Disasters, an election, a full moon and a little study in midpoints

Recently, as in the past few days, there have been a series of violent events around the world. And in turn, people I have spoken with and encountered have noted a particular ‘energy’ in the air, manifesting as frustration, short tempers and general tension. Naturally, I decided to have a look at the astrology, and indeed there were factors that stood out. But, there were a couple of surprising indicators as well, which run counter to what one would normally expect in astrology.

To begin, let’s list the events that have taken place since the factors we will examine have been in effect. They are as follows:

• 4 Dec: U.S. Navy sailor fatally shot two at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and wounded a third. He was having disciplinary problems at work and had been enrolled in anger management courses. (chart)
• 5 Dec: The 2019 Burundi mudslides, leaving 38+ people dead. (chart)
• 6 Dec: A shooting at the Pensacola Navy Air Base which left three dead and ten injured. (chart). The shooter, a Saudi trainee who had been insulted by an instructor at the base, “wrote of his hatred for the American people, criticized Washington’s support for Israel, and quoted Osama bin Laden.”
• 7 Dec: A factory fire in New Delhi which left 43 dead and scores injured. (chart) The factory was not legal, had no safety measures in place. The owners were arrested and charged.
• 8 Dec: 800,000 people fill the streets in Hong Kong in protest over the local government, as a mark of six months of protests.
• 8 Dec: A street brawl in Vicenza, Italy, which led to American authorities banning 2,000 American soldiers from the main street in Vicenza for an indeterminate period.
• 9 Dec: The Whakaari/White Island volcano erupted, leaving 6 confirmed dead, 8 missing and 34 injured (chart). The survivors sustained horrific burns. The volcano had been placed on alert level 3 (out of 5) a few days before. The eruption was classed as ‘minor’.
• 9 Dec: Chilean military plane lost and presumed crashed with 38 people aboard. (chart)
• 9 Dec: The release of the Afghanistan papers, which outline the deception foisted upon the American public (think ‘Neptune’ for latter) about the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest war, and the disaster that has been that war.
• 10 Dec: A shooting at a hospital in Ostrava, Czech Republic left six people dead and two wounded (chart). It was the worst shooting there since 2015. The shooter killed himself a few hours later. He was a patient at the haemato-oncology dept. at the hospital. No reason was given for the act.
• 10 Dec: A shooting at a kosher market and a cemetery left 6 dead including the two shooters (chart).
• Then, there is the full moon on the 12th and the UK election.

Do all these events have something in common, as suggested in the opening paragraph? Indeed, yes. But before we get to what that is, we need to step back and look at a couple of things. Firstly, the normal reading for any chart (that is, in everyday astrological practise) tends to focus on the angles and the aspects, when it comes to defining the dynamics of a chart. There are the other factors, to be sure, such as the signs, essential dignities and so forth, as well as the house placements and their rulers. But as we will see, those factors vary between the charts given with the events.

To start, all the charts linked have varying angles, both by degree and sign, and thus different house placements for all the planets. Those have bearing on the reading of the chart, of course, as all the incidents are quite different in many respects. All of them have the same sun-sign, though – Sagittarius – but that is not a sign that is ordinarily associated with disasters.

Then, as to the aspects, the Moon changes sign every two days and a half, so it is not the Moon that is a common factor here. What we would look for then are the slower-moving planets, as in Saturn outward, and there is where our investigations start to bear fruit.

There is one aspect that is found in all of these charts, which is the Sun square to Neptune. But the Sun moves a degree a day, though the orb for the Sun is much wider (up to 18 degrees) than for planets. That aspect speaks of heightened sensitivities, weakness and illness. It also points to the use of or involvement with drugs (possibly), as well as chaotic conditions and great disappointments, most of which are found in common with all these charts.

But then, we would also expect to find Mars involvement in violent events and fires, but the only aspects Mars makes are sextiles to Saturn and trines to Neptune, hardly the sort of aspects we would expect to see in the charts of violent events. True, Mars is transiting through Scorpio at the moment, which is bringing up the undercurrents behind the events and causing more militant feelings between people. But that would not appear to be enough. When we turn to the midpoints in these charts, then a very different picture emerges.

Expanding on a recent article about midpoints, we have the following from Ebertin’s Combination of Stellar Influences:

Whereas the Hamburg-School of Astrology rests almost entirely upon the interpretation of the planetary pictures [midpoints/half-sums], neglecting the traditional aspects at the same time, such a procedure is just as partial according to our modern findings as if one ignores the mid-points or half-sums and judges the aspects only. Numerous investigations and experiments have proved that the simultaneous use of both half-sums and aspects leads to successful results. Moreover the inclusion of a third interpretative factor also restricts the number of possible interpretations, thus leading to a more exactly defined statement as to the correctness of the interpretation.

The use of half-sums requires the definition of a smaller orb than used normally for aspects. When considering aspects in the radical map an orb of 5° is generally recommendable, whereas the orbs or half-sums should preferably range between 1 1/2° and 3° (the latter being the maximum-limit). For directions, however, the orb used is 1/2° only. With regard to transits and their effects the writer believes the following rule to be correct, namely that a transiting stellar body exercises its influence for such a period only as it requires to pass through one degree of the zodiac, which corresponds to a duration of influence amounting to one day for the Sun, approx. two hours for the Moon, but often several months for Neptune.

The latter comment about Neptune bears a special significance here. All of these events have a certain midpoint structure in common – Nep=Mars/Sat, which reads as follows.:

Weak vitality, an insufficient power to tackle resistance or any obstacles in one’s path-way of life. – Waning powers and weakening efforts, self-torment, the undermining of the vitality (through poison, gas or an epidemic). – A mysterious death, a grievous and grave loss.

Mars/Sat is our ‘death axis’, and all of these events involved deaths in one way or another. All of the events cited also represent grievous and grave losses, most man-made, two of them natural disasters. But that was not all. From the 4^th through the 9^th, there was also the Nep=Mars/Plu midpoint:

Irreconcilableness or implacability, cunning and deceitfulness, the tendency to cause harm to others secretly and unobtrusively, (a disaster or catastrophe caused by water).

One of those, the Burundi mudslides, was indeed a disaster caused by water. Of interest is that one of the shootings in that time span was at a naval base. The other at a naval base took place a day before the midpoint was in orb.

There was also a Sun=Mars/Plu midpoint in the events from the 8^th through the 12^th:

Injury, accident, violent measures, an upset or shock caused through the intervention of Higher Power.

On the 4^th and the 5^th there was a Sun=Ura/Plu midpoint (Pearl Harbor and Burundi):

The urge for independence and freedom, untiring creative work, the tendency to make the highest demands on one’s physical energy, strong emotional tensions. – Over-excitement of the nerves, a breakdown, a catastrophe.

Then, from the 5^th through the 10^th, there was the Sun=Mars/Sat midpoint:

Weak vitality, the inability to meet all demands or to master all situations, the necessity to overcome illness. – The illness or the death of members of the male population

So, the underlying theme under all of these events is the Neptune completion of the Mars/Saturn midpoint, indicating ‘grievous losses’. Then add to that the Sun transit of that midpoint from the 5^th through the 10^th and the picture becomes pretty well complete:

There was a generalized weakness pervading the entire period (this also extends through the full moon, tomorrow), along with heightened sensitivity. In some people that was enough to tip them toward ill-considered actions with tragic consequences, as in the case of the shootings. For the air disaster, we might expect that the crash was caused by some structural weakness in the plane. For the volcano, there would have been a structural weakness in the crust of the earth at that point, leading to the sudden eruption. It was also a huge event (Jupiter on the Midheaven). We would see the same for the Burundi mudslide, with the earth weakened by rain.

With all of these, if we take a look at the midpoints on the charts, we find both the Sun and Neptune each involved in so-called ‘disaster midpoints’, as listed above, with the worst disasters having the Sun/Neptune square in close orb, or with one of them in orb of two ‘disaster midpoints’.

The takeaway from this? Well, there is one rather striking consideration, aside from what we have above: The type of aspect involved in the midpoint, if there is one, does not matter. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aspect when it comes to midpoints. The overall picture is what is must be considered. And in these charts, that is defined by the Sun/Neptune square, along with the approaching conjunction of Saturn and Pluto – itself an aspect that can denote mass death or mass murder.

And as to the UK election tomorrow, given what we have just discussed? Well, we look at how the media has been in the UK over this period (we could say that has been a disaster), and the mudslinging has been terrible. But it is also a sign that all is not well with the Tories, either. Otherwise, they would see no need to do so. We can expect an upset in the election tomorrow, with the vote representing a release of tensions, and of strident emotions on all sides. That could be an upset either way. But regardless, that result will lead to another larger event in the first of the year. And that we will cover closer to the time, depending on the outcome tomorrow. If you live in the UK, be sure you get out and vote! This is one election not to be missed. The outcome is too important.

Featured pic from CNN.