
UKRAINE PODCAST-SERIES — #2 — FROM MARS AND NEPTUNE TO PLUTO AND MERCURY
Tim Lyons (AKA: Your Present Correspondent (YPC).
YPC concluded his previous installment with a discussion of the United States’ various deceptions before or as it engages in conflicts that it blames on others – on the “open enemies” (7th house) that serve as hooks for the US projection of Mars. A pervasive and deceptive national ideology (Neptune in the 9th) clearly plays a role here. For the record, some of those deceptions: the deceptions leading up to the 1991 bombing of Iraq; the lies about Iraq’s WMDs leading up to the full-scale invasion; the obfuscations regarding the US invasion of Afghanistan (e.g. telling whoever would listen that the US wanted to hunt down Osama bin Laden, when any thinking person would have realized that if you wanted to hunt down bin Laden, former US friend and ally, you wouldn’t send in a slow-moving army but a fast moving special-ops type group that could move quickly through the mountains in which bin Laden had secreted himself); the lies about the Gulf of Tonkin; the lies leading up to the Mexican War; plus the ongoing misdirection and propaganda related to Ukraine – and now, it seems, China. Add to those the run-ups to both world-wars.
Mars rules the 12th house of secrets, after all, and Neptune rules Pisces, intercepted in the 3rd house of communication and the press, the interception suggesting that deceptions and over-idealizations don’t appear clearly though they remain potent. Having said all of that, let’s move on to the US Mercury-Pluto opposition, an aspect YPC has spoken about before in other contexts. For example, in the chapter on projections and US foreign policy in his Your Hidden Face: Projection in the Horoscope, he wrote:
…a person with an opposition generally plays the role of the planet closest to the Sun and projects onto others the planet farthest from the Sun. (Though gender-related factors will often give a different message, those don’t into play in the activities of nations.) We would therefore expect the United States to play the role of Mercury in Cancer and to project Pluto in Capricorn onto other nations or groups. The historical record certainly suggests that this occurs…
The pattern appeared even before the United States declared itself as a nation, as the invading Europeans saw the native people as dark, savage, primitive, and cruel, despite the sophistication of many native civilizations and the marked primitive savagery – characterized by historical Michael Rogin as a drive for “primitive accumulation” – of the Europeans. Later, with the institution of the slave trade, African slaves served nicely as a hook for the United States’ projection. Later still, the Soviet Union did yeoman service in that role, and once the Soviet Union fell apart, various Middle Eastern groups and leaders served equally well…
Meanwhile, the people of the United States by and large have seen themselves as merely seeking security. Mercury in a nation’s horoscope symbolizes not only the popular press, but also the way the people think about themselves. Mercury in Cancer suggests that millions of people in this country tend to see themselves as home-oriented folk seeking security and safety, tendencies reiterated by the Cancer Sun.[1]
I have emphasized this pattern in various publications and podcasts over the years. Mercury in Cancer in the 8th suggests the ways this country’s security depends on the resources of others (originally, the indigenous people of this continent; later, the various countries that the US brought under its military or economic hegemony. The 8th house Cancer Sun again reiterates, as does the Venus-Jupiter conjunction, also in Cancer, rulers of the midheaven and ascendant respectively, at the cusp of the 8th. The Mercury-Pluto opposition again suggests projection: seeing other countries or groups and dark, primitive, problematic, and in need of punishment or chastisement. In the modern era, the US accuses other countries or groups of harboring dark or hidden power, yet the US Pluto rules the US 12th, suggesting the often-left-unmentioned piles of plutonium under US control. Clearly, the US controls more plutonic power than the rest of the world combined. With Pluto in the 2nd, this has held true for economic (plutocratic) power as well, though this may change with the rise of China. (China’s increased economic power and worldwide influence may reflect the ongoing US Pluto Return: a demand for a transformation of values, appearing now at least partly as a projection onto China, seen by Biden and his cronies as a threat, with its different approach to economic influence and power.) But the dark and primitive qualities have appeared in the US public mind – always promulgated by the MSM, owned and operated by plutocrats – another reflection of the Mercury-Pluto opposition, with the projection laid at the feet of people who invariably become victims of US power.
If you run a solar-arc scan,[2] you will find that when SA Pluto reached the US descendant, WWI started, with Pluto appearing, via projection, in the purportedly savage and aggressive Germans, the “open enemies” associated with the 7th house[3]; by 2003, SA Pluto had moved into a square with the ASC, now from the 9th house, and the US invaded Iraq, its actions aptly suggested by the “long journeys over water” designation traditionally associated with the 9th. The first square of SA Pluto to the N. Asc took place in February 1824, just two months after the Monroe Doctrine (December 2, 1823) from the 3rd house (neighbors, among other meanings); thus a power play regarding neighbors, banning other nations from North and South America, the US self-designated sphere of influence.[4]
TR Pluto, the USA, and Ukraine Background
The recent movements of TR Pluto show the propaganda machine kicking into full gear – and they show the vigorous projection of Pluto onto (among others) Russia. During the runup to the 2016 election, Pluto stationed at 14Cap55, closely square the US 10th house Saturn at 14Libra48 and more loosely opposed the US Cancer Sun at 13Cancer19. The projection of Pluto appeared in the largely-groundless paranoia about Russian influence on US elections coinciding with the precise opposition of Pluto to the US Sun.[5] That opposition also coincided with the more-obvious US interference in Ukrainian affairs, particularly the overthrow of Yanukovych, who, though probably qualifying as an SOB (to put the matter mildly) aroused the US ire by aligning himself with Russia. (The US had, after all, aligned itself with many vicious leaders in the past, so YPC doesn’t see Yanukovych’s viciousness and the US reason for opposing him – propaganda aside, of course.) Thus the US took aggressive actions against Russia, clearly seeking control of Ukraine via NATO, a highly aggressive international consortium. We might also ask whether, considering these developments, we should see Ukraine as an independent nation.
And, of course, Vladimir Putin, with his Pluto elevated at the midheaven, serves as a perfect hook for the projection of the US Pluto in Capricorn.
NEXT: THE U.S. PLUTO RETURN VISITED AND REVISITED, PLUS A GLANCE OR TWO AT ERIS
[1] Tim Lyons, Your Hidden Face: Projection in the Horoscope.
[2] Solar arc directions: each year, move each planet forward by the “solar arc,” approximately one degree.
[3] Some might say, regarding WWI, that the projection of Pluto onto Germany made perfect sense, assuming Germany as the primary aggressor instigating WWI. But not all historians agree. In general, the histories get written by the victors. Harry Elmer Barnes’ Who Started World War One? presents a rather different picture of the run-up to that conflict.
[4] One might think that the US did this to promote freedom, but Monroe specifically said that the US would support no revolutionary movements until those movements morphed into the accepted authority – a approach hardly resonant with the claim that the US promotes freedom and democracy. This historical record suggests what the horoscope symbolizes: that the US experiences Uranus, symbol of freedom and rebellion and opposed the US ascendant, as a projection: other nations carry that energy, and the US constantly stands against revolutionary groups and movements unless CIA instigates them in the service of US control, and then the shift goes to the right, not the left. Examples abound.
[5] Pluto stationed at 13+ Capricorn in April 2014, closely opposed the US Cancer Sun and squaring its Saturn, the US Sun-Saturn square symbolizing the US desire to control all manner of worldly goings-on. The US, disliking the direction things were going in Ukraine, had the CIA help foment a civil war.