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NewsScope for December 17, 2001 Mars Enters the Danger Zone While most Americans would like to cozy into a warm holiday season, the planets have other ideas. The long term Saturn-Pluto opposition, taking place in the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius, is the celestial signature for the current geopolitical unrest across our global village. The warrior planet Mars is now in Pisces and heading into this extremely dangerous zone over the coming two weeks. Mars forms a square to Saturn on December 22, and then squares Pluto on December 30. All three of these planets are known as "malefics" and their challenging combinations tend to generate highly confrontational situations. The slow-moving outer planets Saturn and Pluto set the geopolitical forces against each other, and then the faster moving Mars acts as a triggering device, releasing the pent up anger and frustration at convenient enemies. Individuals with significant planets between 8 and 16 degrees of the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces) are the most susceptible to major disruptions over the coming two weeks. Mars in Pisces motivates the spiritual warrior and fosters secret activity. When Mars runs into Saturn and Pluto, the efforts to win become subversive, manipulative, and emotionally toxic. For someone like George W. Bush, who as president personifies the national interests, the pending cosmic clash represents important developments in the War on Terrorism. His Mars in Virgo is exactly in line with the first of these astro-events, the Mars-Saturn square. Since his Mars line runs right through the middle of Afghanistan, we can expect climactic, often brutal events there, and domestically as well as we head into December 22. The Bin Laden Tape Last Thursday after much deliberation the Bush administration released the Osama bin Laden tape which was dated November 9 and discovered by American forces in Kabul. Touted as the "smoking gun," the videotape reveals bin Laden's complicity in the terrorist attack. The horoscope for the 9-11 event (8:46 a.m.; NYC) remains the best chart for tracking the overall developments in the War on Terrorism. The epochal Saturn-Pluto opposition, already pointing to religious conflict and debate by being in Gemini and Sagittarius, underscores the mental/religious conflict in this chart by being in the third and ninth houses. The third and ninth houses also govern communications, publishing, and the tapes recording events. The videotape was released during the New Moon which took place exactly on the 9-11 Chiron, reflecting the emotional pain and anguish regenerated during the holiday season. A major progression was also exact on this day: progressed Moon and Mars opposed each other, and were simultaneously conjunct the fateful lunar node axis. All this planetary activity took place in the third and ninth houses, focusing the significance of the tape as a legal argument, a persuasive media tool. In Islamic regions where Bin Laden is widely supported by the major media, the tape was denounced as a fabrication, a CIA concoction. The bin Laden tape had the effect of polarizing opinions and beliefs along the lines already drawn by cultural bias. As transiting Mars goes on to square the 9-11 Saturn-Pluto axis over the coming week, watch for terrorist events and military actions to reinforce the religious divide. John Walker, The American Taliban Newsweek's cover story of the American discovered among captured Taliban fighters described him as a "psychological puzzle." How could John Walker, who grew up in one of the most liberal, tolerant places in the United States, be drawn into the most absolutist sect of Islam, the Taliban? When his mother saw her wounded, battered son on TV, she said he must have been brainwashed. John Walker was born a cause-oriented Aquarius on February 9, 1981 (Washington DC; time unknown), and named after Beatle John Lennon who was shot only two months earlier. With his Sun aspecting the three outer planets, Walker felt compelled to follow an extraordinary path shaped by transpersonal forces that he could never fully grasp. Walker's Mercury, reflecting his personal style of processing information, is at a disadvantage when retrograde in Pisces. The mind is constantly flooded with images and fantasies from unknown sources. Astrologer Robert Wilkinson* describes this position as being "lost in a fog" and a "mind that shifts in empathy with its environment." Newsweek reports that Walker's mind may have been further addled because he was a heavy hashish user. Walker first turned to Islam when he was 14 years old, just as Uranus (the ruler of his Sun sign) had entered Aquarius. When Uranus reached his fashionable Venus in early Aquarius, Walker adopted Islamic clothing, wearing a long white robe and pillbox hat and calling himself Suleyman. Over the past year Uranus, often referred to as the "Awakener," has been back and forth across his Sun. The final passage took place just as he emerged from the flooded Afghan dungeon and into the spotlight. * See Wilkinson's book "A New Look at Mercury Retrograde" John Walker's birth date is from MSNBC Reader feedback is welcome. Click here for feedback.
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