SIGN LANGUAGE No.10

The Gods of War

(This article is not quite finished - the Tertiary charts are not yet prepared to be uploaded. To see the first six charts in PDF format, simply click on the links in the text as usual.)

What a Difference a Day Made

July 6th 2005, 12h49 BST; London erupts with joy at the success of its bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A New Moon strongly configuring the England and UK charts is culminating as  Neptune’s dream-come-true of sporting success in the 5th trines rising Jupiter and sextiles competitive Mars with the Dragon’s Head in Aries, 7th. (Fig.1)

July 7th 3005, 08h49. London reels in shock as four bombs cripple the transport network of tube and bus, killing a total of 56 people, including the four young would-be martyrs. Across the dwad horizon lies a grim opposition of Saturn to Mercury and the radix Pluto, all in signs of travel. Dwad Pluto and Neptune are with the radix ascendant to bring trauma and chaos. At the IC in coelo is Ceres in all her roles - the working woman, the symbol of Britain, and the bereaved mother. The Moon, still in her own sign, and ruling the 12th, the hidden enemy, has reached the orbs of Saturn on its cusp. Mars is now in the 9th, ruling this and the IC pointing unambiguously to an  overseas and/or religious threat digging deep into our home soil. In the Dwad, it is close to the MC. Sportive Mars has changed his laurels for the helm of violence and invisibilty. He has become the God of War. (Fig.2)

The England 1066 Q-chart for both days, at its BST equivalent of 12h54m44s, is almost identical; all that has moved is the Moon. This is where the Dwad comes into its own, magnifying the smallest differences twelvefold.  Both repeat the inescapable presence of Mars, close to the nonagesimal; but where the Olympic joy spills over in the union of dwad Sun and Moon in Sagittarius trine Neptune in Leo, MC conjunct Venus, and a 'setting' radix Sun (Fig.3), a day later the dwad Sun in Capricorn confronts the shock of opposing Uranus while the Moon grapples with loss in her South Node and now the painful radix opposition of Chiron and Saturn blight the dwad horizon. (Fig.4) Yet the Moon shows the stoicism of the people - she is in her exaltation, in Taurus, in a powerful degree.

Could we have seen this coming? So much of our astrology is brilliant retrospectively, yet so difficult to harness in the service of forecasting. I’ve been tracking planetary footprints again through some favourite lenses - and we may be getting lucky.

First, there needs to be a cast-iron reliable natal or inceptional chart which we can expect to be consistently responsive. Only a legitimately-timed chart will do. Then we need to apply easy techniques that clarify and don’t confuse; essentially we want to see planets coming consistently to angles and little else. Otherwise we’re back to needles in haystacks. We want one or two unambiguous signatures, and reliable timing.

Without a useful chart for London, the one I have settled on (after checking the available selection) is the chart for Blair’s government. The one that works is Friday May 2nd 1997 when the first New Labour election victory was declared at 03h17 BST, set for London. This is what happens to it when we make a Composite with the Olympics announcement: C Jupiter/Chiron/Pluto/Asc in Sagittarius conj. MC, C Sun & Mercury in Gemini conj. IC, C Uranus in Aquarius  conj. Asc - all strong by sign and full of their wonderful surprise. (Fig.5)

If you are wondering why we should composite event charts, they show the all-important moments when an arc (not necessarily an accepted aspect) in the radix is mirrored by the transit of one or both of its two planets or angles.

The following day we still have the shock of C Uranus conj. Asc - but the C MC has moved to conjoin vulnerable Ceres and Moon, square C Saturn and not far from that angular Uranus. C Asc is in Scorpio square C Uranus, displacing Jupiter by Mars as ruler conj. N.Node. (Fig.6) Both days focus on the message of the slow-moving mirror patterns - it is time for a major contest to try the strength of our culture, faith and influence through both pleasure and  pain.

Into the Tertiary                                

If this radix is reliable it should also Progress; and the best patterns are coming from the fast-moving True Tertiary.

Thus on July 6th the Tertiary MC picks up the government’s Uranus in Aquarius and transiting Leo Venus as in the Tertiary her own sign of Libra  rises, carrying Chiron (whose wound began on Olympus in sport!!!) (7) But on 7/7 Libra has given way to a Scorpio Asc conjunct an undercover Mars square Uranus in the 3rd and without warning we have three lethal explosions in the London Tube. Even radix Jupiter at the Tertiary IC in Aquarius may have hurled a thunderbolt; certainly issues of justice, faith and international relations have been pulled sharply into the political frame. (8)

But keep in mind that Tertiary rising Mars. It ought to be prefigured both in the radix and in the annual pattern - and it is. Radix Mars squares MC from the 7th 11 degrees from the N.Node, and sidereally conjoins the Leo Desc. (9) The Annual Tertiary (AT) for Blair’s government, set for 2/5/05 at 03h17 BST, puts that radix Mars on the AT Mercury/N.Node & IC! (10) There is our first warning and even another mirror of the trouble to come. AT  Moon/Uranus in the 8th square Mars spells violent, public and sudden death.

The Bombers Moon

Experimenting with Tertiaries had already produced thought-provoking results before applying them here. They work with major lunations prior to events - such as the first bombing of the World Trade Center at 12h18 EST on February 26th 1993.  The New Moon of February 21st (08h05 EST) at New York has Cancer Mars at the IC and square the Aries ASC. Tertiary progress that lunation to the moment of the bombing, and you find that the Asc has moved to conjoin Mars. (11) As Tertiaries move quickly at about 11 degrees of MC a day (each day after birth/inception = one lunar month) the orbs can be reasonably generous, up to 5 degrees.

So it is no different with the Bombings of 7/7 - the New Moon at 13h02 the day before shows Aries Mars already closing on the 7th cusp in London; the Tertiary of the lunation for the following morning has the angry planet exactly on the Descendant, S.Node rising, and Saturn on the MC. The day was doomed. Our enemy exploded  into the open. (12) (Interestingly, the attack that failed, at 12h25 BST on July 21st just after a Full Moon with an almost identical 7th-house Mars, came too soon to connect to the Tertiary carrying Mars on the Desc. But that very Tertiary pattern completed in London on the night of 22nd -23rd July when three massive car bombs blasted the popular tourist resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh on Egypt’s Red Sea. (13) The pattern doesn’t appear on the Red Sea coast! Are we seeing the clear  evidence of intent here? Does this prove that the perpetrators are the same, and this outrage that killed at least 62 people - mainly Muslims - was directed at Britain through its British visitors?)

Angular Mars in a lunation Tertiary is seen again with the London Blitz that began at 00h15 BST on August 25th 1940. At the preceding Full Moon, whose MC is on the England 1066 Mars, the Sun and Mars are conjunct, and again the Tertiary Asc moves to conjoin the planet of attack, with the Moon setting. (14)

And also at Pearl Harbor - four days earlier the Full Moon of December 3rd 1941 at 10h21 HST set the Hawaii IC on fire with Aries Mars; as the bombers attacked, the lunation’s Tertiary Asc joined in. (15)

What goes around comes around...

At the outbreak of WW2, when the German Third Reich declared war on Poland, the Full Moon of August 29th 1939 planted Mars right on the Reich’s MC. And yet again, a Tertiary of that lunation to September 1st brings the Desc to exact conjunction with the warmongering planet in 24 Capricorn. (16)

This intolerable situation led to Britain’s own declaration of war on Germany at 11h00 am on September 3rd 1939. With the usual suspects on the London angles - oppressive Pluto on MC, pitiless South Node, Moon and Saturn setting, this was a portent of doom for the Reich, which had begun its ghastly career as Chiron rose on January 30th 1933 at 11h15 CET , and Pluto made his grim home on the IC. Still on its MC was that militant transiting Mars. Taking an Annual Tertiary for 30/1/1939, at Berlin, (17) the Asc was right on the Reich’s radix Mars!  War in Europe erupted as the Reich’s Tertiary to September 3rd (18) brought a doomed Mars/S.Node to the Asc at the Reichstag, and a Tertiary from the August 29th Full Moon drew the Asc around onto the lunation’s Pluto/IC. (19)

At the German surrender - 02h41 CET on May 8th 1945 in Berlin - the Reich’s Tertiary Asc, joined by the transit of Chiron, was again closing on Mars, now weak in Libra, right opposite t. Aries Mars in the 7th. This abusive and deadly maverick regime had nowhere else to go. (20)

Little Boy Blew

The most devastating single bomb in human history fell on Hiroshima, Japan at 08h16 on August 6th 1945, effectively ending the 2nd World War. It was called “Little Boy” and was a uranium bomb. As it wiped out the city, Uranus was exactly on the MC and Moon exactly with Saturn in Cancer. Nick Campion’s noon chart for the Japanese Meiji Constitution, effective from February 11th 1889 in Tokyo, presents us with a now familiar Annual Tertiary pattern - the Mc is in orbs of conjunction with both the AT and radix Uranus, and Mars is exactly on the IC. (21) The Asc touches the radix Jupiter and the Desc brings together radix Chiron and transiting Venus/N.Node. In Japan’s Solar Return Uranus sets on the radix Asc as Jupiter culminates, and the IC collects radix Mars... which also happens to conjoin the secondary converse Asc. Sec.prog. Desc is on the Return Mars. (22) Violent events are unambiguous; their signatures are seen on angle after angle as events come to a head.

How are the Mighty fallen!

A  shock was also delivered to the ruler of Iraq at 18h50 BADT on April 9th 2003; Saddam’s regime (another Pluto-rising power-structure) that began at noon on July 16th 1979, fell with his statue in Baghdad as the Tertiary Mars culminated on the regime’s Saturn/N.Node, and Uranus rose conjunct Moon in Scorpio, close to the transiting S.Node. Transiting Uranus conjoined the Tertiary IC. We all knew that sunset moment was a vivid symbol of violent change for Iraq; the Moon culminated in Cancer opposite Chiron, and the people took their future into their own hands. (23)


What happened on 9/11?

The USA government is represented by the Presidency and thus the Inauguration chart of January 20th 2001 at 12h02 pm in Washington DC. At the swearing-in of George W. Bush the God of War was setting in Scorpio (again) spoiling for a fight. A Tertiary of that chart not only has Mars rising but also picking up the radix Mars. (24)  The preceding Full Moon of September 2nd at 17h43 EDT in a grand cross with Saturn/Pluto and its Manhattan IC on the Presidency Saturn, pulls the separating lunation onto the Tertiary meridian by September 11th as the Moon’s Nodes align with the Asc/Desc and Jupiter. Where is Mars? 11 deg.39' below the 7th cusp. (25) But Mars was exactly setting in the Tertiary for the previous day! I find this odd, when the Twin Towers fell on the 11th. The pattern for the tragedy looks far more like the fulfilment of an open, prior threat. I wonder if this gives credence to those rumours that Bush knew more, earlier, than he will ever let on?...

Coming to America

The American chart should also show the impact of this stunningly awful event. Ah, but which? There are so many! The sensible thing was to progress each one in turn; this might finally sort the wheat from the chaff. Guess which came out the sole winner from the whole Campion list - the First Landing! - the very first documented moment when Columbus and his crew made landfall on what was to be known as Samana Quay in the Bahamas, at 6h30 on the morning of October 12th 1492, and America was born. Its Annual Tertiary to October 2000 has Mars at the IC (conjoined by the 9/11 Saturn) and Desc right on the Landing Mars. Annual Tertiary Saturn is at the famous 14 Libra rising of the first attack. (26)  The 2000 Solar Return, set for Manhattan, has the War God in the Midheaven as Pluto rises and Jupiter sets. And if you look again at the Landing chart (27) you can now see why Jupiter, Pluto and the Nodes are so persistently angular in these troubling patterns - America was born with culminating (fulminating?!) Jupiter in Leo square  Pluto/Chiron/ Nodes aligned tightly with the Scorpio Ascendant. Ruling Mars in 10th sextiles the Sun, MC-ruler in 12th. Secrets and lies. Huge enterprises and massive wealth and powerful religion. Great prizes wait to be taken which must also be shared, or inevitably there will be a painful cost.

The Tertiary to 9/11 itself (28) shows Mars rising opposite setting Pluto, aligned with the transit of Moon opposite Chiron. Its meridian, with MC close to 9th-house Jupiter, meets America’s Mars at the IC. Recurring themes of  wealth,  power, complacency and bitter resentment come to another violent and tragic climax. Trapped in the Wheel of Misfortune, we keep it turning and turning; ‘Offences must come - but woe to those by whom the offences come!’ Will humanity ever break this cycle? Will we ever manage to love our neighbours as ourselves?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Data -

England 1066 - 25th December 1066, 12h00, Winchester, England (zone +00h05m16s)
UK - 1st January 1801, 0h00, Westminster, England (zone 00h00m36s)
Source of charts of countries: Campion, in Solar Fire 6.
All other essential data given in text.