Riots in London

As with everyone else, I've been shocked by the violence happening in London over the last few days, even though Mars has recently entered Cancer and formed a tense aspect with the ongoing long-term cardinal square between Uranus and Pluto. 


This is the chart for the triggering event, the fatal police shooting of a man in Tottenham (Mark Duggan) on Thursday night at 6.15pm.

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The opposition aspect between Mars and Pluto is aligned right across the Ascendant- Descendant axis at the time of the event. In other words, it is strongly highlighted at that time of day, with the threatening crisis energy of Pluto very strong and 'in-your-face', and Mars (guns, violent events, over-impulsiveness, aggression) just setting opposite it.  I have mentioned previously the frequent correlation between shootings and Mars-Pluto aspects. The shooting in Norway happened with Mars conjunct the Pluto of Norway's national chart (see previous blog), and Anders Brievik, the perpetrator, has a Mars-Pluto trine in his natal chart.  The shooting aboard a nuclear sub here in the UK happened under a square of Mars-Uranus to Pluto. 
More generally, Mars-Pluto aspects reflect the intense (Pluto) drive to take action (Mars) but since the healthy assertive energy of Mars can so easily tip over into anger and aggression, these aspects are incredibly potent. Pluto is outside of conscious control - it represents a volcanic upwelling of instinctive and compulsive energy and when combined with Mars the results can be extreme. Combine this with Uranus, squaring both planets to form a tense t-square, and the qualities of unpredictability, sudden shock and the unexpected are thrown into the mix.
There is, of course a positive manifestation of Mars-Pluto energy, as in the tremendous never-quitting energy of the boxer or the martial artist, and perhaps that's something to look at  sometime in the future to give some balance.

Mars is triggering the Uranus-Pluto square at the moment, and for the next few weeks. It's a very tense time. The ongoing Uranus-Pluto square is only just in its early stages as it has effects for a number of years into the future. We're already seeing world-wide radical and revolutionary change (Uranus) on a mass scale (Pluto) reflected in world events this year, and the energy  is growing stronger; the aspect becoming exact for the first time next summer.This is Richard Tarnas' in-depth article if you want to find out about Uranus-Pluto (and the other major world transits) in more detail. 

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The chart for the  UK (1801) is being triggered by the tense 'hard' aspects of the cardinal planets - Uranus, Pluto, Saturn and Mars soon to transit them, since the Sun in the national chart is at 10° Capricorn, the Midheaven 9° Cancer (Sun on the IC), and the Ascendant at 7° Libra. These events in London, as the nation's capital, reflect events near the beginning of this ongoing dynamic energy. Next year, the first exact alignment of the Uranus-Pluto square will be at 8° Aries-Capricorn in June, aligning more closely with the UK national chart.

My thoughts are with the family of Mark Duggan, and with all those caught up in the violence. 

BBC Timeline for the riots. 


Updates

8.10pm BST, fresh violence in London as Mars closes in on an exact aspect squaring Uranus (tomorrow, 5.33pm BST) and opposite Pluto early morning on Thursday. (6.14am).

Just before midnight - I'm just listening (BBC Online Live Feed) to the poor chap who's business, which stood for 5 generations of his family, since I believe he said 1867, is an inferno. So awful, and such a tragedy.

00.17am (9th August) - still watching the live feed. Feeling very emotional now, and disbelieving too. Stunned by how this has spread. Lots of us here in the UK are staying up watching the news tonight, it seems.  The Guardian journalist, Paul Lewis said it's spreading rather than calming down. He was speaking of a 'sense of empowerment' for the rioters, and that they feel they've taken control (to paraphrase him). This rang bells for me with something Rick Tarnas said somewhere on the Correlations podcast, about Uranus-Pluto being the empowerment of youth, but also saying that the shadow side of Uranus-Pluto can be pure chaos. That's definitely what we're seeing here now. I think it was this podcast recorded back in March. Have a listen, from about 15 minutes in, until about the 30 minute mark. Matthew Stelzner describes the shadow of Uranus-Pluto as "the narrative of chaos". Rick Tarnas elsewhere has describe the Pluto energy as the "collective id".

Please send all your positive thoughts to London. (And to Birmingham which is also having problems now).

Just been talking to David @ Stellar Insights on Twitter - he's posted the really powerful Mars>Cancer Ingress chart set for London. His blogpost is here.

It seems that there are now some disturbances in Liverpool as well. 

01.25am ...and Manchester?
Lots of my friends on Facebook still awake and worried about their friends and family in London.  

4.09pm Tuesday 9th - huge uncertainty about what's going to happen tonight. When I went to my local shop they were looking at CCTV photos of a shoplifter who had been causing problems over the last three days. Interesting synchronicity. I'm in Exeter. The 'last three days' stood out for me, considering the time-scale of unrest. I'm wondering if it will spread further in other cities tonight.  We haven't had anything in Exeter yet that I'm aware of, but Plymouth has had some looting, I've been told. If you're in the UK and in a city, keep your kids in tonight, folks. 

Regularly updated map of where disturbances are occurring, on The Guardian site. 

5.25pm Interesting phrase in the Telegraph article "Its participants, marshalled by Twitter, are protagonists in a sinister flipside to the Arab Spring." - both are reflections of Uranus-Pluto. 

This post seems to be getting too long and unwieldy, so I've continued on with reflections on Mars-Uranus and the riots here.