The Celestial Wheel Vedic Commentary World societal, economic and political forecasting since 2002   February 25 , 2006     Doug Riemer VedicPredictiveAstrology.com  vedic@esedona.net  (928) 203-4347  Back to: The Celestial Wheel Archives

February 27, 2006

     With my weak Venus, I don't follow entertainment news.  So, thanks Maryland subscriber M.L. for pointing out about Angelina Jolie, ...now she  seems so self-possessed and Madonna-like as she visits all these war  and famine ravaged countries.  Jolie entered a Jupiter subcycle in November, 2005 that stimulates these activities, her Dharma of selfless service. -- charity.  Jupiter is the philanthropist, and in her chart, it serves further to do good deeds for the disadvantaged. 

     So, I correct myself that Jolie isn't yet performing her Dharma of selfless service to others.  Yet, for Jolie, twelfth house bed pleasures issue will take time and much selfless service to overcome.

     The twelfth house is also a Moksha (spiritual) house, signifying   final liberation -- the soul's unification with God.  Although Hindus view sex as sacred, they tend not suffer from Christians' excessive purity.  Queen Victoria was the most extreme and powerful manifestation of this view that sex is sinful, which

inevitably forced sex underground, resulting in hypocrisy throughout the West.

{Recall, Queen Victoria was so repressed, she put skirts on the piano legs to avoid these being sexually suggestive, and also, that prostitution and erotic literature flourished in nineteenth century England, where only ladies of the night had orgasms.}

     Hindus also believe that all paths lead to God, and that we're incarnated into the world to both deal with past life karmas and to participate in the world's pleasures.  Certainly Krishna enjoyed his cow girls.  This contrasts with Shiva (Saturn's deity) the ascetic, making others (like Gandhi) celibates.  Still, Gandhi fathered children earlier in his life.  One of my editors advised against writing about Angelina Jolie's sex issue as degrading my work, but that person's ongoing Saturn Dasa stimulates only now the ascetic view.

     America, of course, has its puritanical roots (the Puritans and Calvinism), and these were cemented by Queen Victoria's 63 year rule, from 1837 to 1901.  Provocatively, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1887, by which time she was perceived as a symbol of morality (Wikipedia Encyclopedia), was during the United States' first Gilded Age (the first 10 year Moon cycle).  That period was a perverse mixture of material excess, corruption, hypocrisy and a Victorian purity crusade. 

     In this Second Gilded Age (second Moon Dasa 1998 -- 2008), the same influences repeat.  But like the nineteenth century's hypocritical surge in prostitution and erotica, media surveys reveal Desperate Housewives is more popular in the staunchly Christian South than in the comparatively secular blue states.  Thereby, devout southern Christians all attend Sunday morning church services, where they hear sermons about fidelity and abstinence.  Then, that very evening, they hypocritically close their drapes to watch Desperate Housewives episodes about promiscuous middle-aged married women. 

     America, with its chart's powerful (Moon ruled) eighth house of sex, obviously has a lot of conflicted sexual karma to work out.  It should be no surprise, therefore, that Angelina Jolie, the perfect sex siren of this Second Gilded Age, doesn't much desire nor enjoy sex.  Note subscriber M.L.'s observation of Angelina Jolie as being Madonna-like.

     That some subscribers may be offended about Celestial Wheel commentaries discussing sex relates to this Second Gilded Age's purity crusade.  This results because all Americans swim in in the nation's karmic current, and those on an ascetic spiritual path would naturally recoil from sex as being anti-spiritual.  I'm not going to apologize for writing about sex.  I instead pose the question, how can discussion about sex, which is essentially about love and the creation of life, be worse than that of war, which is about hate and killing?

     We're just a few days away from beginning the challenging repeat of last year's Spring Mercury Madness.  While the public's primary focus is on Mercury's March 3 -- 26 retrograde, the stressful interval continues into early May.  This is because after the retrograde is over, Mercury transits its fallen (weak) sign of Pisces, and it is further afflicted by conjoining with Rahu and spring season eclipses. (See the graph of Mercury's spring movements in the February 9 Celestial Wheel, below, and in the In-depth Forecast on the U.S. chart, March 2 to June 30.)

     Notice that Mercury retrograde begins almost simultaneously with the United States chart's Moon/Ketu planetary cycle, March 1 -- October 1.  (Again, see the In-depth Forecast on the U.S. chart, March 2 to June 30.)  As Ketu symbolizes counterculture in this chart, its last full Dasa (1966 -- 72) stimulated the breakaway from Queen Victoria's sexual repression.  (The girdle, literally and figuratively symbolizing female asexuality, was cast aside, although the media reported on visually stimulating free love behavior and bra burning.)  To make sense of how Ketu, a spiritual planet, stimulates sexual freedom in the United States chart, one can only conclude that God actually endorses sex.  Too, if HE didn't, why is sex so enjoyable and integral to love and the continuation of the species?  

     Look, therefore, for the current purity crusade to be a major issue in the upcoming counter-culture movement, which will be inflamed by Mercury retrograde and Mercury's continued weakness until early May.  The fireworks will begin by week's end, with a bang.

February 25, 2006

     Americans have a love/hate relationship with their movie stars and professional athletes, as well as business tycoons. We idolize them for their glamorous lifestyles, while we also resent them for the power of their wealth and the seeming unfairness of their ideal lifestyles.  Remember the term jet set*?  Donald Trump, who once actually owned and airline and naturally named it after himself, was a celebrity well before he became a TV star.  If he shot a great game of golf, Trump would have it all.

{*From the Wikipedia Encyclopedia: A term used to describe an international social group of wealthy people, who organize and participate in social activities all around the world which are unreachable to ordinary people. The term comes from the wealthy people with the lifestyle of traveling from one classy or exotic place to another via jet airplanes.}

This celebrity influence can easily be seen in the United States' chart.         Movie stars elicit from the tremendous third house of the performing arts, plus a passionate Venus, the planet of the arts, wealthy in the powerful seventh house of relationships.      Similarly, the fifth house of sports is ruled by athletic Mars, also strong and wealthy in the seventh house of relationships.         Business wealth is seen in the 4th house of property, which ruler, Jupiter, is also placed in the seventh house of relationships.  This influence also brings the country's superlative natural resources.  America's industrial might is seen in Saturn, the planet of industry, potent in the tenth house of career.

United States

     I write about this topic because of a provocative article about America's love/heat fascination with the rich and famous in the February 22 Washington Post, That Wonderful Woman!  Oh, How I loathe Her.  Here's a quote about what the writer terms idolspize,

     From a Vedic Astrology view, everyone has problems and struggles through life.  After all, the malefic planets (Saturn, Mars, Rahu, Ketu and the Sun) have to be somewhere in the chart.  These malefics serve to symbolize the residual karmas (attachments) from past lives that we experience as challenges to (hopefully) overcome in this incarnation.  The process of conquering the Vedic chart is thereby essentially the path toward self-realization -- enlightenment for Buddhists.  This unveiling of karmas is also why Vedic Astrology is integral to Hinduism and all who follow its basic spiritual tenants of karma, reincarnation, yoga and self-realization.

     Again from a Vedic Astrology view, the rich and famous (the Donald Trumps, the Paris Hilton's, the Michael Jordans, the Susan Orleans, Angelina Jolies) are not exempt from disappointments, losses, unhappiness, sickness, conflicts, accidents, loneliness, self hatred...  In fact, these folks often tend to have challenges as large as their worldly successes -- for the law of karma usually matches huge gifts with equivalent despairs.

Here's a real life example.  Angelina Jolie is idolspized for her great beauty, acting success, wealth and celebrity men.       Every woman dreams, at least a little, of being Angelina, and every man dreams (more) about being with her.  However, former husband, Billy Bob Thornton, was critical of her sexuality, Sofpedia.      Jolie's Vedic chart confirms Thornton's opinion, revealing a most cruel karmic trick -- that this twenty-first century siren both lacks passion and is non-orgasmic.      Restrictive Saturn rules Jolie's seventh house of passion toward the mate and is placed in her twelfth house of bed pleasures.  This Saturn is also naturally bad for relationships.  Jolie was married to Thornton for just three years, and her romance with Brad Pitt will not last either.      Further harming desire, sexual pleasure and relationship is Mars' aspecting the twelfth house and Saturn.  Mars stimulates sexual pleasure, but Saturn denies it.  If Jolie does feel passion, she only gets close to orgasm.      Because Mars' and Saturn's energies are opposing (aggression and resistance), they bring struggle and failure.  Jolie fights hard for success in these areas, but she always fails.      A further irony is that her name, Angelina, is obviously derived from angel.  That suggests Jolie has become the exactly wrong kind of angel, that this life finds her trapped in a persona opposing her Vedic chart's Dharma, one of service.

Angelina Jolie June 4, 1975 at 9:09 AM Los Angeles, CA

    Angelina would only find fulfillment during this incarnation by yielding to Saturn, the planet of service and the masses, who will not be denied.  Jolie should give up her celebrity and dedicate herself to charity and philanthropy.  Only then, when she is performing her Saturnian duty, may she experience the pleasures of relationship.  Unfortunately, there's a timing problem in Jolie's chart. She runs her twenty year Venus cycle, bringing celebrity, from 1995 to 2015.  Only then does Jolie enter her six year Sun cycle, at which time her solar soul (atman) may awake from maya (worldly illusion).

     While I understand this example is more suitable to a tabloid than a philosophical Vedic commentary, I use it because I've found it truly amazes men, and even more so, women. 

     The conclusion here should be obvious, but I'll state it anyway.  As difficult as you may sometimes find your lives to be, especially as you confront inevitable stress during these transformational years, the rich and famous are not exempt from suffering.  In fact, they tend to suffer more.

     There's a final conclusion to be drawn here.  Don't believe everything you read in the Washington Post.  Remember, they got it wrong on Iraq too.

February 22, 2006

     Although the focus remains ahead to March's upcoming Mercury retrograde and the United States' char's Moon/Ketu counter-culture movement, this week has turned out to be very uneasy.

The World Transit chart for today (right) shows Mercury and Venus becoming weak as they approach the edges of the house/signs.       This fragility compromises Mercury's communications and nervous system and Venus' happiness and contentment.      More impactive is the Moon continuing in its fallen sign of Scorpio, aspected by Mars, which serves to stir up the emotions, some fearful.      Yesterday, Mars Tuesday, was obviously difficult for the U.S. Port scandal, the destruction of a major Iraqi Shiite shrine...

     Yet, there appears to be another, and underlying, real world influence that is amplifying worry at an otherwise not so difficult astrological interval.  This is the continuing and irreversible downward spiral of the Bush Administration.  While most, if not all, of us welcome the ending of the destructive neoconservative movement during America's Second Gilded Age in this era of globalization, it naturally results in a destabilizing power vacuum.  Using a marine analogy, a dangerously aggressive ship captain with a trusting crew is better than an incompetent one stimulating mutiny  -- though neither steer a safe course.

     Here are some current Washington Post articles/editorials that attempt to sort out the world situation in this era of labor globalization that also breaks down nation states:

From "Connectedness' to Conflict

In the Mideast, the Third Way is a Myth

The Fears Under Our Prosperity

Squaring Islam With Democracy

Economics And the Inevitable

     None are final answers, but the search for developing a better world view is encouraging in itself.

     Those of us in the West have had a pretty easy time since the ending of World War II.  Sure, there have been major domestic and world challenges, but even these have generally ended positively and none have stalled our economic and social advancement.

     Now we face major change for the first time in two generations.  But worrisome as that unknown future may be, only from change comes growth.  Let us hope that a general elevation in consciousness, together with new leaders emerging at home and abroad, will result in a more humanitarian global community.

February 16, 2006

     Longtime subscribers know well I always observe planetary karmas upon which to interpret and comment about world conditions.  However, heightened and obvious turbulence in the U.S. and abroad appear to conflict with the statement, The planets are actually, and comparatively, congenial until early March....made in the last Commentary on February 9 (below).  This has stumped me.

     After considering this confusing disconnect for the past several days, I grasped two causes.  First, previous predictions for troubles for the United States, G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney are inevitably actualizing.  The December 19 Celestial Wheel Commentary capsulated this karma in stating, ...(Bush's) planetary cycles of Saturn/Jupiter/Rahu from December 27, 2005 to May 15, 2006...is a potent negative influence for him.... Considering the ending of his 19 year Saturn planetary cycle occurs at the same time (which also is very harmful to Bush's career), he can only expect an ongoing relentless assault on his presidency for the next 6 months.  Dick Cheney continues being beset with predicted reputation and illness karmas.

     Second, this month will truly appear to be calm compared with the upcoming Spring Mercury Madness, fully interpreted in the January 31 In-depth Forecast, #65c Planetary Karmas For 2006, Part 3 United States Chart, March 2 -- June 30.

     That Forecast on the United States also predicted a counter-culture movement beginning March 2.  Again excerpting from the February 9 Celestial Wheel Commentary, March 2 is also the inception of the United States' Moon/Ketu counter-culture cycle, which continues until October 1.  Long simmering public dissatisfaction and grumbling is advancing steadily toward the boiling point.. 

     In this regard, Subscriber S.J. in California alerted me to a CBS News article, Faith, Power & Bush's American Way, stating, Doug, I don't usually expect forthright analysis by the mainstream media, but these remarks by Dick Meyer of cbs.new.com remind me of your Second Gilded Age!

     To sum up, the United States (and its leaders) are reaping the natural consequences of Second Gilded Age excesses, and this spring these will manifest in Mercury Madness and a counter-culture movement.

     The In-depth Forecasts on the Mideast and Bird Flu are still being composed.

     I've noted in a public interest pick-up in my consultations work.  This renewed interest in spiritual knowledge was predicted in the January 25 Celestial Wheel, in the section, Mars And Metaphysics Rising.. This confirms the suggestion that you revitalize your spiritual (metaphysical) pursuits.  The consequent emotional grounding, insight and detachment will be invaluable over the next months of turmoil and change.

February 9, 2006

     While, thankfully, the Mars/Saturn struggle ended Sunday (February 5), its final few days were obviously stressful -- especially overseas with Muslims protesting against political cartoons of Mohammed, the violent Haitian election, the sinking of the Egyptian ferry.. I had cautioned about this stress in the previous Celestial Wheel (below), stating, Since the most difficult strife comes from the combination of actual events and your reactions to them, this lunar sensitivity is a confirming influence for the need for patience and caution through Sunday.

     The World Transits for 2006 In-depth Forecast identified February 7 as a sensitive date, stimulating discord.  This sensitive date was more fully described in the United States' chart for 2006, to March 1, stating ...confrontation and violence is indicated.  However, this appears to be related more to foreign countries in which the United States in involved. 

The planets are actually, and comparatively, congenial until early March, when this spring's Mercury Madness (retrograde in a difficult position) begins.  Here again is the graphic for this, first published in the United States chart In-depth Forecast -- March 2 - June 30.  Mercury's difficult path, punctuated by eclipses, will be detailed in future Celestial Wheels.      March 2 is also the inception of the United States' Moon/Ketu counter-culture cycle, which continues until October 1.  Long simmering public dissatisfaction and grumbling is advancing steadily toward the boiling point -- See, On the Capital Grounds, Grass Roots Rising.

     One line, Who's afraid of the Big Bad Bush?, recalls previous Celestial Wheels about The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

    The suggestion here is that you take advantage of fairly calm celestial weather this month to fulfill short term goals and tidy up any loose ends.  Also, with renewed interest in spirituality, this month is auspicious for rejuvenating that part of your life.  A recently handicapped client once complained, I've lost faith in the planets, to which I replied, Ah, but the planets haven't lost faith in you.

February 2, 2006

New Monthly Commentaries Page

     Celestial Wheel Commentaries are published on one web page, with these brief observations added to the top of the page.  This first February entry thereby begins a new page. 

     In-depth Celestial Wheel Forecasts are placed on separate pages -- the three already published this year on 2006 predictions.

     Here again is the web page for Celestial Wheel Archives -- where all Commentary pages and In-depth Forecasts are listed and linked -- http://www.vedicpredictiveastrology.com/forecasts/

Mars/Saturn Struggle Update

     There are only four more days left of the historically unique 6 1/2 month Mars/Saturn struggle that I've been writing about since last spring.  Although this is only a transit issue {compared with the deeper and more enduring potency of Dasas -- planetary cycles -- in charts of persons, groups and nations}, it has affected everyone in one way or the other -- illness, accident, expenses, family discord, jealousy, depression...  These two malefics form one of the most challenging planetary combinations -- brash Mars' desire and violence locked with sedentary Saturn's impassive objectivity.

     There are some very positive benefits, beyond the ending of Mars/Saturn harms.  First, the January 25 Celestial Wheel, in the section, Mars And Metaphysics Rising, explained how this surprising influence for metaphysics will be free to express its curiosity.  This will encourage your interest in spiritual knowledge, and the inner peace gained from spiritual practice. 

     Second, for those of you who are healers or counselors, be ready for clients to seek your restorative services, as also mentioned in the January 25 Celestial Wheel .  For those who are not involved in the healing arts, you will be more open to those services, and since Mars/Saturn has worn everyone down, in need of them.

     Third, Mars/Saturn magnifies personal physical and mental energy, stimulating frustration and impatience.  Thus, come Monday, you'll be better able to connect spiritually and will find your worldly activities can again advance, with the very welcome added benefit of smoothness replacing roughness.  Look for improvements in patience, openness and the ability to concentrate.  So, if you're in the midst of a battle of some sort, wait until Monday, when the planetary karmas will begin to encourage resolution.

     Third, the famous Chakrapani Ullal wrote in his February 2002 newsletter article, While it (Mars/Saturn) gives tremendous experience in dealing with life, by making the person go through all kinds of difficult experiences, these very experiences enable the person to rise above circumstances and become successful.  In other words, Mars/Saturn toughens people up, not unlike the old Russian saying, One beaten man is worth two unbeaten men.  {You learn how to take a fall, get back up and avoid the behavior that caused the fall.}  So, take what you've learned through Mars/Saturn struggle and begin to apply this information in your life.  Further, as spirituality will be free to awaken on Monday, and authentic spirituality can only be a search for truth, you will have the opportunity to see the objective truths revealed during the last 6 /12 months.  While these truths will tend to be more relevant to your personal perspective, they also naturally apply to the world around you.

     I finish this section with a caution.  Because Saturn insists that it's not over until it's over, conservative and careful actions will best serve you through Sunday -- when Mars finally exits Aries into Taurus.  Beyond this concern about objective reality, there is another influence for subjective reality in the emotional Moon transiting by toxic Rahu and angry Mars until late Sunday.  Since the most difficult strife comes from the combination of actual events and your reaction to them, this lunar sensitivity is a confirming influence for the need for patience and caution through Sunday.

In Depth Forecasts

     Given the smoothing of the karmic waters with the departure of Mars/Saturn turbulence, on Monday you will find it easier to read and grasp the information in the last three In-depth Forecasts on 2006 predictions  -- the World Transit Chart followed by the two sequential United States' chart interpretations.   See Celestial Wheel Archives.

    I've personally found it very difficult to write these long Forecasts -- my mind was too locked up to remember and organize information, much less intuit effectively.  Knowing Mars/Saturn would be ending soon, I pushed hard to complete the United States' 2006 Forecast March through June and am biding my time to do the Mideast and Bird Flu Forecasts.  In regard to these, my editors and outside experts have been generous in providing excellent information -- which I can apply to Vedic charts to unveil currently energing and future karmas during 2006.

     Look for these key predictive analyses to be published late next week and the following week.