Weekly Column: This is the time to “make love, not war“

NOTE: There will be no weekly column next week due to the annual forecast webinar taking place on sunday, february 20. 

Review and preview 

Consumer prices in January surged more than expected over the past 12 months, indicating a worsening outlook for inflation and cementing the likelihood of substantial interest rate hikes this year. The consumer price index, which measures the costs of dozens of everyday consumer goods, rose 7.5% compared to a year ago, the Labor Department reported Thursday.– Jeff Cox, “Inflation Rises 7.5%, Even More Than Expected and the Highest Since 1982,” www.cnbc.com, February 10, 2022.

So, how’s the U.S. government’s grand experiment in modern monetary theory turning out? Not well…The (inflation) pain might have been lessened if the Fed had begun to withdraw its pandemic money rush more than a year ago. But Washington had grown to believe that a new era of cost-free spending and low interest rates had dawned. The old fiscal and monetary verities no longer held, and those who warned about inflation were proclaimed to be dinosaurs from the Reagan era. – “Inflation Haunts the Biden Economy,” Wall Street Journal “Review and Outlook,” February 11, 2022.

With Thursday’s ultra-hot inflation report during the mutable sign quarter moon in Gemini that same day, it was just too much for the recent rally off the low of January 24 (Mercury retrograde midpoint) to continue. It didn’t help that tensions also escalated surrounding the threat of a Russian invasion into Ukraine with the Great Bear’s “war exercises.” With all that mutable cosmic energy, plus Jupiter approaching its conjunction to Neptune in Pisces, the whipsaw behavior between the irrational exuberance and hysteria of investors led to a sudden jolt in global equity markets mid-week. First, the stock indices raced to their highest level since the lows of January 24. Then they abruptly reversed and fell hard on Thursday and Friday, but not without some short-lived efforts to rally along the way.

Now the worry is that the FED will raise interest rates as early as next month, and not by a modest 1/4%, but very possibly 1/2%.

As hard as that was for equity markets to digest, it was no problem for Gold. The combination of rising inflation and war threats jolted the yellow metal up to 1865 on Friday, its highest level since November 19. Just two weeks ago it was trading at 1780.

It was also no problem for Crude Oil, which also thrives on that combination of worries for investors. Crude Oil soared to a high of 94.66 on Friday, its highest level since August 22, 2014, and up nearly 50% from its primary cycle low on December 2. This is further confirmation the bullish effect of Jupiter in Pisces approaching Neptune. All of these are geocosmic factors related in the association with Crude Oil.

Bitcoin and Ethereum followed a course similar to stocks, with recovery highs reached on Thursday, February 10, after which they declined somewhat sharply into Friday. The question in both cryptos and equities is whether the rally is over and the next leg down to new multi-month lows is just starting, or will this decline just be a correction of the rally that took place over the past two weeks? And if the former, how much pain will the Federal Reserve Board be willing to let Americans experience before they change their mind and walk back from their intent to raise rates several times in the next few months?

Short-term geocosmics and longer-term thoughts  

Americans took on more new debt in 2021 than in any year since before the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Total household debt rose by $1.02 trillion last year, boosted by higher balances on home and auto loans. – Orla McCaffrey, “Household Debt Rose by $1 Trillion in 2021,” Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2022.

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” – Yogi Berra

Pluto rules debt and pain, and the U.S. is now encountering its first Pluto return. So, let’s first off clarify a statement made last week that February 22, 2022, was the fourth passage of the 248-year Pluto return. That is not technically correct. It was the fourth passage of Pluto over the USA’s natal Moon/Pluto conjunction based on the July 2, 1776 founding chart that we use, which posits the USA Moon at 25°09’ of Capricorn and Pluto at 27°36’ Capricorn.

Pluto crossed the U.S. natal Moon’s position for the first time on January 30, 2021, shortly after President Biden took office. It will cross the natal Pluto position for the first time on February 22, 2022. The series of six passes over these two planets (three times over each Moon and Pluto position) ends on December 29, 2022. Yet, as with all matters involving a Pluto transit, the events associated with the decisions or choices made under a Pluto transit often take 1-3 years afterwards to manifest, as Pluto’s nature has an “incubation-like” process. For an in-depth discussion of what this means, please refer to the chapter on the Pluto return contained in the Forecast 2022 Book. In fact, the opening pages of that book also address the significance of Pluto transiting over its natal Moon/Pluto position in the July 2, 1776 chart, which is based upon the date when the vote for the Declaration of Independence was completed, and not July 4, 1776, which was when it was delivered to General George Washington and the U.S. War of Independence commenced.

We will have more to discuss about the USA Pluto  return in our February 20 annual webinar to the world. For instance, Pluto is in opposition to President Biden’s natal Jupiter, which is his ruling planet. It is also in a T-square to Vice-President Kamala Harris’ Sun/Moon opposition. As we have stated many times in this column, no one escapes a hard Pluto transit unscathed. President Trump did not escape it, and Biden, Harris, and the USA are not escaping it unscathed either. All will require a major adjustment – a radical transformation of their current path – in order to get through this transit stronger than before. In fact, it requires a surrender of the ego before the healing can start. Without a major change of behavior by choice, the choice will be made by others that can transform one’s path. With Pluto, one experiences the profound humility that comes from encountering this major life lesson.

Shorter-term, we are about to enter a very interesting and potentially positive period over the next three weeks. It begins with the first of two conjunctions between Venus and Mars in Capricorn on the full Moon of February 16, followed by the sextile of Jupiter and Uranus on February 17. Venus and Mars in Capricorn may relate to political efforts to negotiate an agreement to de-escalate the threat of military actions. Jupiter sextile Uranus indicates some new proposal that is inventive and original. It is a very clever and smart combination, offering up new and yet practical ideas that could result in an agreement.

It may take until the second conjunction of Venus and Mars in Aquarius, (sign ruled by Uranus) on March 6 to finalize. Thus, a two-step dance may be underway to manifest a rather brilliant plan to return to diplomacy, at least for a while. If not, then Venus and especially Mars conjunct Pluto in late Capricorn on March 3 may instead blow it all up. That’s what Pluto can do with Mars. The stakes are very high, but there is hope if all sides are really serious about reaching an agreeable compromise. Mars and Pluto aren’t always that willing, but Venus is usually open to compromise for the sake of peace. It’s right there and the cosmic energy switches as Venus and Mars ingress from Capricorn into Aquarius on March 6. That is the same degree in which the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction occurred on December 21, 2020 and began the “New Aira” in astrological terminology (a term invented by MMTA graduate Kat Powell because it re-started the series of 20-year Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions in air signs for the next. 140 years).

It’s all about the choices our beleaguered leaders make now, and Venus is the planet most representative of choices – and the one planet that has the most difficulty making a decision even though it wishes for choices. Given that President Putin is a Libra, which is ruled by Venus, one can only imagine the stress he (and all Librans) might be going through these next two weeks regarding their alliances. It is a make- or-break time for them, or anyone with natal planets in very late cardinal or very early fixed signs.

As the hippies and flower children used to say in the late 1960’s, this is the time to “make love, not war.” It makes one wonder “where have all the flowers gone” since then?