In past blogs I have mentioned the peculiar frequency of a very minor fixed star in the constellation of Leo known as sigma Leonis, or 77 Leo, in various political-astrological radices, such as the morning of 9/11/2001 when the Sun itself aligned with it, and other critical historical moments.

In Emersion’s previous series on the Washington Monument, the star figured in a few places, perhaps surprisingly. And when we process the data and contemplate the deeper meanings of such matters, which is my very basic goal in composing anything on this blog – to get readers to think about things through other shades of the prism of reality – we might come to the conclusion that history itself, like stone monuments, are sometimes constructions of political theater.

In our quest for the “truth,” though, of these constructions, we have to figure out who designed the physical and/or temporal structures, and why. Of course, the Washington Monument is a massive projection of political power, designed to show dominance over its own realm, surely, and over other political entities, but perhaps even nature itself. Obelisks are phallic in some sense, but I’ll leave that psychology to others.

Is there a nexus between these various bits of political theater imbued with astrology – a sort of cryptic language and communication – that can be read and understood? If there is, then, why? Who would be using such a means of communication, and to what ends? Who is even able to understand it, if indeed it exists? Who will never have the capacity to understand this “ritual astrology”?

What is astrology, anyway?

The field of astrology is a highly rich and diverse body of knowledge, dating back to the earliest murmurs of civilization. From there, it grew outward and crossed cultural lines, resulting in various “schools” of practice. It has always had its critics, and its loyal adherents. It is always full of controversy, yet it remains a fascination for many, including myself.

As astrology evolved from a highly superstitious collection of “omens” related to various “gods” that were thought to exist in the vast darkness of the heavens, into a more cogent pseudo-science, many ideas and techniques within those schools had come and gone. Some of the ideas had more staying power than others, and are still found within contemporary writings and musings you might find on social media on any given day.

Other notions have fallen into obscurity, though we can still find evidence of their usage in certain quarters. This is where the “fixed stars” and “ritual astrology” schools of elite political astrological practice. In this school, it’s not much at all about personal astrology, which seems to exist to tell us what partners are more compatible, when we might be able to make some money, or why someone might be violent. It is instead about a much larger collective plan.

Don’t get me wrong — those are important parts of this absurd human existence that we are rightly concerned about. However, when it comes to the astrology of entire peoples and their nations, a more “big picture” kind of astrology is called for.

This is where “whole-sky astrology” comes into play. Whole-sky astrology takes into account everything in the firmament, including the math, because place and realm is important. Whole-sky is the “symbolic alphabet” used in this “ritual astrology” of how political events are astrologically timed. It’s still a bit superstitious, of course, but it is based on the astrological mystery/traditions as old as empire itself.

And, maybe most importantly, the “world” of astrology has been divided into two camps – popular astrology, and elite “ritual” astrology. 99.9% of the astrology we encounter (and there is plenty of fodder around) is this “pop” astrology, but the serious stuff is on a different plane. It’s kinda like how folks like us get to drive around in Chevys and Hondas, while guys like Bezos and fElon have private jets and rockets. For us, it’s silly books called “Astrology Really Works!” and “The Only Way to Learn Astrology,” while for them it’s NASA and supercomputers.

To understand this elite language, we must use both astrology wheels and sky maps in our quest for at least a basic glimpse. At least the rabble like me has access to better tools than did the rabble of yesteryear.

Components

Astrology originated within human awareness of phenomena. It is phenomenological at its core, even though we now use all kinds of mathematical devices to gauge our interpretations. Consider: almost all contemporary schoolchildren will recognize a photograph of Saturn as Saturn, with its unique rings, as distinct from Jupiter, which has no obvious ring system, but has that giant red spot. Kids all know that all planets are spherical, or at least look like discs. Yet, this kind of ubiquitous knowledge was basically unavailable to the humans of only 400 years ago. Without telescopes, how did ancient and pre-telescope people know, when looking up to the sky, which planet was Saturn and which was Jupiter, or any other body, for that matter?

The only way to know a planet was to know its phenomenological characteristics, every planet has its own reliable phenomenological parameters, or character. Jupiter is almost always much brighter than Saturn, for instance, and it also moves through the heavens quicker. Mars is even quicker, but its brightness is much more variable. Both Venus and Mercury never stray very far from the Sun, though Venus can be much brighter, and tends to visibly stick around for longer periods.

All of these planets, and the Moon and Sun, move against the backdrop of the fixed stars. Our youngsters of today know that planets are very close to the Sun, and that the Sun is a star, like the fixed stars. However, the ancients and the Medievalists didn’t really know that planets and stars were all that different. To them, they were all points of light in the heavens, and it was anyone’s guess at their actual material composition. To them, the stars and planets were indeed gods themselves, or at least the lights of the gods that they allowed us to see.

From there, the “omen” part of the game comes from the realization that those planets move through the sky and through the myriad of constellations that have all been made into iconographic projections of the natural and psychological world – mythology.

The mythology that has come down to us which explains the constellations varies by culture, but the stories that have “stuck” are from the Greeks. This is not to be conflated with the modern pop-astrology “signs” of the zodiac, even though some of it overlaps. For instance, Orion – the hunter, is aiming for a bull we now call Taurus – and being followed by a big dog. Orion and Canis Major are not astrological sun signs, but they can play a role in ritual whole-sky astrology as planets make other alignments within the constellational matrix.

On to NATO

There is a moment in time when the NATO alliance officially commenced as an entity, and that date is August 24, 1949, after the French legislature became the final of 12 nations to ratify the North Atlantic Treaty. However, there was a long process prior to 1949 to draft a treaty, as the legalities had to be hashed out between member nations in accordance with the United Nations’ regulations.

When the drafting process was finished, all 12 member states held a signing ceremony in Washington DC on April 4, 1949. The historical record tells us that President Truman of the USA arrived at the Inter-Departmental Auditorium and began to speak at 4:30 PM.

His remarks were brief, and after he finished, the signings took place. An animated sky map for that event is below, and it shows that the Moon was actually very tightly aligned with Orion – specifically one of the belt stars called Alnitak:

The frame at 4:54 shows the meridian bisecting the Moon at the top, and Alnitak in the belt stars:

The next sky map is a closeup for that same moment; the right half is overlaid with the ecliptic grid:

The reason I’m calling Alnitak the “Great Pyramid Star” has to do with the discovery by Robert Bauval in the late 1980’s that the shape of the belt stars of Orion closely resemble how the three main pyramids of the Giza plateau are platted.

There are plenty of sites on the internet that discuss this and iterations of the theory, and I urge you to have some fun with all the controversy. It seems pretty obvious to me, but was it also a consideration of the astro-timing by our friends at NATO? The alignment is awfully close mathematically, as Moon and Alnitak culminate only 40 seconds of time apart, which translates roughly into 0°06′ of arc. What are the odds?

When we toss the NATO signing ceremony up on the astrology wheel, we see some other interesting things, including 77 Leo near the ascendant:

(I included the fixed stars Aldebaran and Antares on the extra wheel, and those will become important in a bit.) We can see that the Sun @ 14°46′ Aries and Neptune @ 13°47 Libra are in an opposition, about 1° from partile. We can also see that Saturn is conjunct to Regulus, the alpha star of Leo. On a sky map:

In the recent blog about the Third Rome, we learned that not only is 77 Leo a common feature of various charts, but also that Saturn in Leo was prominent in both Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church. In the NATO signing ceremony chart, we can see that Saturn is retrograde, but it is nearly stationary and about to turn direct. We can see this stationing in a sky map of Saturn’s trek through Leo at that time:

The trek curve shows a station-Rx at about 156°, and then a station-Px conjunct Regulus, right above where Saturn is in the graphic. What is the significance of Saturn in this constellation, and at this star, Regulus, specifically?

The answer may have to do with something astrologers call “The Royal Stars of Persia,” which is a bit of a misnomer, but the point of it is that Aldebaran in Taurus, Regulus in Leo, Antares in Scorpio, and Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus (just south of Aquarius) governed the four ‘corners’ of the sky. It should be mentioned that only three of these stars are within the ~5° latitude of the zodiac that the Moon will travel through, and as such Piscis Austrinus — literally “the southern fish” — is not a sign of the zodiac.

How did Fomalhaut make it into the this big league of Royal Stars? The answer probably lies with the Sumerian “Mul.Apin” star lists, of which the southern list begins with this star. There will be more on this in a forthcoming book I hope to finish sometime soon.

In any event, we know that NATO began operations officially on August 24 of 1949, with headquarters at Brussels, Belgium. This is the day of a new moon, and an experience astrologer will recognize this as a date that the Sun is very close to Regulus. A bi-wheel for both the signing ceremony and the commencement, with our array of alchemical stars, is rather interesting:

On the left we can see NATO signing Saturn [29°55′ Leo] being transited by the soli-lunar synod [00°36′ Virgo] in close proximity to Regulus at 29°07′ Leo. We can also see that commencement Black Moon [14°23′ Aries] has moved into a transiting conjunction with signing Sun [14°46 Aries].

Madrid 2022

NATO will hold a summit meeting of member nations in Madrid, Spain, on June 29 and 30 this year.

He noted that the Summit will mark the fortieth anniversary of Spain’s accession to NATO.  “This accession anchored Spain among the free and democratic countries of the transatlantic community, and also paved the way for your country’s membership in the EU a few years later,” said Mr Stoltenberg.

Spain was not allowed to access until 1982 due to the lingering dictatorial rule of Franco. He was a holdover from the dictators of the 1930’s who clung to power until 1975. His rule was unacceptable to the NATO charter which requires democratic governments, but after his death, Spain quickly became a constitutional republic in 1978.

The noon chart for accession is given below. Note that this was a day that the Sun moved into a conjunction with Aldebaran, which brings yet another important alignment of that star to our set of mundane charts:

When we advance that radix a tad, we find that Luna rises in a very close conjunction with 77 Leo:

How ’bout that! 77 Leo shows up yet again, and in a big way. Referencing back to my series on the Washington Monument, as well as my blog on the “Third Rome,” where we find 77 Leo prominent in various stages, we learned that the relevance of 77 Leo has much to do with Aldebaran: at the latitudes of most mainland European capitals, 77 Leo rises when Aldebaran culminates. The above two charts demonstrate that to a large extent.

The dates for the Madrid summit are, again, June 29 and 30, and again we are at a new moon conjunction on the first day, conjunct the Black Moon (meaning that the moon is very close to apogee):

As I compose this blog entry, there is no doubt that 2022 is perhaps one of the most critical times for NATO, as it is in a showdown with the Russian axis that has ruthlessly invaded Ukraine. This is a very high-stakes situation that will alter the political and economic landscape of the West beyond any of our lifetimes. Is it just a coincidence that Madrid had been selected for this years’ summit, given Spain’s accession astrology?

The charts hold the key, and in the following bi-wheel, we can see that the Sun/Aldebaran of Spain’s accession [8°46′ Gemini] is square to NATO commencement Saturn [8°24′ Virgo], while the NATO new moon [0°36′ Virgo, conjunct Regulus] bisects the Spain accession square from the lunar nodes [15°15′ Cancer/Capricorn] to Saturn [15°47′ Libra], all while the NATO new moon ascendant [8°37 Leo] is in a happy sextile (60° aspect) to Spain accession Sun [8°46′ Gemini]:

The nodes are important in political charts, as they are all about foreign relations. That the NATO new moon chart has the nodes precisely in alignment with the meridian should be one more clue in our case for ritual astrology.

Is there more? You betcha there is. As they say on TV: stay tuned for Part II, where we veer closer to NATO’s Nordic necessities, and look closer at transits over Orion.

-Ed

• astrology
• Fixed Stars
• mundane affairs
• NATO
• Washington DC