Not very long ago, when my parents were kids, this continent ripped itself apart in a cataclysm of self-destruction. Millions died. Cities were destroyed. World War Two was the culmination of a century and a half of fighting.
By the end of it the continent was exhausted, spent, knackered.
But Europa rose again, like her namesake on that long-ago bull from the sea. For a long time, she was torn in two admittedly. In the East, the tyranny continued: in the West prosperity grew. Then in 1989, Europe's two halves were reunited almost overnight, almost entirely peacefully. Communism just sort of melted away. It was like a miracle.
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| Gustave Moreau's Europa |
Across much of the continent until recently Europe was the best place to live in the world for those on a middling income: high wages, long holidays, free health, free education, unemployment benefit – peace, safety. What more can you ask for?…but things were unravelling. There was an invisible worm.
One of the symptoms of Europe's sickness is Silvio Berlusconi, the corrupt, ridiculous Italian Prime Minister. Despite his puerile antics and continuous court battles, he has maintained a grip on power for years. Shame. And he not alone – across the continent (and off-shore here too) there are others like him.
So why has the EU accepted this kind of corruption in Greece, Italy, France, to name a few. Where is the shame? Where is the will to clean up? It's all very well for the Germans and the British to start pointing the finger now, but why has anti-corruption not been central to the European project right from the start?
Could it be because there is corruption at the very heart of the whole enterprise? While the middle-classes muddled on in a consumerist paradise, an elite grabbed what it could - money, power and privilege - and the underclass grew? Some people would say so.
A chart for Europe herself doesn't exist but we can cast charts for the founding of the European Economic Community in 1958 and the European Union, the much-expanded but more integrated version of the community established in 1993.
Here is what I wrote about the 1993 EU chart when Greece started to go down in June.
"I have to confess that in principle I'm all in favour of a united Europe – but this chart is so sinister it makes me shudder. Look at that unaspected Sun in Scorpio; look at the Mars-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio opposing the poor Moon in Taurus (that's the people of Europe, rooted in the soil). The power in the EU is hidden, shadowy and violent.
When the merde hit der Ventilator (as we like to say in Europe) back in 2008, the EU's progressed Sun was at 23° Scorpio activating that nasty opposition. Progressed Mars was on the North Node, so there was a date with destiny. The pressure is still on that opposition because the progressed Sun has only moved about 4 degrees.
Believe it or not, the story this chart is telling us is: there's more to come. Pluto has been hitting the EU Sun at 8° Scorpio, but from a teasing sextile position. This is the unraveling that we're watching now. It's like Pluto is a long crochet hook unpicking and unpicking. Uranus will zap that spot from the 9th house of foreigners in 2013.
Will the European dream be shattered when Pluto reaches 18 Capricorn hitting that Uranus-Neptune conjunction and squaring Venus in Libra (justice) and sextiling Mercury in Scorpio? That's not for another few years, 2017, but I wouldn't hold your breath."
For the rest of this post on Greece, click here.
The European Union was born with a flamboyant and expansive Leo Ascendant. This is just about to progress into Virgo, a far more humble and famously self-critical sign, indeed a careful sign, a sign of contraction. As one of the earth trio, Virgo likes to have its feet on the ground. If it survives, the face the EU will be showing to the world in the coming 30 years will be very different from the one we're used to: Berlusconi, Sarkozy and their showy cohort will seem very out of date soon.
The Uranus-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn shows us what a powerful dream the EU was. Capricorn is the sign of trans-national governance, Neptune is dreams and Uranus is revolution. The idea of the EU is a radical attempt to shape the world in a new way, but somehow it is in conflict with peace and harmony (Venus-Jupiter) which it is trying to promote.
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| Dresden after the bombing in 1945. Lest we forget what we left behind. |
There is something very dysfunctional about this chart. The distribution of power is too uneven, too hidden too unaccountable. This chart smacks of inequality – which is exactly the opposite to the dream of Europe.
The European Community was founded in 1958, built on the rubble and hope of post-WWII Europe. One of it's central ideals was to raise the standard of living for everyone, leaving no one in real poverty.
The EEC was an ideal, but also a strategy for peace. Back then no one wanted soldiers fighting across the heart of Europe again.
The 1958 chart is a much better. You can see right away that there is a beautiful blue Kite formation (easy and energetic) made dynamic by a fixed Grand Cross (stability and strength) in red.
The planet of peace is right next to the planet of wounding Chiron. She is separating as if born from the wound. Both are in the sign of community, Aquarius and balanced across the chart by radical, idealistic Uranus in Leo (individual freedom). So from a peaceful community we gain personal freedom. There's a vibrating tension between these two, eased by a nice angle to steady Saturn at his most benevolent in Sagittarius.
The Moon in Taurus (again) is comfortable, agricultural, rooted, earthy. (The common agricultural policy has always been important.) It conjuncts the South Node (one's origins) and sits at the point of a T-square from Venus and Uranus. But this time the Moon is in a perfect trine to the Sun. The people in power (the Sun) and the People are in harmony, working together.
Neptune is in Scorpio (a dream of transformation) and conjunct the North Node (destiny). It's also conjunct Jupiter, planet of more, in Libra, the sign of equality.
My question is really this: how do you revert to the EEC chart without destroying Europe in the process?
