli state, something the US is sorely lacking at the moment. Truman’s recognition of Israel may have been one of his biggest mistakes, geared toward domestic politics and geopolitical advantage. And it has been the same with Trump with his various moves in favour of Israel, geared toward his Zionist donors, in the midst of impeachment proceedings and toward the very things outlined in the last letter – the oil, the dollar and the control of the region.

Iran and vulnerability: The Zionist regime in Israel is fighting for its survival, especially with its present administration, its growing domestic problems and in light of the recent attacks on the Saudis and the al-Assad air base, as well as the downing of the US drone, which have shown vulnerabilities and US missile defenses to be anything but. The Israeli Iron Dome system is reputedly only marginally better as a missile defense system. The reason to bring this up is that the Iranians have shown they are not afraid of Washington or Israel and are not to be trifled with or dismissed, and that Israeli and US forces are actually very vulnerable. Hence, we see Trump quickly de-escalating the situation after the attack on al-Assad. And Americans are being eased into the realization after the fact that there were indeed many casualties in that attack, instead of none as was initially stated. Not everything was ‘fine’. The timing of the rollout of the ‘peace plan’ fits in with this. And then there was the strong-arming of the E3 by Washington to essentially abandon the JCPOA, which will lead to Iran doing the same. That followed quickly upon the bombing of the al-Assad air base as well. The strategy here by Washington is clear: Snap back the strongest possible sanctions on Iran in hopes that it causes them to begin to ‘behave like a normal country’ – in other words, bow to Western pressures, or instead provoke a war. There aren’t many snowballs in hell, from what we hear. The preceding goes to a larger point.

As long as a large regional war can be avoided, the trajectory of events is leading toward a solidification of the so-called Shia crescent and the expulsion of the US and the NATO forces from Iraq and Syria over time. This in turn will lead to the assurance of Russian security in the Caucasus and southwestern Asian regions and open the door to the Belt and Road into the region. It will also serve to stop Israeli expansionist designs. The sanctions against Iran will only push it deeper into the Eurasian integration initiatives, as well as sealing off Afghanistan from further Western influence. Unknown to most readers, the air war in Afghanistan had escalated under Trump in 2019, supposedly in an effort to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. A great many civilians have been killed in those attacks. It hasn’t worked, and has now backfired, with claims that the Taliban have brought down a “BACN” flying radio relay station plane in the country. Just in January alone in Afghanistan, four helicopters have either crashed or been downed and now that plane has been downed. There is media silence. Apparently, the Taliban have gained enough-advanced anti-aircraft weaponry from somewhere (Any guesses as to where?) to bring down American aircraft, bringing back memories of American-supplied missiles to the Afghans during the Russian-Afghan war.

The ‘endless wars’ of the US in the region will cease eventually, by American evacuations, and that will be a cause for celebration, at home and abroad. We could sure use the money at home instead of in Asia. Short of a large-scale re-invasion, there is little chance of re-establishing American dominance in Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, and resistance to US occupation is rising. The Russians and the Chinese are doing their best to avoid a regional war in the Middle East, and it is in their interests for now to ensure that Iran survives and is strong enough to continue its resistance to Washington and the Israelis.

Idlib and Erdogan: On a final point in the Middle East, the last enclave of terrorists/jihadis in Syria (Idlib) is in process of being cleared. The Syrian army is advancing rapidly in the enclave. The jihadi defences are collapsing rapidly. This is in part due to the heavy bombing of their positions by the Russian and SAA air forces and the thinning of their numbers by the Turks, who are shipping them off to do battle for the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya. Funny, how the ‘Syrian opposition’ is being shipped off to fight in Libya. The immediate aim for the SAA is to reopen the M4 and M5 highways, which run through Idlib. This is quite an important strategic objective for Damascus and the Russians:

“The fall of Maarat al-Numan (after some 9 years) to Syrian government forces cannot be underestimated. The town is situated on the M-4 highway connecting the western province of Latakia (where Russian bases are located) with Syria’s northeastern regions, as it runs all along the Turkish border up to Mosul in Iraq. Without control of M-4, an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan cannot have access to the Eastern Mediterranean coast. The security and safety of the Russian bases demands that Idlib is cleansed of the extremist al-Qaeda affiliates, which the US might use as proxies. Again, M-4 provides a land route from Iran via Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.”

We hear that Pompeo is not very happy about the development. Neither is Erdogan, who wants to protect his investment in the jihadis there, as well as his designs on the land. Perhaps another missile strike on Syria is in the offing, or another faked gas attack ‘by the Syrian regime’. The OPCW as it is has been discredited as an impartial body, having been pressured by the US to manufacture evidence damning to Syria with the Douma affair. Once southern and eastern Idlib are cleared of al-Qaida and Turkish proxies, the M4 and M5 highways will be reconnected, which will be a major setback for the Kurds and for the Turks. It will also give a clear main arterial road between the Iraqi border, Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea, something that will give a big boost to Damascus and the ‘Axis of Resistance’ as well as being a setback for the plans of Washington, the Israelis and some of the Gulf states. That is why we may see a military escalation and some sort of manufactured event to ‘justify’ such an action, and within the next month or two.

There will be little chance of a return of Daesh in Syria after those highways are reopened, not that there is much of a chance now. This is a worry for Washington hawks, because it will strengthen Iranian and Lebanese influence in Syria and the other way around, as well as opening the door to China and greater Russian involvement. It will be a boost for peace in the region, in other words, even though the Western powers and Israelis will try their hardest to scuttle it. These are important developments going into the future, and we hear next to nothing about it in the mainstream news, except for ‘Russian’ and ‘Iranian’ aggression. Pompeo is trying to renew the old ‘Assad must go’ meme in an effort to escalate a covert war against Iran, but that is quickly coming unravelled. The Russians keep messing up his plans.

Aussie fires: To address a couple of other matters before we close, fires are still blazing in Australia. Over 1,100 firefighters are battling the blazes, set to be worse in February, the hottest month of the year there. Those fires have been devastating to the animal life, estimated to be over a billion lives lost, with some species facing extinction. Yet, in terms of fires in Australia, no one in government seems willing to listen to the wisdom about the environment gained through ages of experience on that land by Australia’s aboriginal population. This fire season has been the worst by far for Aussie animals. Australia is a remnant of Lemuria, with ancient animal species. One has to wonder about the extinction of ancient forms, with us currently witnessing the 6^th mass extinction, and with Australia having the highest number of extinctions of any other continent. The political blowback from these fires will probably be considerable. And, we will probably start to see it beginning mid-March through to midyear, when transiting Saturn enters Aquarius and squares the Aussie horizon axis, at the same time making a semisquare to the Aussie Uranus, the latter ruling the 10^th house.

Meanwhile in France, firefighters have been battling the police over Macron’s pension reform plans. There has been a media blackout on the ongoing protests in France. The police in France have been used as a tool of suppression of protests. Looking at it from the outside, the suppression of the protests there could be seen as the act of a totalitarian state opposing the will of the people. People have a right to protest, to make their grievances heard. Here again, we have media hypocrisy in the West. While the French protests, ongoing for over a year now, receive little if any mainstream media coverage, the smallest protests in, say, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran or China have blanket coverage. Compare the French protests with the protests at the last elections in Russia. One set of protests were illegal and instigated by rabble rousers who have sought to draw international media attention to their cause, while the violence in the others were the result of the brutal suppression by the state, instigated by ‘plants’ within the protests – people there specifically for the purpose of causing trouble, to bring on the suppression. The reader can decide which is which. (here and here).

The French protests are of real importance to the West because they are protests that go to the heart of neoliberalism, of which Macron is the main face in the EU, and upon which the EU was founded, underpinning its political life. This is the real problem with the EU, and one which will cause its breakup if it is not addressed. Now that the UK has left the EU (and neoliberalism is very much alive and well in the UK, too), the focus in the EU will be drawn to what is happening in France and Italy, especially. The French fought a bloody revolution to found their modern nation, and that revolution was also based in economics – you know, “Let them eat cake”, and all that. Macron apparently wants the French people to eat with a meagre pension. US voters should really research this, because Trump and the Republicans, along with many Democrats want to cut Social Security payments, which is our equivalent to a basic pension. The Gemini ‘divide and conquer’ of the US personality is alive and thriving in its politics, foreign and domestic. One wonders what it will take to draw out the Aquarian soul of the nation.

A final Brexit note: To add one note to the UK’s exit from the EU, it is not an end to the matter of UK/EU relations. Nor was it an exit from a ‘super-state’. That the EU is not such a state will soon be apparent, for reasons to be outlined in a future letter. For now, it is in the interests especially of the UK and Germany to settle their trade deals quickly, otherwise both nations will suffer economically. I have read comments about the success of Brexit as being some sort of ‘a great victory over the left-hand path’, meaning the EU is some sort of evil construct. It is nothing of the sort. Still others saw Brexit as a victory for the left hand path. Materialism lives in every nation and political organization. It is alive and well in the UK and the US, too. The UK has not really solved its structural and economic problems by leaving, because those problems exist in the UK itself. Time will bear this out, and the truth will eventually emerge as to whether the UK was better out of the EU or not.

The leadership in the UK has forgotten why the UK joined the EU to start with. That being said, Boris Johnson may turn out to be some sort of ‘new Jacobin’, working to correct the inequalities between the regions in the UK. It’s a nice thought, compared to past coverage of him. It would be very good for the UK if he manages to do so, but it will meet with resistance from within his party unless they can see some sort of political/financial benefit from it. But addressing that issue would be in direct opposition to the Thatcherism of the past. His desire to address that may also simply be a play to domestic politics and be of no real substance. But every office has the capacity to draw out the soul of a person. So now, we all wait and see. The one thing his electoral win was a victory for, however, was a win for the ‘never Corbyn’ camp, i.e., against any sort of socialist policy in the UK. The battle between labor and capital goes on, yet to be resolved.

The ‘Never Bernie’ Movement: Americans are seeing a repeat of the UK elections in the Democratic Party primaries, with an ‘anyone but Bernie’ movement, its face being one Pete Buttigieg. It is a story to be watched. And Bernie supporters would do well to take lessons, both from their loss in 2016 (from which they apparently have not learned) and from Corbyn’s loss in the UK. It is the same for the Democratic Party as a whole in the US, but they increasingly appear to be a lost cause in their corporate, establishment wing. Just as was the case with Labour in the UK, the establishment Democrats have lost touch with their voter base. Only Bernie Sanders espouses the values for which the Democrats used to be known – left-leaning, championing the masses and working class, etc. There again, I will be doing a post on the election in the US in the months ahead. From what is emerging, unless Bernie wins the nomination to run against Trump, there is no one in the Democratic pool who could possibly stand against Trump. As is the case in the UK, the battle between labor and capital has been ratcheted up a few notches, and ‘socialism’ is a hot-button issue being pushed by neoliberals across party lines. A real crisis about the economic system in the US and UK is fast emerging, and in the EU as well.

Aquarian economics?: There is one final Aquarian initiative to be addressed before we close this letter out:

“The European Union and a group of 16 nations that includes China and Brazil are forming an alliance to settle their trade disputes using an appeals and arbitration system at the World Trade Organization to replace temporarily a process stymied by the U.S. “We will work towards putting in place contingency measures that would allow for appeals of WTO panel reports in disputes among ourselves,” according to the joint declaration posted by the European Commission. The development marks an advance of the EU’s backup plan for settling international trade disputes now that the WTO appellate body is paralyzed. The deal was reached among WTO delegates meeting at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Trump administration last year precipitated the paralysis of the WTO appellate body – which acted as a sort of supreme court for trade – by blocking all nominees to the seven-member panel.”

It is of interest to note that there are no American Directors-General in the WTO, and that the governing body itself is based in Switzerland. This new movement is in direct response to the Trump administration’s tariffs and intransigence toward any international organization that votes against its interests. The WTO has met with criticism in the past, for various reasons, but it has served pretty well in the past as an arbiter of trade agreements as well. Now that the UK has left the EU, it will be addressing grievances in trade disputes directly to the WTO, as it is no longer represented by the EU as a bloc. They are not a member of this new alliance, at least as of yet.

In addition to the EU, participants in the alliance include: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland and Uruguay.

The members of the alliance are notable, in that they have all had issues with the current US administration regarding trade. It is also notable that the WTO was founded in 1995, at the height of the neoliberal phase of the globalization movement. This new alliance comes under a direction (solar arc) of Jupiter to the organization’s horizon axis as well as a direction of Saturn to its Moon, the former taking place in its 3^rd house. That can be read as ‘siblings banding together in mutual benefit’, among many other readings. Saturn was directed to the WTO descendant when Trump took office, so difficulties were definitely in the works. We cannot go much into it here, but this development has bigger implications. The WTO was strongly affected by the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in its 4^th house, representing its member states, and took place on the organization’s Mercury/Uranus/Neptune conjunction. The WTO is now undergoing its own ‘end of an era’ moment.

The alliance is acting as a safety valve against US pressures, in a period of increasing ‘nervous tension’ worldwide. It also comes at a time when the economic order is becoming multipolar and with nations seeking to loose themselves from the yoke of the dollar, i.e., US manipulation of other nations’ finances. It is also of interest that both Canada and Mexico are in this alliance, seeing that the NAFTA treaty has just been renegotiated with the US, which suggests that all is not well with the renegotiated treaty. This will be another development to watch, because if more and more states join the alliance (It’s beginning to sound like a Star Wars movie) the WTO may have to be reorganized. That may well be, because in a couple of years Mars will be directed to the organization’s ascendant. Given financial instabilities in the US (despite what Trump says) and in Europe, a reorganization or at least a re-examination of world trade policies certainly looks to be on the cards.

In closing, changes in the world order are rapidly coming along, and quite nicely from a certain vantage point. The economic super-state that has been the Pax Americana of the past 70 years has held a large sway over international politics. And although it has been relatively peaceful for the West and certain other nations, it has not been so for lesser economies, as in Africa, South America and much of Asia. But the Aquarian impulse is getting stronger by the day, it would seem and the economic empire is losing its clout with its every attempt at strong-arming other nations economically and militarily. It is quite interesting to watch all this unfold. The Aquarian souls of Russia and of the US will eventually bring those two great nations back into rapport. And the Aquarian ascendant of China’s current national chart fits into that framework as well, as a pathway to its own Taurean soul. At the present moment, the Geminian personality of the US, seeking to divide and conquer, or to bring other nations under the umbrella of Washington’s idea of democracy, stands in the way of what could be a profound and needed Aquarian step forward at the end of this stage of the forerunner, which ends at 2025.

So, there are gains being made by nations outside the orbit of the West, and increased instability in the West itself, which is resulting in losses. One of the big losses felt by many British citizens and EU citizens alike with the Brexit saga was a sense of the loss unity in Europe, though that sense of decline has been coming on for several years now. This will be felt acutely as the months unfold by many people, within and outside the UK. As the old saying goes, you don’t realize what you have until it is gone. Yet for others, there is a sense of relief that the UK is out. And as for both the US and the UK, there will be deep self-examination taking place over the next couple of years. It is ‘in the stars’ for both nations. This can be a very healthy thing so long as it does not devolve into self-flagellation or aggrandizement, or obsession over the details as to ‘why’ such-and-such has happened. The UK election and Brexit saga, as well as the election taking place now in the US, are some of the catalysts for a deeper look into our collective governance, as well as increasing economic instability. The Iowa caucus and the acquittal of Trump in the US are signs of how the election is likely to go, with Trump emboldened and the Democrats in disarray.

The conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn has come and gone, not to come again for another 735 years. Some of us may not be around then, as in having to incarnate that far into the future. But if so, the Age of Aquarius will be in full swing then. Given how far we have come in a couple of centuries, the imagination boggles as to how the world will appear at that point. One wonders how historians of that epoch will view our present turmoil and pace of change. The next conjunction of those two planets will be in 2054 in Pisces, and that will mark an end to Piscean influence as we have known it, for the centuries ahead, and will likely see the institution of oil finally laid to rest as the major fuel source. It will also probably mark the coming of the ‘saving force’ – Pisces being the sign of the World Savior, or world salvation – that is mentioned in Alice Bailey’s books. That ‘saving force’ is the energy of the sun, but brought to earth. Read into that what you will.

Mention was made at the start of this letter about the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction – also known as the Great Conjunction – in Aquarius, and that it is rare in that sign. The last time it was there that I have investigated began with a series in 1226, ending in 1464. The conjunctions come in the same sign about every 60 years. Thomas Aquinas was born the year before, in 1225, who would go on to become one of the greatest philosophers of the Catholic faith. That 238 year period marked the flowering of the Renaissance in Europe and ended the Middle Ages with its last Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Aquarius. Perhaps we are about to see a ‘new Renaissance’ in the world, marked by the start of this conjunction in Aquarius. It will certainly give an added boost to the work of the world servers, and it will also mark a shift onto a more mental approach to matters rather than the morass of public emotion and divided opinion we see today.

We are advancing rapidly toward a completely different future out of the past we have known. These next few years, literally, will tell us if we get their peacefully or if we have to get there the hard way, as in a dystopian future. Frankly, I don’t see the latter. The materialists have lost their last chance at world domination. Their present gains are only temporary as the mass of people wake up to what reactionaries of this globe are up to. It is for each of us to hold firm in the light that humanity will progress, peacefully, that larger conflicts will be held at bay, and that the present upsetting scenes before us are only the healing crises that will open us to a healthier set of human relations and global environment into the future. Let us hold those thoughts in true Aquarian form – together and in compassionate friendship.

1. Bailey, Alice A., The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 531 ↑