28 Mar 2021

© Malvin Artley

 

Topics (linked to paragraphs): Alchemy in circumstance Anniversaries and remembrance What is normalaity? Idle hands Aries The full moon Not our finest hour Targeted initiatives Saturn and the US The end of the JCPOA(?) The Zionist problem Dialog or war? A period of reckoning America’s impasse The Ukraine The slander The Pope and the Ayatollah The Suez and Israel The Meghan and Harry show Tracking the special relationship A trip in Copenhagen A calmer road ahead

Happy Equinox Everyone!

The mountains surrounding Rovereto are now awash in a carpet of tiny violet, yellow and white flowers, with the ornamental cherry trees and tulip trees in full bloom as well, a welcome sight coming out of the cold of winter. Even though there is still the odd cold morning, the Aries equinox is here, with people looking forward to a better summer quarter across in the northern hemisphere than the one we experienced last year. It is good to be able to get out with the dogs and enjoy the changing scenery. And Rovereto has some pretty stunning vistas once one gets away from the city and up the trails leading out of the city. Sometimes those walks bring unexpected meetings, too.

Alchemy in circumstance: I didn’t know it until yesterday, but Rovereto has a resident herbalist, a small family business that has been passed down several generations. I’m not talking a retail herbalist with pre-packaged herbs and small bottles of various unguents and ointments. This particular shop is a bona fide European manufactory of herbal preparations. The reason we were there is because my wife has an annoying seasonal sinusitis – probably flower/pollen-related – and she needed a preparation for it. While out with the dogs, we stopped in. Thinking I was going to wait outside with our four-footed companions, I was pleasantly surprised to be invited in. Once inside (the dogs waited in the foyer) I thought I was in an old alchemist’s shop. There were glass laboratory apparati everywhere, some spinning and mixing formulae, others filled with herbs extracting tinctures and bottles lining the shelves will all description of Latin labels, with various herbs, spices, oils and tinctures. And then I come to find out the lady running the shop is a Buddhist practitioner, whose now-deceased teacher lived in Italy and briefly in Australia, and that she had studied pharmacology and Tibetan medicine. Well, you never know who you will meet while out doing mundane things and spending family time doing the rounds.

While we were waiting for the preparations and my wife and the lady were exchanging tales, I was taking in the scenery – the glass work and the processes, the old premises (It’s in the old historical part of the city), the wood-wormed desk at the checkout, the smells, pictures, family photos and Buddhist symbols that dotted the walls. I was sitting there trying to keep the dogs quiet, while wondering how in the world they made all the glasswork – real works of art combined with utility, those – occasionally interrupted in my reveries by the odd question about America and Australia. I doubt the grandfather who founded the business was a Buddhist. But such a place engaged my imagination and took me back to a time when this was pharmacology and the local herbalist was the go-to person for any sort of medicinal preparation. I could also imagine a homeopathist working out of such a shop. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn this lady had studied that, too. Perhaps I was an old alchemist in some past incarnation. I always had an interest in medicine. But all too soon it was time to go, with dogs to feed, back to ‘reality’, but at least I know where to go if I ever need a herbal remedy, or to have conversations about Buddhism and Dzogchen. But nature now is in its alchemical phase of change, and humanity is going through such a change, too, which we’ll have more of a look at later in this piece.

 Anniversaries and remembrance: This time last year marked an anniversary, one Italians would rather forget. The 9^th of March was the day the first nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus took place in Europe. Other nations were soon to follow suit. Italy was hit hard in the north with the virus. Many readers may remember the news reports of convoys of military trucks carrying coffins to the crematorium in Bergamo. That time seems so long ago now. On the news the other night they did a sort of remembrance reel of those days, fifty-two days in all with highlights of various cities across Italy – whole cities resounding with music as people sang and played instruments from their open windows, empty ghost-like streets, people playing sport between high-rise rooftops, the collective Zoom concerts, banners with “Andrà tutto bene” (All will go well) hanging out of windows, wild animals walking freely in city streets and social media posts of dolphins in the canals of Venice, the waters of which had not been so clear in years (there is another side to the Venice stories, too). And the air in Italy was clear. Some of those memories will be recalled fondly in years to come, but on the whole it was a hard experience. It was also a very strange experience. Now the streets are dotted with empty shopfronts with signs in the windows, “For Sale” or “For Rent” and posters emblazoned with the title “Basta!” (Enough! – with the lockdowns).

A great many people in so many nations did it tough in 2020, with some experiencing difficulties even today, still enduring lockdown situations. There are only a few regions here in Italy now experiencing conditions like those days a year ago. Here in our region life is pretty much as normal, aside from masks and the restrictions on travel outside of our city limits. We don’t travel that much anyway, so it is not so difficult on us. There are wooded areas nearby where we can escape. And the sun is out warming the city, and with the flowers blooming it all helps immensely with people’s moods. We see relief in sight, and it seems that the internet has calmed down with all the posts on remedies, information and disinformation about the virus, vaccines and related issues. Now we are seeing the old propaganda memes return, and the gaslighting by governments is being rolled out in earnest, at least in the Anglosphere.

What is normalaity?: Europe is experiencing its third wave of the virus, with many variants circulating through. So far here in Italy it is nothing like it was a year ago. People are accustomed now, they know what to do and only in the worst-affected regions do we hear about people lined up in ambulances outside hospitals, for instance, with regional hospitals overloaded. Protests here are few. It is the south of Italy that is doing it hard this time around. The elderly nationwide are being vaccinated and the health care crisis seems to be background noise rather than front page news. What we have now are the vaccine wars and politicization of it all. Vaccines are a $100 billion/year business. So much for compassionate, caring societies. The sense here is that life is slowly returning to a sense of normality, whatever that is. And that is the point: What is ‘normal’?

Buddhist philosophy has it right when they speak of impermanence, the fact that change can come drastically in a moment, with their teachings on the various types of suffering, one of them being the ‘suffering of change’. Yet, from the angle of the higher Self, this past year probably doesn’t even rate as the blink of an eye, seen from the eternal NOW of the soul’s perspective. Philosophy aside and living as human beings, however, the experiences of 2020 have changed our perspectives in a great many areas, with virtually nothing remaining untouched – friends, family, neighbors, groups, environment, leadership (or lack thereof) government, media – and on and on. Our world has been through significant changes, some of which are irreversible and some of which we will cover later in this piece and in letters throughout this year.

Idle hands: One of the dangers for governments and elites of keeping people at home for long periods,  speaking of changes, is that it leaves people with too much time on their hands, and people actually start to think about things, other than the thousand-and-one distractions of everyday life – as in, why am I stuck here at the house?? Who has mandated this? Why, when so many people are reporting the disease is not nearly so dangerous as reported by the authorities? Then, as is so often the case suspicions about ulterior motives for what has taken place arise. A few people with power and influence have in fact taken advantage of the situation, the pandemic has been politicized, as are so many carry-on effects from it. Why have the richest most capitalistic nations been so inept at handling the crisis, for example – a crisis that did not have to be so great? Note here the question relates to the ‘most capitalistic’ nations. Looking at these points, we can easily say a great reset is already taking place, but it is not the sort of reset we have heard so much about, as in what the WEF is proposing. It is an economic and geopolitical reset, which we will cover more in the next letter, but it will not go the way the WEF or the Western elites would prefer. No, the true reset is occurring in public opinion, and rebellion is rising. If there were factions within governments wanting to herd whole nations into compliance with lockdowns, propaganda blitzes, scare campaigns and such with a rebranding of our failing economics, then they shouldn’t have left people with too much time on their hands.

What we had with 2020 was an interruption in the normal running of our societies, and that has given people a lot of time to rethink how we all live our lives and what we actually want out of life. People are finding they do not necessarily want a return to ‘normal’. We are seeing mass migrations in the United States, for instance, out of the cities and to a quieter mode of living, away from high rents and living costs, away from the crowds, and away from ‘undesirables’ in one respect and violence in the cities also. I have heard the same from Ireland in another instance. That migration will change voting blocs dramatically in the coming years. The US, for instance, is becoming more ‘deplorable’ and ‘ungovernable’ as a result, and that may in fact be a good thing. We’ll discuss the US more extensively in the Gemini letter save for a few remarks here, as it is the biggest battleground for contrasting and conflicting ideas and ideals on Earth these days. What is decided there will determine international outcomes in the coming years to a large degree. Again, we’ll look at why in the next letters. But speaking of change, the sign Aries is one noted for its ability to inaugurate change, to upset established orders and to pioneer new initiatives and ways of thinking. We have certainly needed that fresh air and a different way to view the world. The past year has laid fertile ground for such thought, and this Aries period will sow many seeds of initiatives to sprout in the years between now and 2025.

Aries: With Aries each year we initiate the cycle of manifestation.[1] Outwardly that shows as intense desire to be and to do, to act, evidence of the action of the sign’s orthodox ruler, Mars. In the northern hemisphere, where much of our astrological lore evolved, Aries signals the return of yang force, the spring, showing as outward change, new structure, growth of forms and so forth. But the energy of Aries each year is largely subjective on the world stage, regarding humanity. Sure, we experience the changes in the season, but for human beings, the real growth in Aries is experienced in the mind, as the precursor to actions later, beginning psychological alchemy. We receive the mental and spiritual impulses for the year ahead, to work out into physical appearance in the months to follow. And the years all tend to overlap and to act as a continuum at the same time when it comes to spiritual impulses. Whatever is not completed in the present year carries on to the next and so on, all the while augmented by fresh impulses with each succeeding year.

 We know the Martian rulership of Aries very well, its orthodox ruler. What we don’t see are the subjective energies behind the sign, governed in the esoteric rulership by Mercury, and still further at a greater collective level by Uranus. But this combination of factors produces an unparalleled agent for change each year. And now, with Uranus in Taurus, Aries is bringing in the qualities and new thought that will redefine the ways in which we handle resources, conduct our economies and order our world. Aries is the sign which most fully demonstrates the influencing of spirit over matter, via the mind, hence its esoteric motto: “I come forth and from the plane of mind, I rule.”[2]

Uranus, the occult planet and the one which brings forward the urge to better spiritual conditions, operates at the highest level of Aries through Mercury in the Aries individual, producing the conflict between the soul and the personality and eventually bringing harmony between the two through that conflict. This in turn is expressed through Mars, which serves to manifest the new ideals, the conflict with the status quo, the energy to push through plans and the needed conflict to establish the new order.[3] Change rarely comes without some conflict, especially in the realm of human relations. From the plane of mind and through mental alchemy, along with the heat of Mars in the outer expression, Aries brings in the new each year, regardless of where one lives. Given there is so much to cover in this letter, as the news cycle has given evidence, we leave the further esoteric aspects of Aries for this year and get straight to the full moon and then to our Martian battlegrounds. As is becoming clear since Biden came to power, the final showdown is upon us.

The full moon takes place on 28 Mar 2021 at 18:48 UT, (5:58 am AEDT, 29^th March). There is a particular emphasis in this figure on adjusting to new circumstances. We find the Moon making a grand trine with Mars and Saturn, which is a wealth-producing combination, but at the same time with Saturn making a separating square from Uranus and the latter in quincunx with the Moon. One of the simplest readings of this combination is ‘changing fortunes’, and with the Saturn/Uranus square, we have fortunes, meaning fate as well as money, changing from the status quo toward something new. What that something new is will be discussed presently, keeping in mind this full moon sets the spiritual tone for the year. In addition, we have the Sun/Venus conjunction, discussed in the Aries ingress post, applying to a sextile with Saturn, giving a greater stability to financial interests, while also suggesting the steady application of diplomacy over overt warfare or conflict, ‘suggestion’ being the operative word.

Lastly, Mercury is conjunct Neptune, suggesting fanciful thinking, which is great for artists and story tellers, but not so great for detailed work, diplomacy or concentrated effort. In world affairs it will show as a lack of clarity and self-deception, or deliberate blurring of narratives to suit specific purposes. The conjunction is not integrated with the rest of the chart, and in Pisces it can show disputes over waterways and increased efforts at propaganda. There is a concerted attempt to steer public opinion now. This brings up the following trends in world affairs, and we have some quite interesting developments taking place, largely unreported in the mainstream, again going back to the Mercury/Neptune conjunction.

Before the US election last year, after the primaries had been done and dusted, I made a statement to a group with whom I was associated that the election had been decided. My statement to the group was an attempt to test the waters of the group-think. No one asked me what I meant, and one person countered with an emphatic NO, it has NOT been decided!, supplied with all sorts of graphs as to why Biden would win. This person missed the point. If anyone had bothered to ask, I would have explained the point I was making was that ‘the system’ would continue as before, regardless of who was elected. Such has been the case, disagree if you like, and we can track a consistent train of policy across each succeeding administration. Trump just put a different face on the same policies, which Biden is continuing, and taking even further now, just with ‘more presidential’ characteristics. The reason for pointing this out is what has taken shape since Biden took office, which has happened quicker than I had thought, though I am not surprised. And it is important because the US leads the Western world as to policy, though to a lesser extent since Trump, but still along similar lines. What is clear, at least from independent commentators, is that Western leaders want a definitive showdown with the rising powers in various regions to shore up and continue the status quo on what the West has led in the past decades. With these points in mind, we start our investigations for this round with the following events which have recently taken place, or which are developing. Not all of them will be discussed here:

• China’s coming launch of its national cryptocurrency in cross-border payments, along with a new silicon chip factory and other recent developments in technology there. They just rolled out their latest 5-year plan.
• A power vacuum developing in the United States, with a decided lack of statesmanship
• Biden decides against rejoining the JCPOA, and keeping all of ‘Trump’s’ foreign policy
• Recent statements from Blinken on US foreign policy. Nothing has changed in Washington, except…
• The tacit admission by the US it can no longer enforce its will militarily. This is a very big deal, and is actually quite a good development
• Troops to stay in the Middle East and Afghanistan
• The recent big ‘cyberattack by China’ and other mischief by those pesky Chinese
• A pending security agreement between Russia and Iran
• The pending completion this year of a major pipeline project in Iran
• The Pope’s visit to Iraq, though historic, which did not all go to everyone’s wishes
• Russian air strikes on clandestine oil depots in Syria, shades of 2015, and air strikes in Idlib
• Developments in the Ukraine that will probably seal that nation’s fate
• Condemnation of ICC investigations into Israeli crimes against humanity and what that means
• The real meaning behind Meghan and Harry’s Oprah moment

There are several items in the above list that are grouped together, and in fact, most of them are interrelated, as we will see. What follows is a long read, but these events need watching as to their development over time, because they show a trend for what is to come between now and 2025. That trend is related to the West, capitalism, different economies and the shift from Pisces into Aquarius.

Not our finest hour: Simply put, there is a growing sense of urgency or even desperation among  Western elites and establishments, especially in the US and the UK, and to a lesser extent in the Western EU. The financial crisis of 2008 marked a definitive turning point in the destiny of neoliberal capitalism. We will cover this more in the next letter. What that crisis has produced in the West has been economic stagnation, increasing austerity, rapidly rising income inequality and degradation in services. People who are fortunate enough to have savings in a bank know that banks are paying virtually nil for one to have one’s money there. Banks and economists call it ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) and it is supposed to stimulate the economy. It has stimulated huge rises in stock and property prices, but that does not benefit the average citizen. Evidence says otherwise and people are starting to wake up to it. Instead, we get increasing austerity.

QE has another name, which we might call ‘theft’. QE has resulted in the degradation of our social services, and we have no better evidence of that than in the West’s response to the COVID pandemic. We won’t go over all that here, having covered it last year. Suffice it to say, the public across the West is less than amused and is starting to demand changes. We are seeing restiveness and revolts now against government and economic policy, and this has the elitist factions in Western states alarmed. People need to be distracted from their focus on the poor performance of their home states as a result, or so the elitists think. So, foreign enemies are trotted out, reporting against the official lines are being ‘deplatformed’ – our newest word for censorship – and we are being offered a new ‘fix’ for our woes, in the form of ‘sustainable resources’, creating green jobs and a so-called 4^th industrial revolution – neoliberal capitalism rebranded. Same cereal, different box. All this has brought us to a critical juncture.

Unless some big, collective action is taken by the West against Asian nations, including Russia to push back their obvious progress and to restore or shore up current Western economic and foreign policy now, as in the next year or two, the collective West is facing the loss of its preeminence in power, economic clout and, as has already happened, its ‘soft power’. Our glossy image to the world, that of prosperity and high ideals has been shown to be false. And the pandemic has brought the world to the realization that the old Empire has no clothes. Attention is turning rapidly to Asia for economic growth, political stability and opportunity. This call for collective action being trumpeted by the US and a few other Western states is meeting with a milquetoast reaction across the Global North. The Global South, on the other hand, sees the matter clearly as well as the West’s intentions and is getting on with its business, is growing in cooperation with like-minded states and is looking at the West askance. And some European states are starting to view their old fellow states in the same manner. Biden may say, “America is back!” but it is met with little enthusiasm in Europe, which states are essential to the US if it wants to pursue its stated goals of ‘countering autocracy’ and ‘promoting democracy’ in the world. And that brings us to our topics of interest.

Targeted initiatives: The main areas of targeted initiatives that will arise, starting in the Aries-to-Cancer quarter, revolve around West Asia and in the Ukraine, which directly implicates the United States. One of the most revealing developments in recent weeks regarding US policy was a statement made by Anthony Blinken, followed by certain actions of the Biden administration, which have set a train of events into motion. A key part of his speech is in the following lines:

“…we will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well-intentioned [??], they haven’t worked. They’ve given democracy promotion a bad name, and they’ve lost the confidence of the American people. We will do things differently.”

 Emphases added. Democracy promotion? It is not only the American people who have lost confidence in such past policy, it is the entire Western world, except for perhaps the UK. And the bit about ‘democracy promotion’ is Pentagon-ese double-speak. When it comes to doing things differently, Washington is not known for being able to change its direction. But note the wording of the quote carefully. This is actually an admission, that military intervention is no longer an option for the US to use in pursuit of its interests, especially alone. Instead, the focus over the next four years will be on an attempt to rebuild the alliances the US has particularly relied upon in the past to enforce foreign policy militarily – except the Europeans are not buying into it. The fact those alliances were being strained under Trump was a big reason why he was ousted. China is now Europe’s main trading partner and Europe relies on Russian energy to keep its industry running and its households heated. The main focus of Blinken’s speech was on China and Russia, his so-called authoritarian regimes. We’ll discuss authoritarian ‘regimes’ in the next letter. But for now, instead of military force, what will this mean, and does it really mean that military force will not be applied in ‘problem areas’? Well, we have already seen the answer to that, with the airstrikes in Syria last month. Actually, they were in Iraq, which will mean further strikes against American bases in Iraq, as we just saw. And this demonstrates why American military action is ineffective, and for other reasons, too. Such strikes are in concert with increases in sanctions in an effort to kill Nord Stream II, and some of the appalling statements and ‘intelligence’ being rolled out against Russia.

Following on the American strikes in Iraq in February, which killed 22 Iraqis, and who were of mixed Islamic sects as well as Christians, there was a missile attack on the Al Asad air base in Iraq, which caused the death of a contractor from heart attack. But here is a point worth considering and which goes to Blinken’s statements, preceding: The American missile defenses at the Al Asad air base did not stop the rockets, and they were precise hits, meaning there is a new, deadlier version of said rockets. What this means is that the soldiers stationed at bases in Iraq and across the region are sitting ducks against a swarm of such rockets, hostage to Pentagon policies, and Iraqis have thousands of those rockets. Such strikes are ‘gentle nudges’ by Iraqis to get Americans and other foreign forces out of Iraq. To subdue such attacks would require troops – lots of them – and the American public has lost the stomach for it.

Over the next few years we will see a slow exit of US forces from Iraq by attrition, forced out by constant badgering by such Iraqi strikes. It is a tactic of constantly wearing the forces down and killing morale instead of soldiers, to the point where Washington will seek some sort of face-saving exit. That face-saving exit is what the Beltway was attempting during Trump’s term with the attempt of an ‘Arab NATO’ and normalization of Israeli-Arab relations. It is what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Iraqis don’t necessarily want the Iranians in their country either, at least in any great number. So, this idea that all attacks against Americans in the region are ‘Iranian-backed’ that we hear is nonsense. The Iraqis themselves want all occupying forces out of their territory, which is what American forces there actually are. They may be there at the behest of some Iraqis, but the average Iraqi citizen will be happy to see us leave. To understand US foreign policy, we turn to the national chart of the US.

Saturn and the US: There is a singular astrological aspect in the American national chart which describes American foreign policy and why said policy never seems to change or adapt. That aspect is the natal Sun-Saturn square in the independence chart. That aspect is one of the singular most powerful aspects when it is found in a chart. It gives a strongly-marked ambition and it is found in the charts of many highly successful people. It also exhibits as arrogance and defiance, as well as a tendency to an inability to bend and adapt to circumstance once success has been achieved. It is the indicator in the US chart of the American sense of exceptionalism, its national arrogance when dealing with foreign powers, its insistence on standing and appearing tough in the face of every twist and turn of destiny and why it can never admit defeat. The aspect marks a person or a nation as being one who will ride a willing horse to death, or go down with all guns blazing as the ship sinks, to use the colloquialisms. This is the kid who will never cry ‘Uncle!’ and would rather be seen as one who ‘fought the good fight’ than to appear as a weakling, when instead better sense would say to abandon the fight. But this is precisely what America is facing now, when Uncle Sam needs to say “Uncle” and tend to matters at home instead. As it stands, looking past the pandemic and last year, America is at an impasse, along with the collective ‘West’.

To illustrate the hubris of American foreign policy, we have the recent statements by Robert Kagan, one of the neocon architects of the PNAC, which led us into our two endless wars in support of our ‘democratic liberal order’:

The messy truth is that in the real world, the only hope for preserving liberalism at home and abroad is the maintenance of a world order conducive to liberalism, and the only power capable of upholding such an order is the United States.

Do the other nations of the world not have a say in that world order? Or must the United States dominate and dictate the terms? Do those terms apply across the world? And of what type of liberalism is Kagan speaking? Woke liberalism? Neoliberalism? True liberalism? Free trade liberalism? The title of his piece was “A Superpower, Like It or Not: Why Americans Must Accept Their Global Role”. We also might question what sort of ‘real world’ he inhabits. Twenty years ago we, meaning the West, may have been able to enforce such a world order. That is no longer the case today, especially if we try to enforce such liberalism in another nation’s littoral waters.

The end of the JCPOA(?): The preceding points about the American chart bring us to a prime example of American foreign policy and its need to appear tough, as well as its inability to bend with circumstances – Iran and the JCPOA, which Biden just scuttled any chances for re-entering. He did so by renewing the sanctions for another year, saying Iran continues to pose, “…an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” That statement is more Pentagon-ese double-speak, but also very revealing. Pray tell, how is Iran presenting an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US? Now Biden is trying to tie sanctions relief to human rights, a favorite rallying cry for our neoliberal West. His statements are simply rank hypocrisy, as US sanctions against Iran have had a devastating effect on Iran’s economy and are, in effect, economic warfare, which have led to the deaths of thousands of Iranians. The Iranians see that hypocrisy and will continue their uranium enrichment, now maybe up to 60% from 20%, which has the Israeli leadership up in arms, threatening to bomb the Iranian reactors. Perhaps the Israelis have a death wish. Or is it more to increase US arms and aid donations to Israelis? The Israelis know Iran has no intention of building the bomb. Their hyperbole about it is a distraction and a scam, distracting the world from their treatment of the Palestinians, aside from their aims at extortion.

 The Iranians do not take the Israeli threats seriously anyway, though they are prepared for any eventuality. But they probably rightly state that, “Such rhetoric…is aimed at threatening and extorting money from the United States [and] is meant to dissuade America from returning to the JCPOA.” That is worth paying attention to, because Americans and Europeans routinely face emotional blackmail from Israel and Arab states. It appears the Israelis will get their wish, for money, for weapons and even maybe for their destruction. If the latter seems harsh, think it through, because the influence of Israel over Western powers, especially in the US and UK is shameful. And there is a hidden story behind that, which we will never hear in the mainstream.

The Zionist problem: This entire scenario between Iran and Israel puts one in mind of what Alice Bailey called ‘the Jewish problem’[4], except it is not a Jewish problem, per se. It is a problem of Zionism, aggravated by Christian fundamentalism which sees Israel as a sort of Biblical prophecy fulfilled and by Western geopolitical interests, chiefly concerning trade routes and control of resources in the region. Israel was established for and is used as a front for Western interests, which we will get to. If the Israelis were to bomb Iran, the Iranians told them flatly what would happen. In a short time Tel Aviv and Haifa would be reduced to rubble. It is probably unwise to test the statement, given Iran has openly retaliated against the US for the assassination of Soleimani. To put it in other terms, the Middle East would become a catastrophic war zone if Israel were to attack Iran, which nobody in their right mind really wants. Everyone in West Asia knows it, too, which is why much of what we hear out of the region is simple posturing and empty threats. The US would then have to respond to any strikes against Israel, and given what has happened in recent missile strikes against American bases, the result would be too terrible for all concerned. One of the best places to meditate for, if peace is to prevail, is the avoidance of war in West Asia, and for the Zionists – Christian and secular Zionists as well – to be reined in. The solution to problems in West Asia is actually quite simple, yet difficult of attainment – neighbors must make peace with neighbors, on an equal basis, with their sovereignty intact. That will take a while yet, but a crisis there is at hand which may force the trend.

Dialog or war?: What is starting to become apparent, if it has net been so already, is that the Arab States and Iran – and Israel, eventually – need to start a real, open dialog about regional security, one that respects the sovereignty of each of the individual states and which de-escalates tensions in the region. That dialog is in direct contradiction to some sort of ‘Arab NATO’, which Trump was seeking to affect. And such a dialog has to be free of Western interference. The US and Israel will give dialog lip service but in reality will oppose it. They exert their control in the region through stoking instability. That instability also lends itself to arms sales – American arms sales. It has become increasingly dangerous for the surrounding states to continue to harass Iran and Syria, though, and to continue the humanitarian catastrophe of the war in Yemen, to continue to keep Iraq destabilized and occupied, and so on.

It is no doubt a bitter irony for the foreign policy planners in the Beltway, the UK and the EU that the sanctions regime against non-conformist states, like Iran and Russia for instance, has had the opposite effect of that intended – which was to weaken said states and force capitulation to the Western rules-based order or even regime change toward Western-friendly regimes. Instead, the sanctioned nations (and there is a significant list) have turned inwards, examined their own native resources and built upon them, in turn strengthening their resolve, their cooperation with like-minded states, their infrastructure and their national pride. Since 2014 when sanctions were placed upon Russia for Crimean secession to Russia, for instance, Russian progress in self-sufficiency has been spectacular. Russia produces nearly all of its needs internally now, has paid off almost all of its debt and is a net exporter rather than relying on imports, which latter was the case at the turn of this century. Iran is fast approaching the same sort of self-sufficiency due to the withering sanctions placed upon it by successive US administrations since the Iranian revolution in 1979. As was recently stated about Russia, “It is so easy to live when you don't owe anything to anyone and you don't need anything from anyone.” That is where Russia has arrived in the past few years, and why it no longer needs Europe to survive. If Nord Stream II remains unfinished, it is a blow to Europeans, an act of self-sabotage, but will be a mere bump in the road for Russia, who has read the proverbial writing on the wall and has turned its attention eastward, where it is increasingly building friendships and trade relations.

We need to be clear about what is at stake with Iran, though. Just to note, Uranium enrichment up to 20% is called ‘reactor grade’, which is what Iran has now, whereas anything over is called ‘weapons grade’ uranium. So, that further enrichment will be rolled out as Iran seeking the bomb, whereas in reality it is the Iranian version of emotional blackmail. More than one can play that game. The Iranians do not want the bomb. Such talk by them of increasing enrichment over 20% is their way of applying pressure. But there is a particular reason the US is keen to have Iran re-enter compliance with the JCPOA, yet the US insists, to its own detriment, that Iran re-enter compliance unilaterally prior to the US taking any action. That reason is because Iran is so quickly gaining its independence from the West and its own self-sufficiency. As an example, they will complete a project this year that will guarantee a means by which to bypass US sanctions and allow it to sell its oil to neighboring states unhindered, which will greatly enhance its financial position, in turn weakening the influence of the Saudis and other Gulf States via their control of oil pricing. That project is the Goreh-Jask pipeline, which completely  bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and will supply oil and gas directly, without the need for shipping via bulk tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. That will be a big strategic blow to the Beltway and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, who rely on the Strait of Hormuz to ship their oil and to control Iran. In the event of an attack on Iran, that pipeline would enable Iran to shut off the Strait and still be able to ship its own oil. There are Iranian plans for other pipelines as well.

Iran is building the Goreh-Jask pipeline with 96% of domestically-produced material and knowhow. It is a source of great national pride for them. The Iranians now see no particular need to re-enter compliance with the JCPOA. One of the main reasons for the JCPOA in the first place was to place international inspectors in Iran and to keep Iran tied to the West financially, with the threat of sanctions against Iran held as a sword of Damocles over the nation for failure to comply. That plan behind the JCPOA has failed completely. The pipeline is due to be operational by mid-year, which gives us a certain timeline of events we see unfolding. Another pipeline that has the Beltway up in arms is the Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline, a.k.a. the ‘Peace Pipeline’. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, says of such plans, “Indian and Pakistani policymakers are turning to energy deals with unsavory regimes, such as Iran's.” It is called an unacceptable risk to regional security. Whose security, we might wonder? The Iranian link is complete. The problem with completion is fear of American sanctions on the part of Pakistan. However, China had inked a deal with Pakistan to complete the pipeline. It remains incomplete, but it would be yet another way Iran could supply energy to the region, including China, without having to ship through the Strait of Hormuz, in addition to bypassing US sanctions. India has pulled out of the deal. Pakistan faces dire energy shortages and relies heavily on Iran for power and gas. Government ministers are pressing for Khan to complete the pipeline, but American and Saudi interests are also applying pressure. So, the great pipeline game in geopolitics continues. However, this plays into the JCPOA saga.

 Returning to the JCPOA, certain high-ranking Israeli officials are now saying the US and Iran should re-enter the JCPOA, in distinction to the hard line Netanyahu has held toward the agreement. Perhaps these officials are seeing the light and have better sense than Bibi, who is using the ‘threat’ of Iran to keep himself in power and out of jail. One of the main failings in the JCPOA from the Israeli perspective is that it did not address Iran’s missile defenses. Since Trump pulled the US out of the deal, having Iran’s missile defenses as a big reason for doing so, Iran has achieved a very formidable set of defenses, and in the past two years especially. Instead of the JCPOA getting rid of the one big worry (nuclear capabilities) with Iran, it has produced many thousands of other ones, as in cheap and massively produced suicide drones, thousands of ground-hugging precision cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with thousands of kilometers in range. The fact Iran has no viable air force by means of which it could project its forces outside the nation shows that its missiles are defensive in nature. The problem is, the Shia forces aligned with Iran have been supplied with said munitions en masse; can now produce them themselves and Israel and other Gulf States now face the unenviable position of being targeted by those missiles and drones if they decide to have a go at Iran militarily. If any one of those Shia forces is attacked now, all of them go all-in and the region would go up in flames. That brings us back to the topic of this heading and what is to become of the next few months.

A period of reckoning: There is only a window of a few months at most for Western establishments to decide their course for the immediate future regarding energy policy and regional security. For their part, the US and UK want to be at the head of the table, deciding the fate of the region of West Asia. It will either be war or acceptance of a new order in the region, one based in dialog between the nations involved. The Biden administration has already decided that theater is to be war, if that is to be the case, with its recent bombing of the Syria-Iraq border crossing. This was meant to ‘send a message’ to both Syria and Iran. This was followed quickly by Israeli missile strikes on the Damascus airport, all of which were shot down by the Syrian forces. The single new Iranian pipeline will enable Iran to export one million barrels of oil a day, nearly half of what was lost when Trump pulled out of the JCPOA and re-imposed sanctions. It is not Iran’s nuclear capabilities that concern the Western and Gulf powers. It is Iran’s ability to export its oil and retain its sovereignty, power and regional status. There are several aspects to what is at stake.

If/when Iran achieves its goals of eliminating the need for ships to transport its oil – a goal it is fast achieving – it will have several effects. It will increase energy security for southern EU states and for Turkey, who has been engaging increasing rapprochement with Iran. That in turn will reduce the leverage the US has on Europe regarding energy needs. It will also decrease the leverage and income derived by other Gulf States from the sale of their own oil. The Saudis will be particularly hard-hit by increasing Iranian clout on the world stage. There are already furtive talks between the Saudis and Iranians outside of earshot of the Beltway. Such rapprochement between the Saudis and Iran would also increase pressure on Israel, because a Sunni-Shia thawing of relations removes a strategic wedge that has been wielded against various groups in the region. There is a similar thawing of relations between Iran and Pakistan, with a heating of relations between the Saudis and Pakistan, and all of this plays well for Russian and Chinese interests for a greater Eurasian integration, which is the single biggest fear for the establishment in Washington.

What we see with West Asia is increasing desperation – perhaps not too strong a word – on the part of the Beltway, the British and the Gulf States to retain the positions of dominance they have held for decades. In the past, if they could not do so via diplomacy, then war would have been the end result, based on past historical precedent. And in the past, the West would have probably prevailed. That is not the case any longer. What will come out of Washington now is a lot of posturing and ‘messaging’ toward Iran, who is cast as the main villain in the region. But unless we want to avoid a catastrophic escalation in tensions, the message is becoming clear: Israel and the Gulf States will have to make peace with Iran and learn cooperation instead of threats. The American public has no stomach for fighting Iran for either Israel or Saudi Arabia. And without the military backing of the US, there will be no wider war in West Asia. Iran would emerge as the dominant power if that were to happen, with the other states left to rebuild themselves. 2021 will mark a definitive shift in West Asian relations. The Trump administration was attempting to build a sort of ‘Middle East NATO’ with the intention of forcing Iran to the table. But with Biden in power the effort will be to reinstitute the real NATO alliances with the aim of pressuring the ‘belligerent states’ on a multi-fronted basis, one which the Europeans are wisely sidestepping. Apparent with the favored enemies of the US is the triumph of the human spirit to rise in spite of difficulties, to reinvent oneself and to move forward with greater confidence in having done so.

America’s impasse: We will discuss the US more in the Gemini letter, given its personality is ruled by Gemini. However a couple of statements are in order as a preview. We all know now the US is facing significant internal pressures, all for the most part the result of domestic policies, economic policy, a lack of tax revenue and legislated corruption. America is at an impasse. We face a choice in the US: Preserve the union or preserve the empire? To do both is no longer possible, and to even preserve the latter is well-nigh impossible as it stands now. To attempt to do so would take a terrible toll on American citizens, and would probably fail anyway, given what has just been discussed above. Great myths die hard, one of them being that liberal democracy is a moral imperative for the world and that America is the guardian of said order. And the myth of American invincibility is dying such a death in the Middle East, along with the myths held by some of the states in that region. Moving on from West Asia, we need to look at the Ukraine.

The Ukraine: Most readers will know that Biden was instrumental in provoking and stoking the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev. That coup ousted a Russia-friendly PM and led to the fractious state of affairs we see in Ukraine now. And because of what has transpired there, neither the EU nor Russia particularly want anything to do with the Ukraine. But since Washington cannot seem to be able to leave well enough alone, instead doubling down on policy, the US has recently approved the sale of $600 million in patrol boats to Ukraine, along with an additional $250 million in weapons sales. Ukrainian forces are beginning to mass heavy military equipment on the borders of the Donbass. Meanwhile, Ukrainian pensioners live on a pension of about $50 a month. I have heard that personally from a Ukrainian national, confirmed by other sources. In addition, an American general heading a NATO delegation was just in Ukraine discussing NATO cooperation with Ukrainian national armed forces, pointing out, “…NATO and the Allies saw Ukraine as a strategic and predictable partner aiming to become a full-fledged member of the world's most powerful collective security system.” Russia has flatly stated if Ukraine tries to join NATO it will cease to be a state. At a joint press conference during the visit the delegation and Ukrainians laid out a 12-point plan for dealing with further ‘Russian aggression’, including the eventual return of Crimea to Ukraine.

 What is taking place in Ukraine now may be posturing, but it would seem to be otherwise. The information war has already started. Probably the most comprehensive analysis of the situation there is by Andrei Raevsky, the Saker. One of the biggest contributing factors leading to such tension is the fact that Ukraine is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, and Zelensky’s polling has dropped precipitously. The Ukrainian military is in no shape to take on the Donbass. It would appear the US is seeking to provoke a military response from Russia based upon some contrived incident, which would then be cast as Russian aggression and which would finally cut Russia out of the EU via sanctions, cuts in diplomatic relations and so on. It would also give the West a good taste of the capabilities of the Russian military. If it were ever to come to that (we hold the thought it won’t), the probable result would be that Ukraine would disintegrate, with eastern and southern regions being under Russian control, western Ukraine being under Polish control and southwest Ukraine going to the Romanians. Ukraine would likely break up into three states –  Galicia, Volyn and Little Russia. And now we really do need to talk about Russia.

The slander: Joe Biden just made one of the biggest blunders of his presidency in his interview with George Stephanopoulos. One would like to think his statements about Vladimir Putin were a simple gaffe. You know the gaffe in question – the one where Biden stated Putin was a killer and that he has no soul. What statesman says a thing like that? The Russian ambassador was immediately recalled to Moscow for discussions. Statements like that are what one hears when one nation wants to go to war with another, demonizing the other nation’s leader. This marks the lowest point I have seen in US-Russian relations in memory. And Putin’s response to the comments? – he wished Biden good health, without any irony. But there is more to what he said, and it is worth reading the highlights. The Western press has typically grossly misreported it. You can see a video of his entire response (with subtitles):

There are 'quite a few honest, decent and warm-hearted people' in the United States who want to live in peace and friendship with Russia. 'We are aware of that, and we value that, and we will rely on them in the future, As for the US [political] establishment, the ruling class, its consciousness was shaped in a well-known and rather difficult environment.

There have been many difficult, dramatic, and bloody events in the history of each nation. But when we assess other people, when we assess other states, other peoples, we are always looking in the mirror. We always see ourselves there. The American governing class was formed in the age of the conquest of the continent by Europeans, which was linked to elimination of the local population, this was direct genocide of Indian tribes.

Moscow will cooperate with Washington only on terms it finds favorable. The US authorities in general seek certain relations with us but only in areas the US interested in, and on their own terms. Although they think we are the same, we are different people. We have different genetic, cultural, and moral codes... They will have to live with that despite all the attempts to hinder our development. Regardless of sanctions and insults, they will have to live with that."

So, who is the statesman, then, Biden or Putin? And speaking of statesmanship, we saw further examples from the US side at the Alaska summit with China, with a war of words between the US and Chinese sides, again misreported in the West, especially regarding human rights claims. In the past the Chinese have let the US allegations slide to an extent, but now they are having none of it and are pointing out the human rights abuses taking place in the US, much like the Russians are beginning to do as well. And there was a piece left out of the US transcript of the exchanges between the two sides. From the Chinese: “History will prove that if you use cutthroat competition to suppress China you will be the one to suffer in the end.” US media coverage of the event made mention of the conscious decision on the part of the American government that the Chinese had to go to the US for the meeting. It is not only US-Russian relations that are at a low point, it is also US relations with China and Iran as well.

Prior to the Alaska meeting, the US had its meeting with the other QUAD members – Japan, Australia and India, headed by the US – which is a key part of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. We see the three areas, then, where the US will be focused in its foreign policy, given all the preceding – Iran, Russia and China – and the main thrust of it will revolve around pontificating about human rights and democracy, along with sanctions and aggressive cyber and information warfare. Given what has happened in the US and the collective West over the past months, American exceptionalism is not going to fly this time around.

The Russians and the Chinese will have their own bilateral meeting next week, where it is expected they will forge even closer cooperation on various issues, and then there is a pending Iranian-Russian security agreement, which if secured will essentially seal the Asian landmass from any military interference by outside powers. There is also a possible deal developing, spearheaded by Russia, that would end the wars in Syria and Yemen, see Syria readmitted to the Arab League, as well funding for it reconstruction. It would be a trade-off deal, meaning Iran and Hezbollah would leave Syria in exchange for the Arab states readmitting Syria to the Arab League and funding its reconstruction. If that were to eventuate, then the Saudis would have to agree to end the war on Yemen. None of this would involve Israel, but it would at the same time put the Israelis on notice they could no longer conduct bombing raids in Syria. Nor would Hezbollah or Iran disarm. It would be a master stroke of diplomacy if it were to come to pass, but it would also be very much to the dismay and consternation of Western powers and the Israelis, because it would bring stability to the region and leave Iran and Hezbollah intact and powerful. We could probably expect such a deal to meet with many obstacles and a flurry of ‘diplomatic’ missions to the Gulf States by the US in the interim, with increasing instability in Lebanon and more sanctions to be placed on Iran.

The Pope and the Ayatollah: Then there was the historic visit by the Pope to Iraq last month. As was stated, “By any historical measure, it was a game-changer: the first meeting since the 7th century  between a Roman Catholic Pope and a Shiite spiritual leader regarded as a “source of emulation.” In a statement after the meeting between Pope Francis and Ayatollah Sistani, the Pope had this to say on the flight back to the Vatican, citing the linked article:

“Ayatollah Sistani has a saying, I hope to recall it properly: ‘Men are either brothers by religion or equal by creation.’” Francis sees the bridging of this duality also as a cultural journey.

The article goes on to state:

He qualified the meeting with Sistani as delivering a “universal message,” and praised the Grand Ayatollah as “a sage” and “a man of God”: “Listening to him, one cannot but notice it. He’s a person who carries wisdom and also prudence. He told me that for over ten years he has not received ‘people who come to visit me but have other political aims.’” The Pope added:

“He was very respectful, and I felt honored, even in the final salutations. He never stands up, but he did, to salute me, twice. A humble, and wise, man. It felt good to my soul, this meeting.”

A glimpse of the warmth was revealed in this image, absent from Western mainstream media – which, to a large extent, tried to gaslight, sabotage, ignore, black out or sectarianize the meeting, usually under barely disguised layers of “Shiite threat” propaganda.

They did that because, at the core, Francis and Sistani were delivering an anti-war, anti-genocide, anti-sectarian, and anti-occupation message, which cannot but incur the wrath of the usual suspects.

The Pope has recently written to Ayatollah Shirazi in Iran. Tehran keeps an ambassador in the Vatican and has collaborated for years on scientific research protocols. This pilgrimage, though, was all about Iraq. Unlike those of the West, the media of the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon) gave it wall-to-wall coverage.

The Pope desired to have a joint statement with the Grand Ayatollah Sistani condemning the violence in Iraq. Instead, Sistani:

…grasped the opportunity of the Pope’s visit to send a clear message to all Iraqis and the leaders of the Middle East and the West. His communiqué contained an implicit message also to the Pope, and several “No (s)”:

No To besieging populations: This is a position and a criticism against the US…putting an end to rumours that the Iraqis wanted the US to stay in Iraq despite the Parliament’s decision to seek to enforce the US’s departure.

No to violence: this is a message that is also on its way…to the US, which is killing and bombing the Iraqis. It is also directed towards the Iraqi government, which must respect Iraq’s people and avoid the recurrence of violence.

No to injustice: A message for the Iraqi leaders, who ignore the injustices the Iraqi people have suffered from since Saddam Hussein’s rule continuing to the US

No to normalisation with Israel

For any Western observer who was hoping the Pope’s visit would somehow calm tensions between the West and Iraqis and allow for more dialog between the West and Iraq, Sistani’s message was plain enough: NO! There is something foundational here which is very helpful to understand, as to why there is so much violence in West Asia, why all the emphasis on anti-Semitism at the moment, why the Israeli lobbies are so powerful on the US, UK and to a lesser extent in the EU and why there has been so little movement – in fact retrogression – in the resolution of the plight of the Palestinians and the wars in Yemen and Syria. That understanding relates to the following:

 The Suez and Israel: Seldom mentioned, if ever, as to why the Western governments keep their undying and often fawning support of the Zionist regime in Israel, and why there is such a focus on ‘rooting out’ anti-Semitism (or so it is called) in every aspect of Western societies, is a little stretch of water, over which a battle was fought in 1956. We refer here to the Suez Canal. It is one of the primary geostrategic reasons why the state of Israel was created. The real reason the USA, Europe and Britain keep defending Israel is not for any love of Judaism or because of the Holocaust. It is because Israel is used as a base for protecting the shipping that comes through the Suez Canal. It is the real reason why billions of dollars a year are poured into the coffers of Israeli defenses and why weapons sales to Israel are rarely, if ever disputed. It is also why we will never see a resolution of the Palestinian ‘situation’ as it was recently called, until the Zionist regime falls. In fact, the Western powers would have no real love lost for the Palestinians if they were to just simply disappear. It would ensure that the Zionist regime would remain intact. For in fact, if Palestinians ever gained an upper hand in Israeli politics it would send shock waves through Western governments, because Israel might then turn its interests toward surrounding states instead of protecting Western interests. So now we come to an even larger point: So long as Big Oil remains a dominant factor in world trade and China and Iran must ship their goods to Europe through the Suez, Israel will remain as the state it has always been and will be supported – no matter what – by Western governments.

For the reasons mentioned in the preceding paragraph, Port Said, which lies at the mouth of the Suez Canal, receives a mention in Alice Bailey’s books – “a meeting place for the evil of three continents”.[5] Port Said was constructed in 1859 as a part of the construction of the current Suez Canal. The city was founded by the ruler of Egypt at the time, Sa’id Pasha of Egypt, on Easter Monday, the 25^th of April that year, even though it is cited as being ruled by Capricorn in Esoteric Astrology.[6] The Suez has an interesting history, stretching back many centuries, as it has been attempted again and again to keep it open as a trade route. It became very important to the British in the 19^th century when they became the world hegemon, as a link between the Mediterranean and India, cutting the transit time from months down to days between Britain and India and points further east. For the same reason the British have such an interest in the Suez, they also have an interest in keeping Gibraltar. The importance of that little stretch of water is about to change very significantly, given developments in West Asia and China’s BRI discussed above. It is also why the war on Yemen will not be ending any time soon. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a map can say as many words yet again.

Perhaps, given all the preceding points, we begin to get a picture of what is transpiring, what is so quickly changing, a sense of a timeline, and why we see so much negative propaganda being projected at us, as well as the censorship on social media. The Western elites have very little time to forestall the unification and progress of the greater Eurasian landmass, thus ending the West’s dominance in world affairs over the last centuries. Since the entry of Uranus into Taurus and the two major synodic conjunctions we had last year, along with the outer manifestation of the first conjunction, of Saturn and Pluto, we have the geopolitical balance of power changing very quickly. The economic situation is following very quickly on that, too, since the economics and the power base are so intertwined. And we haven’t even gone into domestic politics in key nations. But the shifting political state of play in each nation will also determine outcomes in economics, alliances and indeed whether or not a few governments even survive in their present manifestations. The US, for instance, is facing very serious internal challenges, as is the UK, as are many European states and Oceanic states as well. Very great changes are going to sweep across nations and regions in the next few years. The general public has had enough of elitism. And we just had a taste of that in the United Kingdom, which will reverberate across the old Commonwealth. We are speaking here, of course, about the now infamous Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah.

The Meghan and Harry show: You cannot get much more elitist than the British Royal Family. Some people love them, while more and more people are seeing royalty across the world as a relic of a dying age – the Piscean Age, when we come down to it. Most European royalty has been relegated to background noise, as in rich families who sometimes participate in state ceremonial functions, but who wield no power in the running of the state. The only absolute monarchies remaining on the planet of any significance are on the Arabian Peninsula. The next step down are the constitutional monarchies, of which the UK and most old Commonwealth countries maintain, meaning the monarchy still wields some power, as in being able to dismiss a government, for instance. And it is this latter point which makes the Harry and Meghan show important, because this could well influence, along with the economics of the West, the outcome of referendums on ending the constitutional monarchies in some Commonwealth states. Australia is a case in point, because the tool of government dismissal by a foreign monarch is still in place there, and is kept so to ensure no upstart PM comes into office and tries to upset the staid Capricornian system that currently rules Australia, upstarts like Gough Whitlam. In the past such referendums have failed, heavily politicized by the likes of the Murdoch media in Australia, because the system favors corporate and vested interests over the people.

With the Meghan and Harry show, parallels have been drawn between Wallace Simpson and Meghan Markle regarding a commoner marrying into the Royal Family, a divorcee at that, with the possibility of influencing, even corrupting the royal and societal order. Heavens! The two cases are not the same, though, yet the media hyperbole around them is very similar. The Harry-Meghan saga has already led to increased divisiveness in the UK, with strong emotions pro and con in the public, displayed in glaring colors across social media, with Meghan being cast either as a conniving gold digger and opportunist or as a poor victim of racism in a toxic Royal household. And it has been pointed out that certain statements made in the interview were simply not true, which would lend further credence to the interview being a publicity stunt. But in that divisiveness produced by it and media explosion we have a clue as to a cover-up and distraction. The timing of the interview is interesting, given what is going on in the UK at the moment. Perhaps the whole thing was timed and staged as a ‘bread and circuses’ spectacle for public consumption, or perhaps Harry and Meghan have real and abiding concerns. Then again, perhaps they staged the opportunity to garner recognition for their new media production company teamed with Netflix, based in Hollywood, hence the Oprah connection. I have no interest in the Royals myself, but it is not difficult to see what is taking place. Their public relations effort with the interview is plain enough, being hyped across American, then British media, but there is another side, too.

The Brexit fiasco combined with the pandemic is causing real hardship to many UK citizens and has been mishandled. And then we have the 1% paltry pay rise for NHS staff, if it is in fact a pay rise given economic conditions, with Boris saying it was “all we could give”. All the while the government has seen fit to increase its nuclear warhead count and abrogate its nonproliferation policy in the name of – you guessed it – perceived threats (meaning Russia, Russia, Russia), including something called ‘doctrinal threats’. Describe that last one to us, please Boris. Those warheads will cost a cool £10 billion. You could pay a lot of medical staff with that money. Those warheads will sit in the submarine silos, never to be used. But, they will ‘create jobs for the British people’. But not for the average British citizen, that’s for sure. Then there is the scandal of the government openly announcing it would do trade with repressive regimes, while in fact Britain has been doing trade and especially selling weapons to most of the world’s repressive regimes for many years. It has been an open secret until now. Yet, there is constant talk out of the UK by the government about upholding human rights, much as we see in the US and other Western nations. Nothing to see here, look over there. Oh, look at what Harry and Meghan are up to!

But here is a larger point to that interview: It displays the racism across societies, but more to the point, opens old wounds in Commonwealth nations, all of whom were once British colonies, and of whom many were populated by brown and black-skinned people. One Jamaican academic had this to say regarding the interview:

“What it should mean for us is that we should jump up and get rid of the queen as the head of state. It’s a disreputable institution. It’s responsible for the enslavement of millions of us who came here to work on plantations. It’s part of the whole legacy of colonialism and we need to get rid of it.”

 The interview also opened another can of worms for elites, in that it has rubbed salt in the wounds of many UK and Commonwealth citizens who have done it tough in the pandemic and in recent years over increasing austerity in the UK and cuts to government services. Here was the supposed cream of rich, British society being interviewed by an American billionaire media mogul, and it has some people in the UK and the Commonwealth thinking about how they want to be governed. In the UK, nothing will change in the near future. Support for Republicanism hovers at around 20%. But in the Commonwealth the story will differ, especially in states where race matters. In the UK, to get rid of the Royals would mean dismantling the entire government. That is not the case in the Commonwealth, as the history is quite different in those states to that of Britain. The Queen holds the mythos for the UK, the binding idea and sentiment that ties the people to the government. The rest of the family circus goes on around her. There was a headline in the media after the interview that said it had produced the worst crisis in the Royals in 85 years – more sensationalism and hyperbole – yet the death of Diana produced a far greater crisis than the present one. This one has produced a crisis that will grow in the Commonwealth, and which will not soon be forgotten. In the UK, it will soon be old news. Then the powers that be there will have to find another distraction for the public to divert attention from their economic shock therapy.

Tracking the special relationship: Rounding all this out, subversion is ruled by Pluto. In a post from last year I mentioned there is a solar arc of Pluto affecting the Meridian axes of both the US and the UK. The Meridian axis in a national chart shows the relation between the general public, infrastructure and opposition parties (4^th house) in distinction to national prestige and the sitting government (10^th house). Both nations have taken a hit to all those areas since Pluto began to affect their respective Meridian axes. For the US that started in August. And yes, the election was part of that, for the solar arc will not be exact until August of this year. For the UK the effect came within orb about in December and will last all year. Pluto also co-rules alchemy, along with Uranus and Neptune. It is in those two nations that the relations between labor and capital will be resolved, with government representing capital at the moment. We might say there are alchemical reactions taking place in both nations, which in this case would be the first three of such – calcination, dissolution and separation. This is working out in the general populace in varying degrees in both nations. But those processes are also being observed closely by the world at large.

The West has lost a lot of its allure as a result of the events of the past year and even before. And just to note, the psychological action of Pluto is to drag to the surface all the underlying unresolved contents of the subconscious, there to be examined, turned to good purpose or discarded. And we have certainly been given a good view of the subconscious elements in both nations this past year, especially in recent months. The elites in those nations are now scrambling to put a lid on the public seeing the truth behind the charade they have been promoting for the past decades. And to do this they have mobilized the media to spew out an increasingly hysterical stream of negative propaganda against foreign states and groups within said states. In the States now it is ‘white supremacy’ and domestic terrorism, for example and referring to internal groups, whereas under Trump it was Antifa and ‘radical leftists’.

A trip in Copenhagen: In closing, our media these days is suffering from a very unhealthy dose of Copenhagen Syndrome, (not the medical condition) a play on words referring to the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 (the year the UK was formed), where one feigns to be seeing signals clearly where in fact one is only casting a blind eye, ignoring orders in pursuit of a victory over a foe. In the case of the US and UK, the orders are coming from the populace, but this time around casting a blind eye by the elites and media can lead to their own ships sinking instead of sailing on to victory. At the same time, Pluto acting on the governments across the West, but notably on those of the US and UK, is causing the most obvious and destructive psychological projection onto other nations, refusing to look at their own internal issues, and hoping maybe, just maybe if we try such and such again against other nations, it might just work this time. Or if we just get rid of this one guy (insert the latest ‘Hitler’), everything will work out the way we want. It is insanity. As a result, there will be climaxing events over the next few years, starting with this one, because of ignorance, intransigence and arrogance on the part of our fearless leaders and media. If you have followed foreign affairs, outside of official media outlets, this will be readily apparent.

A calmer road ahead: It has been stated “there will come a cycle of relative stability and of steady shining without much augmentation” after 2025.[7] There would be at least two schools of thought on that statement, one side thinking nations like Russia, China and Iran would ‘overthrow their repressive regimes’ and come to their senses, behaving like ‘normal countries’ once again, with another side thinking, hoping the US and the collective West will come to their senses, overthrow their own ‘repressive regimes’ and embrace a multipolar world. Still other people will yearn for utopia or dystopia (yes, I have heard more than a few comments hoping for the latter). What has been outlined in this letter is a trend where everyone is waking up to realities, having to reassess their direction and is facing a world that will soon change – as within the next few years – from the old post-WWII American-dominated order, which morphed into a dominating financial order, to one where there will be a collective shakeup of the Western establishment and elitist factions, a rising public call for more equitable distribution of wealth and resources and all this with little actual violence, compared to what we have seen in the last centuries. But to reach that gentler rhythm post-2025 the aggressive posturing of the belligerent nations must be brought to heel. Apparently it will take some sort of major event to bring about the realization of that. The pandemic has obviously not been enough. And it is not the Asian nations, Russia included, who are the aggressors, much as we are told. Their increasing assertiveness is reactive rather than initiated. Soon enough we will all come to see this. Then we can go on to form a ‘new normal’, where no one side dominates our conversations at home or abroad and no one nation or group of nations is allowed to enforce their will on another. The latter is the state of play we are watching develop. But old habits die hard, and ‘the good old days’ are just that – old and gone. A new world is developing and it is upon us to shape it.

Our remedy in these final years of transition is the alchemy of thought, as much as we can engage it. The response across the world to the pandemic has broken certain of our attachments, the first stage of alchemical process. As much as we may want to maintain some of those attachments – lifestyle, relations, employment, location, what have you – many of them will not return, and we must rethink our mode of living. In essence, we have been called to re-examine ourselves and what we really want and need out of life. This has been true for many of us. This is the 2^nd stage of our alchemy. And thirdly we can cast off the old chains of thought which have held us within a kind of thrall and realize that ideas other than what we have been taught to believe actually hold some pretty promising alternatives. Mixed with the useful parts of what we have, these can lead to a better future. There are amazing children being born today, and they will shape the world in the next generation. But we were pretty amazing too when we were born, and our legacy will be the foundation upon which the next generation will build. Let us release the threat of doom and gloom and instead pay attention to what we have here and now, ‘others’ aside. If we want a secure and promising future, we have to be that within ourselves. In that way we change the world.

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