Tran­script of Radio Show: 2022 — Plu­to, Rus­sia & Ukraine, and the end of an Age 

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

As you all can imag­ine, I have had many clients and lis­ten­ers ask­ing me what “the stars” have to say about the cri­sis in East­ern Europe, specif­i­cal­ly Ukraine and Rus­sia in these past weeks. When we con­sid­er Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy, and when we con­sid­er nation­al and inter­na­tion­al events, we look at the charts of the involved par­ties, espe­cial­ly the charts of the nations and their leaders.

Giv­en the nature of the events in East­ern Europe and giv­en that we are in the last full year of Plu­to being in Capri­corn, (again which has been this over­ar­ch­ing sig­ni­fi­ca­tor for this peri­od from 2008 into 2024 form­ing the “end of an age”), we might well expect to see that Plu­to is sig­nif­i­cant in the natal charts and tran­sits of the respec­tive par­ties to this conflict.

What Date is Significant?
But here is pre­cise­ly where we run into sev­er­al prob­lems, which boils down to how do we deter­mine which astrol­o­gy charts are cor­rect. With the chart of an indi­vid­ual, we can usu­al­ly obtain the date and place of birth, and often­times the time as well. But it is often quite chal­leng­ing to deter­mine the true birth­date for a nation. A great num­ber of actions or events can be seen as being deci­sive, such as a dec­la­ra­tion of inde­pen­dence, like in our USA’s Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence on July 4, 1776, which seems to be the most impor­tant chart for under­stand­ing the nature and his­to­ry of Amer­i­ca, and has become the date we cel­e­brate “our birth­day” as a nation.

But it may be more impor­tant to con­sid­er when inde­pen­dence is achieved by a final vic­to­ry, or grant­ed by anoth­er, or when a con­sti­tu­tion is adopt­ed for­mal­ly, and many oth­er moments, such as the fall of one type of gov­ern­ment and the rise or adop­tion of anoth­er. For many coun­tries there are mul­ti­ple charts, and the ques­tion remains open which is to be favored by astrologers at var­i­ous times.

So, we astrologers will often look to the lead­er­ship of a coun­try as being the nom­i­nal indi­ca­tor of the well-being or not of that nation. This method has a very ancient lin­eage in that long ago, astrologers would look to the chart of the King or Queen, of the Emper­or or Empress, to ascer­tain the fate of that king­dom or empire; it was said that as went the fate of the lord, so fol­lowed their sub­jects’ fates too.

Dates for Ukraine and Russia
So here we find our­selves seek­ing to under­stand the nature of this strug­gle in Ukraine, and we would need to have usable charts for Rus­sia and Ukraine, and for their respec­tive lead­ers. Now with respect with Ukraine we do appear to have what we need; we seem to have a rea­son­able nation­al chart based on the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence of Ukraine on August 24, 1991, and a true chart for the leader, Volodymyr Zelen­skyy, born Jan­u­ary 25, 1978.

But for Rus­sia, I have to say that it is much more dif­fi­cult to know for cer­tain. That is because there are sev­er­al charts that have been pro­posed for the cur­rent Russ­ian state, one for June 12, 1990, the First People’s Deputies adop­tion of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Russia’s Nation­al Sov­er­eign­ty; to Belarus, Ukraine and the Rus­sia Federation’s Min­sk Dec­la­ra­tion being announced on Decem­ber 8, 1991; to that being rat­i­fied by the Russ­ian Par­lia­ment on Decem­ber 12, 1991; to the rais­ing of the new Russ­ian Flag over the Krem­lin on Decem­ber 25, 1991.

Though there are sev­er­al com­pet­ing claims we per­haps can set­tle this for now by under­stand­ing this fact. The Russ­ian peo­ple them­selves cel­e­brate June 12 as their “Rus­sia Day”, (like we cel­e­brate July 4^th here in the USA), and that seems per­sua­sive enough for me to use this chart as the chart for the cur­rent Russ­ian state.

But we then have the more chal­leng­ing prob­lem of Vladimir Putin’s birth­date and chart. The offi­cial record offered is that he was born on Octo­ber 7, 1952, at 9:30 am in Leningrad, USSR. Many astrologers will use this because it has been avail­able. But there are sev­er­al poten­tial prob­lems with this chart. Russ­ian birth records do not have a time of birth record­ed. Yet the source of this time of birth ref­er­enced an offi­cial record. More­over, Putin was a KGB agent, and they are trained to nev­er reveal per­son­al infor­ma­tion, and to sub­sti­tute mis­in­for­ma­tion. There are oth­er researchers who have pro­vid­ed or derived oth­er times of birth for that day, and even oth­er years of birth such as 1950, and that Putin might have been born in Geor­gia and not Russia.

So, what are we do to with this? It cer­tain­ly seems rea­son­able for us to look at and com­pare the chart for Ukraine and the Russ­ian chart. And we can cer­tain­ly use Zelensky’s chart, but we will have to be more qual­i­fied and cau­tious about Putin’s chart.

Spir­i­tu­al Truth
As I men­tioned, what we will want to exam­ine is the true spir­i­tu­al sto­ry of what is hap­pen­ing, and that will be indi­cat­ed by the influ­ences that are brought to bear by Plu­to in this con­flict. What we must remem­ber is that Plu­to rules the will, it is the spir­i­tu­al agency or Avatar of the ener­gy-form that cre­ates and forms the unique bound­ary that dis­tin­guish­es one being or enti­ty from anoth­er. With­in that defined space, with­in what we should under­stand as the sacred space of spir­it, that atom, or cell or organ­ism, or in our exam­i­na­tion of Rus­sia and Ukraine, a Social Enti­ty, it is with­in that sacred space that the spark of the divine can estab­lish the expe­ri­ence of being a cen­tered and whole being, root­ed in spir­it and held togeth­er as a One.

For humans, our will estab­lish­es our unique space, and the cen­ter of our sense of being one of a kind. I am in my space, you are in your space, and we must nev­er force our­selves upon one anoth­er, we must nev­er vio­late the space of any oth­er, for the spir­i­tu­al law and truth is absolute about this, that “Thou shall not Trespass”.

But of course, we do tres­pass upon one anoth­er, per­son to per­son, group to group and nation to nation, and it is quite frankly why we have what we see pre­vail­ing in our beau­ti­ful home, it is why we have “hell on Earth”. That is the fun­da­men­tal truth for self-aware, self-cre­at­ing beings, that we will make our own hell, and we will con­tin­ue to do so until we learn to nev­er vio­late the space of anoth­er. Why?

Because the oth­er spir­i­tu­al prin­ci­ple hold­ing our­selves and our worlds togeth­er is that every­thing, and every­one is made from the same root ener­gy-form, the Uncon­di­tion­al Love of the Divine. We are made of love, and we are here quite sim­ply, to remem­ber, we are here because of love, and we are here to love one another.

Plu­to rules the fac­ul­ty of har­ness­ing and focus­ing spir­i­tu­al ener­gy, which is fun­da­men­tal­ly uncon­di­tion­al love, and so it gov­erns how we are held togeth­er in a unique vehi­cle, our own sacred space. When we are prop­er­ly cen­tered with­in our­selves, we may will­ing­ly join with oth­ers to cre­ate new and shared, sacred spaces for our alchemic unions and trans­for­ma­tions. Cer­tain­ly, there is some push and pull, the give and take that dri­ve the devel­op­ment of all com­bi­na­tions, but when­ev­er it cross­es the line from mutu­al­ly and rec­i­p­ro­cal­ly shared sac­ri­fice and com­bi­na­tion that is found­ed upon love and becomes instead a tak­ing or rup­ture of sacred space, then it becomes dri­ven by fear and by force and not love, it is then a false union that becomes the evil we know as trespassing.

The pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn is end­ing, and it is prob­a­bly fit­ting that we have some clear­er exam­ples of the many “Crises in Insti­tu­tions” that it has brought for 15 years now. From the fam­i­ly unit to com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, to local, state, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al orders, the final bell is being tolled for the world that has been since the late 1700’s and the one we are now enter­ing in the lat­er 2020’s.

Charts for Rus­sia and Ukraine

So, let us turn our atten­tion to one of the more dra­mat­ic exam­ples of the mis­use of the will, the sub­ju­ga­tion of one nation­al enti­ty by anoth­er, which brings us to the war of Rus­sia against Ukraine. As we might expect, the posi­tion of Plu­to in the chart of Rus­sia and of Ukraine is rather sig­nif­i­cant. For Rus­sia, Plu­to is the ris­ing plan­et for the chart of June 12, 1990, and it is in the sec­ond house. (This is, you may remem­ber, is like the chart for the Unit­ed States). The 2^nd House rules a nation’s resources and wealth, or val­ues of a nation. But in the chart for Rus­sia, Plu­to is exact­ly oppo­site the plan­et Venus, the plan­et of val­ues, in the 8^th house. In an individual’s chart, the les­son of this aspect would be to learn to break the com­pul­sion to impose their val­ues upon anoth­er or con­trol another’s val­ues, so as not to fall into a pat­tern where in the end the form of rela­tion­ships is inevitably reduced to a strug­gle for pow­er and con­trol, which will often lead to some form of violence.

Not only does this set­up cre­ate a pat­tern for Rus­sia, that it might act force­ful­ly to impose their val­ues upon anoth­er, but this ten­den­cy is then mag­ni­fied by the place­ment of Mars in Aries in the 7^th house of rela­tion­ships, (which in a Mundane/National chart is the house of allies or ene­mies), and this place­ment cre­ates the les­son of need­ing to over­come a ten­den­cy to act too aggres­sive­ly in inter­na­tion­al relationships.

For Ukraine, Plu­to is the plan­et that is upper­most and placed in the 10^th house, which rules the chief exec­u­tive or rul­ing class, the nation­al pow­er, and the ideals a nation seeks to cul­ti­vate and attain. It is in the sign of Scor­pio, the sign of Alche­my, indi­cat­ing that Ukraine’s ideals are found­ed upon the aim to forge a trans­for­ma­tion­al union of the dif­fer­ing sec­tors and ele­ments of their peo­ple. Their chal­lenge in doing so is this, how can they find a way to blend their Moon in Aquar­ius, which stress­es the need for the “peo­ple” to be inde­pen­dent and free, and how to bal­ance and inte­grate that with their need to forge a strong union. It is an inter­nal strug­gle, where­as Russia’s Venus to Plu­to oppo­si­tion is a con­trast or con­flict that is expe­ri­enced as some­thing between Rus­sia and oth­er nations.

Chart for Vladimir Putin

When we look at Vladimir Putin’s chart, the place­ment of Plu­to is the same as in Ukraine’s, at the top of the chart in the 10^th house and in the Sign of Leo. Plu­to here indi­cates a very will­ful per­son with an unre­lent­ing desire to suc­ceed. If the use of pow­er is ground­ed and cen­tered cor­rect­ly, it could lead to great suc­cess and trans­for­ma­tion. But Putin has Plu­to squared to Jupiter, the plan­et of Beliefs and Truths, and this could fos­ter and inflame dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies and ambi­tions to impose “his truth” upon oth­ers, espe­cial­ly as Jupiter is in his 7^th house of rela­tion­ships, and Plu­to is the ruler of his Ris­ing Sign of Scor­pio. Scor­pio Ris­ing often indi­cates a per­son who is inclined to approach or see life as a bat­tle, as a zero-sum game. More­over, Putin has Mars, which is the ancient ruler of Scor­pio, in the Sign of Sagit­tar­ius, and with the plan­et of Desires and Actions in the sign of belief and faith, it fos­ters a per­sona with strong­ly held spir­i­tu­al or reli­gious posi­tions. Many with this place­ment take on the role of being a cru­sad­er for a cause, and often this can evoke a very strong sense of patri­o­tism. Tru­ly, Putin could see him­self as a defend­er of his faith and his country.

Tran­sits in Putin’s and Russia’s charts
If we look at the tran­sits in Putin’s chart and in Russia’s, I would like to point out that this, as Putin puts it, “mil­i­tary incur­sion” is just the lat­est phase of Putin’s war to refash­ion a “Greater Rus­sia” that he began in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, and the estab­lish­ment of nom­i­nal con­trol over two east­ern sec­tors of Ukraine. If we look at that inva­sion in Feb­ru­ary 2014, and this one of Feb­ru­ary 2022, there are some very inter­est­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties. In 2014, Putin had Uranus oppo­site to his Sun, where­as in 2022 he has Uranus oppo­site his Venus (which rules his Sun as a Libra), both of which indi­cate that some­thing dis­rup­tive and forged by the need to be free of lim­i­ta­tions or restric­tions spurred him to act. And in 2014 he had Sat­urn squar­ing his Plu­to and oppo­site his Jupiter, and this time he has Sat­urn oppo­site his Plu­to and squar­ing his Jupiter, and both indi­cate that he has been deter­mined to act through his world­view that he must impose his truth upon oth­ers. But he is also expe­ri­enc­ing in 2022 the tran­sit of Nep­tune incon­junct his Plu­to, and that forces an indi­vid­ual to recon­sid­er the true nature or source of their “pow­er”; that often occurs because they are being forced to rec­og­nize that their pow­er is not what they had or thought they had.

If we look at Russia’s chart, again we see very inter­est­ing links between these two peri­ods and to Putin’s chart as well. In 2014, Rus­sia had Plu­to oppo­site Jupiter, Uranus square Jupiter, and Sat­urn semi­square Uranus. The com­bi­na­tion of Plu­to and Uranus to Jupiter most cer­tain­ly was a demon­stra­tion of the Will to impose one’s beliefs upon anoth­er. And the Sat­urn to Uranus indi­cates the ten­sion of the estab­lished order or real­i­ty of Sat­urn stok­ing the need to exert Russia’s free­dom held by Uranus. And now in 2022, that very same aspect, but wax­ing not wan­ing of Sat­urn semi­square Uranus is back. But this time Uranus in on Venus and oppo­site Plu­to, and we should see an even greater strug­gle between Free­dom, Will and Val­ue now. But this time, Rus­sia is also expe­ri­enc­ing Nep­tune squar­ing the Sun, and now for all of 2022 Nep­tune is squar­ing the 10^th and 4^th house cusps. Much as Putin may be real­iz­ing that his pow­er is not what it was, Rus­sia is also fac­ing what might be best described as an exis­ten­tial cri­sis. Nep­tune squar­ing the 4^th house, will bring about a very con­fus­ing peri­od, where Rus­sians will ques­tion the foun­da­tions for their nation, and that has and will bring about a mount­ing rise in inse­cu­ri­ty. And Nep­tune squar­ing the 10^th house will equal­ly make the Russ­ian peo­ple ques­tion and to have doubts about their path or des­tiny too.

Chart of Volodymyr Zelensky

For Volodymyr Zelen­sky, he like Ukraine is born with his Sun con­junct Venus, indi­cat­ing a love of beau­ty and har­mo­ny. Zelen­sky is an Aquar­ius which is ruled by the plan­et Uranus, while Ukraine has Uranus as its ris­ing plan­et. Each in their own way stand for the pur­pose of life being guid­ed by indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and free­dom. More­over, Ukraine’s Moon is in Aquar­ius and oppo­site to Zelensky’s Moon in Leo, and this Moon is at the very top of Zelensky’s chart, his house of des­tiny. The Moon in a nation’s chart lit­er­al­ly rules “the peo­ple”, and this shows the very real embod­i­ment for the Ukrain­ian peo­ple he is cur­rent­ly hold­ing as his purpose.

Tran­sits in Zelensky’s and Ukraine’s charts
The tran­sits in Ukraine’s and Zelensky’s charts con­firm their shared sense of what is hap­pen­ing now. For Ukraine in 2014, Uranus was squar­ing its ris­ing plan­et Uranus, indi­cat­ing a cri­sis in free­dom. Sat­urn was squar­ing the Moon as well, show­ing the great pain the peo­ple of Ukraine suf­fered then. For Zelen­sky, Uranus was going over his Mer­cury, which would lead to a year where he was shocked and upset. Mean­while, just like Ukraine, Sat­urn was on his Moon as well, so he was per­son­al­ly suf­fer­ing emo­tion­al­ly. In 2022, Uranus has entered the 4^th house of foun­da­tions and secu­ri­ty for Ukraine, and now oppos­es its Plu­to or will; cer­tain­ly, a great test of will, a test of bound­aries is here for Ukraine. And Sat­urn is direct­ly on the Moon this time, bring­ing about even greater suf­fer­ing than 2014. For Zelen­sky, Uranus is oppo­site his Uranus, and for any­one this is one of the chief indi­ca­tors that one has reached the midlife, a turn­ing point that will present itself as a cri­sis of authen­tic­i­ty and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. And, like Ukraine, Sat­urn is now oppo­site to Zelensky’s Moon indi­cat­ing a very chal­leng­ing time where one can feel cut-off from the sup­port one needs.

What will happen?
Most of you, and I too, would like to be able to under­stand what will hap­pen, to have the plan­ets pre­dict for us what the future holds. But as I have stressed time after time, the plan­ets do not “make” things hap­pen, they are the prin­ci­pal car­ri­ers of mean­ing, and that these mean­ings wax and wane as the plan­ets cycle with one anoth­er, with each plan­et and plan­e­tary com­bi­na­tion cre­at­ing waves of ener­gy-forms that cre­ate the gen­er­al con­di­tions of a par­tic­u­lar period.

But what real or his­tor­i­cal effect those ener­gy-forms have, well when it comes to us humans it real­ly depends upon us, upon our indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive devel­op­ment of con­scious­ness, and the degree to which we have risen above a more lim­it­ed and fear­ful con­scious­ness and turned to the light that is the truth of Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

We can cer­tain­ly know this; things are not turn­ing out as Putin had imag­ined. In 2014, he basi­cal­ly walked into Crimea and hard­ly a shot was fired. Now he is engaged in a true bat­tle, and not with just Ukraini­ans but with many nations in the world. I am very con­cerned that hav­ing com­mit­ted to this attack on, as he would put, his “fel­low Rus­sians” he now finds him­self in a des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion, and that there is a very real dan­ger to us all. The tran­sits in his chart that are grow­ing in influ­ence this year show him to be under real and grow­ing threats. And yes, it is equal­ly cer­tain that Zelensky’s life is in per­il now as well, as he has emphat­i­cal­ly declared to the world.

What we all need, in what­ev­er we can indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, is to remem­ber to hold our­selves to the path of Truth and Love and not give into fear. We need to sup­port one anoth­er, and show our sup­port for those in per­il, and try to hold to and fos­ter a qual­i­ty or state of being that restores peace in the world.

May the Light of Truth, Love and Under­stand­ing be with you all.