Jupiter in Aries Square Pluto in Capricorn: Uprisings Are Expected. The Global Governors Are Waiting. Freedom is a Complex Dance.

In the thick of last fall's Venus retrograde in Scorpio, we had a very important conjunction of the North Node, Ceres and Pluto in early Capricorn. This conjunction flew under the radar for many astrologers, but in fact, these two dwarf planets coming together with the North Node was pretty big news.

Ceres and Pluto have a long and hardcore history between them. Pluto kidnapped Ceres' daughter and dragged her off to the Underworld to be his forced bride. Ceres responded by making the Earth barren and cold. And things have been pretty rocky ever since.

Ceres, asteroid of cereals, grains and the fertility of the Earth, coming together with Lord of the Underworld Pluto on the successful forward path (North Node) in October 2010 dug up plenty of information about the way our food sources and the growing of food, in general, are being manipulated. This remains a potent theme for the entire 18-month Venus cycle.

At the root (Pluto), the advance of the corporate oligarchy is coming about to a large extent through the manipulation of our food (Ceres). This relates to the implanting of genetically modified material into our food supplies by massive chemical corporations more at home producing chemical warfare for the military industrial complex than staples for your kitchen. And it also relates to the purposeful inflation of food prices through manufactured shortages and rampant speculation.

Here is the real Plutonic dirt: the exorbitant inflation on food is, in big part, a result of criminally deregulated derivatives markets and the stampeding of capital, beginning in 2008, from the collapsing U.S. mortgage scheme into a generally much more stable arena: food.

From an August article on the subject:

"One of the things coming to light under this transit is how food has become part of the derivatives scheme, creating a massive speculation bubble based on wild gambling on agricultural commodities prices. In 2008, this speculation drove food prices up (wheat by 80 percent, maize by 90 percent, rice by 320 percent) driving 200 million more people into starvation...

A lot of things have been blamed for the rising cost of food - fuel costs, supply problems, overpopulation, cash crops, diverting food crops to create ethanol. These all contribute.

But a major factor, probably the major factor, not often mentioned is the derivatives scheme on food and resulting price jumps. It was really this that spiked prices to the point that 200 million more people could not afford to fill their stomachs. This was the basis for the 2008 food riots in 30 countries. Haiti, Mexico, Egypt, Bangladesh, Mozambique...

When Haitians were eating biscuits made from clay and lard to stop their gnawing hunger, they had these speculators, their clients and the people who allowed (and continue to allow) the deregulation of the financial system to thank...

Once the mortgage scam collapsed, the ticks had to go looking for a new dog. They found one with our food supply. These speculators bet on the price of food rising, and the higher the price of staple goods like wheat, rice, corn, soybeans the bigger the profits for the speculators and their clients...

From an article by Johann Hari "How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won":

"Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldman's pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market, and they were looking for somewhere else to make their stash of cash swell. They started to buy massive amounts of derivatives based on food: they reckoned that food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded onto this ground and decided to buy, buy, buy.

So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for contracts based on food massively rose - which meant the all-rolled-into-one price for food on people's plates massively rose. The starvation began.

The food price was now being set by speculation, rather than by real food. The hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that even on the regulated exchanges in the US - which take up a small part of the business - 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely to inflate the price and sell it on.""

Now, in early 2011, following massive flooding and crop failures in the spring and summer, prices have been pushed even higher than 2008 levels.

The recent uprisings in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are pretty simple, really: people can't afford to buy food. Or anything else. They're hungry. They're unemployed. They're desperate. They see little future.

It's a common refrain, a pre-planned sociological theme across the globe.

And the people are rightfully fingering corrupt government structures - more corporate interests than representatives of the people.

Jupiter in Aries is squaring Pluto in Capricorn, exact February 25, blazing the same trail Uranus will follow when it enters Aries March 11. At that point, we will have the planet of rebellion, revolution and sudden change (Uranus) locked into a series of seven squares to Pluto in Capricorn (consolidation of power among the corporate-sponsored Global Governors) until 2015.

There's only so much pressure and deprivation that can be tolerated. Those applying the pressure and deprivation know this. It's a matter of survival.

Uprisings of the people are expected. And the Global Governors wait to use them to their advantage.

As the mainstream media-imbibing public looks on, talking about the spread of democracy in Egypt (ha) or humanity standing up and saying no more, we are prescribed the usual solution brought to us by United States fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and artillery.

The Canadian and U.S. middle managers Harper and Obama bleat the same interchangeable words into the cameras. We no longer have even the appearance of two separate countries.

The Global Governors ride the wave of public revolt up to the peak and take their places atop the same corrupt hierarchies with a slightly new cast of characters.

Freedom is what we're here for, it's true. But it isn't happening overnight. We grind it out, wriggling out of the shackles together, step-by-step, each revolt injecting fresh energy, inspiration and movement for the longer-term dynamics of Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn. We wiggle through the cracks and make them wider.

It's exhausting, devastating to know what is going on, to live accordingly amongst people who go on as if nothing is amiss, who don't really give a good Goddamn unless it directly affects them and their's. They don't see that it already does. That a pre-set history is in danger of repeating. That the last time Uranus in Aries squared Pluto we had the rise of the Third Reich leading into the second World War. That their willful ignorance gives it all a pass.

But we have to stay with it. We have to maintain the Plutonic X-ray vision, make the connections, share them and gain strength from the body of knowledge, from the spirit rising from it. We find our openings within the vise-like Pluto in Capricorn grip - and take them.

And we thank our fellow human beings in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and around the world for doing just that.

We'll be ready when it's our turn.