A grand cross in astrology consists of four planets each square to two other planets and opposed to the third, thus forming a square. The one coming up at the end of April illustrates a grand cross well. It has been said of a grand cross that someone gets crucified on it. Notice at first glance that all four planets – Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Pluto – are at 13 degrees of cardinal signs, so the orb for all aspects is less than one degree – it is a tight cardinal grand cross. If you look at the fourth harmonic chart you can see how close all four planets are.
Also included is the graphical ephemeris of this period which show exactly and in a very visual manner how the four planets come together. Notice that they all cross exactly where the U.S. Sun is at 13 Cancer.
Consider the four planets involved in the grand cross: Mars, the planet of War, Jupiter, the planet of Capitalism, Uranus, the planet of Revolution, and Pluto, the planet of Transformation. They are all in conflict and cross-purposes. These planets all highlight issues that are very important at this time of our history. This grand cross of late April could represent a peak of the crisis represented by those four planets.
The long lasting Uranus-Pluto square, of which I’ll write more later, is an additional stress to our system. You can see small outbursts all the time.
This is an impressive formation involving four planets, including two slow moving ones whose square has highlighted this decade. The question becomes what does it mean. I have seldom seen such an impressive formation. The only other one I have seen was in Summer of 2010 (july 30 was the peak), but not as impressive as this one. I wasn’t looking forward to it, and looking back nothing really as large as I could have expected happened. Or so I thought at the time. With the benefit of a few years hindsight I realize this was the height of the WikiLeaks release, showing American war crimes in an official video and the government charged a young private first class with providing the video. WikLeaks had and continues to have, repercussions. The imprisonment, in one form or the other, of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden, lead from the events of that summer. The Arab spring came about after that WikiLeaks release because, even though people in Tunisia had a good idea of what there government was up to, the WikiLeaks release confirmed it.
So one thought I have is that there will be no big event at the end of April, but only an event which upon looking back at we will realize that this was the start of something important.
But looking at the current world situation, it could be more than a symbolic event. This is the Centennial of the start of World War I, and it looks like people want to celebrate the event by more than just many books and TV specials. As I write this the events in the Ukraine have heated up. And it looks like a replay of the start of the Cold War. The Russians are being demonized much as the Soviets were 60 years ago, and the United States media seems to be as willing to repeat the government story of state enemies with at least as much stenographic ability as they had then. This period also recalls the time of the Cuban missile crisis. One wonders if intelligent beings are in charge of this country, or we are just on automatic pilot. So it is interesting to watch the tension build as this square builds to exact on April 21. The blindness and stupidity of officials reminds one of the blindness and stupidity of diplomats in the months and years before the outbreak of World War I.
Then take a look at the same grand cross as transits to the United States chart, also shown in the graphical ephemeris and the fourth harmonic. Yes, all four of those planets came together on the Sun of the United States, and also of course the Saturn of the United States. So we know that the United States will be strongly effected by whatever comes down in the last week of April.
Notice that the U.S. Sun is exactly opposed by Pluto, and this will continue for a couple of years, the middle of May is the first time it will be exact. Pluto has never been opposite the Sun of the U.S. since its birth, so there is not much of a track record. But the last time that Pluto was opposite the U.S. Sun was between the Seven Years’ War and the Revolutionary War – the tightest period was 1766 to 1770. This was the time was such things as the Stamp Act and the Townsend Acts were put out by Britain to get more money from the colonists to pay for the Seven Years’ War, which of course, said the British, the colonists benefited from. These various acts got the colonists angry and led to the Revolutionary War.
My guess on this opposition, which I talked about in the run-up to the 2012 election, and considering that the Sun represents the President and the government, is that whatever party has elected the President in 2012 would not be able to elect a President in 2016, since the party in office would be so disgraced.
And then we have Uranus square Sun. This happens more often than Pluto opposite Sun. The last time was 1970 and 1971. Anger was building towards President Nixon over bombings in Cambodia – the Kent State killings took place on May 4, 1970. Also there was an uprising at Attica prison in New York – many people were unhappy with Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s prison policies. But this time this square is combined with the Pluto opposition.
Note that the Ascendant of the U. S. chart is at 12 degrees of Sagittarius and so there is a quincunx with the Sun. This means that these four planets in the Cardinal Cross all make aspects to the Ascendant of the United States,though not as tight as with the Sun. Also note that the Moon is sesquiquadrate to the Sun of the United States, so what makes an aspect to the Sun also makes an aspect to the Moon. In this case we see that both Pluto and Uranus semisquare the Moon, and so the Moon is at the midpoint of Uranus and Pluto. This midpoint is not nearly exact – it will be exact this fall just in time for the Election!
Needless to say, this is a complex picture and it is impossible to even guess what it signifies. Stay tuned!