The Cancer solar ingress 2022

The Cancer solstice is in a few days, on the 21^st to be exact at 9:14 UT. We will look at the chart here. But before we do we will have a brief review of what has been a quite intense Aries quarter and then what we might expect in the Cancer quarter – July, August and September. For more, read on…

The main items that occupied our attention in the quarter just ending were the conflict in Ukraine, inflation (which is being blamed on Putin and the Ukrainian conflict), the effects of sanctions, worries about a world food crisis (also blamed on Putin), rising tensions in West Asia and the weather. In the US there have also been a spate of mass shootings and a host of hot potato political issues (like gun violence and Roe vs. Wade) raising their heads just in time for the midterm elections in the US.

And then in Europe, there has been a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson, in which he won a pyrrhic victory and we see many governments struggling with the effects of the sanctions against Russia, which are inducing quite significant difficult consequences across Europe. Meanwhile, much of Asia trundles on, regardless. So, we might as well just jump into a brief review of what has happened in order to get an idea of where we are headed.

From the previous quarter we had the following items in the forecast:

“But the main story for this quarter will remain the conflict in Ukraine, especially as to what comes after. Will Zelenskyy still be with us? Will Ukraine survive as a state? What about all the Ukrainian refugees? And the new Iron Curtain? Who can say? The ingress figure shows very significant instability for the entire quarter. That is the one thing we can predict for certain for this quarter. And the following would appear to be givens from what we see thus far:

• Very marked changes in the Russian financial system, tending toward greater sovereignty and distancing from the West across Russian society
• The West Asian nations turning toward Russia and China
• Many secrets from Ukraine coming out as a result of the intervention, which will not cast a good light on their government, nor on the Western powers involved there since 2014, not to mention the Western media story lines.
• Instability within the EU, with increasing disagreements between member states due to several factors – refugees, energy, financial pressures, rising discontent among the populations, etc.
• Ever-increasing cooperation between Asian nations and Russia
• Once the fighting in Ukraine is finished and the Biden administration can no longer cover its other problems with ‘standing with Ukraine’, growing instability within the United States.

All of those points would appear to be clear enough and they are supported in the ingress figure. Let’s just say this is going to be a very interesting quarter. Our old world order is being swept away. A brave new world awaits!”

Point by point regarding the above, the war drags on and we start with Zelenskyy, whose position becomes more and more doubtful by the day. The thrill is gone, the honeymoon over. The world is tiring of Ukraine. Washington is now telling him he has to think about giving up territory, which was always a given anyway. He is trapped in his position by extremist nationalists who refuse to concede any defeat, still hell-bent on taking Crimea, if that tells us anything. Zelenskyy may not survive.

Ukraine will not survive as a state, at least in its pre-Maidan configuration, and may even cease to be – period. Much of what happens there will depend upon Russia and its response to any sort of peace deal. The Russians will not stop in Ukraine until their stated goals have been met.

As for the refugees, they were turfed out of the hotels because the European hoteliers needed the rooms for tourist season. Charity only goes so far. And those refugees seem to be getting on people’s nerves the more that time passes. Now Poland has told them the free lunch is over. It is time to go to work if they want to stay. The trajectory of the Ukrainians appears to have been decided – stay and work for cheap wages, or go back to Ukraine.

Regarding the new Iron Curtain, in terms of public opinion at the moment, at least in Europe, it exists, but its foundations are beginning to fracture. People are beginning to realize they need the Russian resources and, well, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to antagonize the Russians in the first place. And the Aries quarter has been quite unstable, what with the war, inflation, high fuel and food prices and all.

To the bullet points above, indeed the Russian financial system is undergoing very significant changes. The Russians are solidly behind Putin, whose approval is over 80% now. Brandon would be green. Even Medvedev, once a solid Atlanticist, now rails against the West, especially the EU.

West Asian nations continue their pivot to Russia and China, with long-term trade deals solidifying between Iran and Russia, for instance. The troublemakers, as usual, are the Israelis, who seem to have a death wish, with their recent provocations at the Al Aqsa mosque, in the disputed offshore gas fields with Lebanon, and then their brazen attack on the Damascus international airport. One doubts that last one will go unanswered by the Axis of the Resistance, and that may provoke a regional war.

With all the above having been covered we move on to the ingress figure, shown below (bigger):

The main features of the chart, as in any solar ingress chart, are the aspects and midpoints to the Sun. The Sun is square to a stellium comprised of the Moon, Jupiter and Neptune. Let’s just say from the outset this will be a highly emotionally charged quarter, with disappointments for Western leaders, heartbreak for Ukraine and heightened tensions outside of Europe with Washington and other Western leaders desperate to distract the public with foreign affairs rather than domestic issues going into the midterms and European elections.

The emotional tensions are shown by a t-square, with the Sun/Ixion opposition as the base and the Moon at the apex. Sun/Ixion stressful aspects tend to give a sense of fatalism and of throwing in the towel or caution to the wind. With the Moon at the apex this points to emotional upsets. This is further emphasized by another t-square, also a midpoint: Uranus=Sun/Moon, which has the following meaning:

“The urge for freedom, the urge to act independently, lack of adaptability, inner rebellion. – Sudden events in relationships, as in friendship, marriage, parental home, shared upsets, sudden conflicts, separation of the partners.”

The bolded points are of particular importance to our considerations here, which will be addressed shortly. The Sun also forms midpoints with the following axes: Moon/Neptune (receptive power, illusions and deceptions), Jupiter/Neptune (lack of self-control, illusions, deceptions, squandering of strength, speculation) and Venus/Pluto (great creativity, great sense of form, peculiar turns of destiny).

Ceres is out-of-bounds in the figure and is square to Chiron, along with a wide separating square by Mars. Mars formed an exact square with Ceres on the 7^th of June. This was about the time the narrative on Ukraine began to shift in earnest across the West and the blame game between the various parties in the West started, as they knew by then Ukraine was becoming a millstone around the necks of the US/UK/EU leadership. Zelenskyy’s days as leader of Ukraine are now numbered.

Geopolitically, Ceres/Demeter represents crossroads and turning points, being a Pluto-like body and having been called ‘Pluto’s little sister’. The connection of Ceres with grain is also relevant these days, too, given the possibility of famine allegedly induced by the Ukrainian mining of its ports and Russia unable to ship its grain because of sanctions, all of which can be attributed to the West’s efforts to cripple Russia. There is he-said-she-said about who laid the mines (Ukraine or Russia), but when Zelenskyy says he is against the de-mining process, we might question why, if the Russians laid the mines.

Russia is not preventing grain from being shipped. Russia is quite happy to ship its grain and to allow safe passage of ships transporting Ukrainian grain and to guarantee their safety from what used to be Ukrainian ports. Odessa is now one of the last Ukrainian ports and is also blocked – and soon to be Russia-aligned. Instead, the global food crisis has its roots in the supply chain shocks from the pandemic in 2021. The idea that Russia is causing the food shortage is simply Western propaganda.

The square between Ceres (in Cancer) and the Mars/Chiron conjunction in Aries shows the politicization/weaponizing of the grain issue, as well as the urgency to resolve the food crisis in the world. But that is outside the purview of the conflict in Ukraine. The food crisis has to be solved with the supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic, or we should say the policies imposed as a result of the pandemic. Ceres and Mars are both strongly placed, and with Mars in its home sign and Ceres out-of-bounds, the military/supply chain issues will reach a crisis point this quarter, and soon.

The West and Ukraine still hold to the fantasy that somehow a victory by Ukraine can be had against the Russians. “All we need is more weapons”, as the story line goes. But the military situation for Ukraine is dire now, hence the change in the Western narrative in the past week. We now see calls for Ukraine reaching a diplomatic settlement and giving up territory. The latter has already happened, negotiated or not. Russia is already making moves on Kharkov and will likely soon move on to Odessa as well. No negotiations will stop that. For the Russians, the time for talk is over. Kiev, prompted by and like Washington, is not agreement-capable. Kiev’s attitude to the Minsk agreements has given ample evidence of that.

What we are likely to see regarding the Ukraine crisis in this quarter depends on a couple of things and timing is of the essence. Firstly, it may not appear so on the surface, but the US midterms are a big determinant in the calculus of the conflict, at least in Washington. With the Russians moving so slowly, being careful to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible, Moscow is pushing Washington right up to the midterm wire. Biden faces disaster if a quick end is not found now to the Ukraine crisis. That said, the Council on Foreign Relations – a major influence on US foreign policy – stated in a recent meeting there is no way Russia will be defeated in Ukraine.

Ukraine, like Afghanistan, is shaping up to be another epic fail for the West – militarily, economically and socially – and Europe will be left holding the bag, with the US soon to follow. A ‘win’ for Biden in Ukraine must somehow be found before the midterms if he has any hope of a ratings boost by then.

And regarding economic warfare, Moscow is slowly strangling the EU of its gas supplies, due largely to EU incompetence and hubris, with Italy and Germany now facing shortages in gas supply at a time when building reserves for the winter should be first and foremost on the minds of Scholz and Draghi. Russia, on the other hand, has turned to the East, as was warned by Kissinger and has not in the least been ‘drained’ by the conflict, having raked in about $100 billion in fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of its SMO.

Reading between the lines, the other area to watch in the timeline is in Syria if a ‘win’ in Ukraine is not at hand. There is also the little matter of Lithuania having cut the agreed-upon rail line between Belarus and Kaliningrad, the latter being Russian territory. This was probably at Washington’s instigation, with the hawkish factions there seeking to escalate the conflict in the region. However, this will go very badly for the little Baltic republic and is yet another example of the short-sightedness of Western policymakers and Washington strong-arming. No doubt, Russia would have foreseen such an eventuality and has made contingency plans for it.

The escalations in Syria have a far more serious concern, however. A significant number of the weapons sent to Ukraine by the US have instead found their way to Idlib in Syria via the black market. Israel is stepping up its provocations against Syria and the Palestinians, the hope being Russia will intervene on behalf of Syria, while the Axis of Resistance will intervene for the Palestinians. Biden’s trips to the Saudis and Israelis are not about energy, but instead to firm the alliance between the two. And Turkey is looking at invading the northeast of Syria again. But Russia will not be turning a blind eye to them. War is on the agenda in Syria. Syria, like Ukraine, is to be used as a wedge against Russia and the Axis of Resistance. Why?

To start, Syria is unfinished business for Washington. The color revolution there failed and Assad is still in power. If Assad were to fall it would possibly mean Russia losing its Syrian port access, which would oust Russia from the Mediterranean. But escalation of tensions with Syria would likely result in a war with Israel. This is where the crux of the matter is for Washington. A war against Israel would draw in all of NATO and would serve to boost Biden’s ratings going into the midterms. Israel is sacred to most of Washington, a significant portion of the American electorate (especially among Republican voters) as well as many NATO nations. But there is a catch.

Many Arabs are looking on at the conflict in Ukraine, especially at the Chechen involvement there, and hopes are rising for a Russian win. The Chechen forces, led by Kadyrov, are Muslim. His involvement in Ukraine is denounced by minority Muslim factions, who have sent fighters to assist Ukraine. Ukraine is a war in part of brother against brother. But the Muslim involvement against Ukraine is part of the reason why the Biden administration is failing to get the Gulf oil-producing countries to raise production quotas, which would lower the prices for gasoline and diesel fuel in the US. Plus, Russia has made good diplomatic inroads with most of the West Asian nations over time and is seen as a reliable partner, unlike the US.

A war against Israel would be yet another serious miscalculation by Washington, who is using the Israelis now as a proxy against Russia much as they have done with Ukraine. The Israelis are apparently not looking at how Washington is behaving with Kiev, either. Adding to that the instability of the Israeli government at the moment, the Israelis are facing a very uncertain future. It is written all over their astrology, which will be covered in a separate post.

As to timelines and this quarter, we can expect ever-more provocations by Israel against Lebanon and Syria and by Turkey against Syria as the West becomes more and more desperate and squeezed by a lack of resources. The Turkish economy is in a desperate state, too. In the past, war has typically been used as a tool for rallying a restive populace and for boosting the ratings of failing governments, much as what we see across the West.

For the past year the Biden administration has tried several times to destabilize the regions around Russia, to no avail. Syria would appear to be a ‘hail Mary’ move before the midterms:

“Over the past year, the U.S. attempted to foment Maiden style regime changes in Belarus and Kazakhstan.  Both were foiled. The latter was with the connivance of Turkey, which deployed a contingent of bashi bazouks from the stock of Syrian jihadis it keeps on call in Idlib (to be deployed as President Recep Erdogan did more successfully in Libya and Azerbaijan). 

There remains one conceivable sensitive target: Syria. There, the Israelis have become increasingly audacious in goading the Russians by airstrikes against Syrian infrastructure as well as military facilities. Now, we see signs that Moscow’s tolerance is wearing thin, suggesting that further provocations could spark retaliation which Washington then could exploit to ratchet up tensions. To what avail? Not obvious — unless the ultras in the Biden administration are looking for the kind of direct confrontation that they’ve avoided in Ukraine, until now.”

Russian involvement in a war against Israel would be a big political win for Biden. It is doubtful Russia would take the bait, though. The Iranians have the backs of the Syrians, as do Hezbollah. Russia could quietly provide support behind the scenes, by putting pressure on the Turks, by supplying weapons and so forth. So, what can we realistically expect in this quarter?

• • Escalating tensions in Syria, like the recent bombing of Damascus International Airport by Israel. The time for a gut punch to Israel has arrived.
  • The great walk-back by Europe and Washington regarding Ukraine
  • A coup or forced settlement in Ukraine, resulting in neutrality and Russia’s aims being fulfilled. The war will probably last to the end of this year unless Kiev surrenders. The latter would seem to be inevitable and soon, given current Ukrainian losses on the battlefield.
  • Inflation, supply chain issues and sanctions blow-back to induce a recession across the West. As the US goes, so goes Europe financially.
  • Sudden diplomatic and policy about-faces in Europe and North America as realities really begin to bite
  • Increasing tensions around Taiwan. The West is beginning to write off Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet. Here’s a hint: Taiwan is also being used as a goad, to prod China into a conflict. And China would not even have to invade if it came to that. Blockades work.
  • Sudden escalations in separative regions, like Balochistan in Pakistan or in Myanmar, where weapons from the West are finding their way from Ukraine and Afghanistan via the black market (translate from Russian).
  • Firming of economic ties across Asia and strengthening strategic and economic cooperation between Russia/China/Iran and African and South American states. BRICS+ will receive renewed life. Perhaps we will see a new G8 forming over time. China is looking at a forced decoupling from the West and is looking at implementing a ‘Three Rings Policy’.
  • Continuing international isolation of Washington, with domestic troubles taking front and center in the US and UK as Ukraine fades from the news feed. Revolution in the UK is already building, starting at this solstice.
  • Resolution of the grain troubles
  • Ukraine losing its last access to the coast and fracturing internally
  • Increasing internal divisiveness in the US as the midterms approach, and increasing rejection of Biden as the president and of the Democratic party.

Throughout this quarter we will begin to see the changes to the world financial system set in place more permanently, as forecast in the 2022 planetary outlook, when Pluto moves to complete the Jupiter/Uranus midpoint, which is currently happening. We are likely to see dramatic turnarounds in things like sanctions, domestic monetary policy and the onset of recession in the West at the end of this year. Looking at profit and loss figures for Big Oil, Americans will soon realize they are being gouged for gasoline and diesel at the pump. Don’t expect Congress to do much about it. The same is true for Big Agra and Big Pharma. These comprise some of the biggest donors to Congress.

.Overall, integration between the EAEU and the BRI is becoming turbocharged, with Tokayev of Kazakhstan calling for such accelerated integration in his address instead of counter-sanctions against ‘unfriendly nations’ (NATO, in other words) at the 25^th SPIEF forum. Better to develop one’s region than to be continually reacting against sanctions. The best revenge is to live a successful life, as the saying goes.

The world has changed fundamentally as a result of the past few years, and there is no going back to square one. Globalization is over. Our best bet moving into the future is to cultivate a calm mind and emotions, to take a look around us and to build upon what is good in our relations, what we own and our abilities. Cancer is about family, land and community after all. In this quarter we are going to be reminded about it in a big way. It may sound like holy tofu New Age nonsense, but in making peace within ourselves, peace in the world follows. Try it on for size. Change often begins with one person demonstrating a good idea.

Featured pic from DeviantArt