While this will appear to be somewhat disjointed–and perhaps it is–this article needs a bit of a prelude to explain what happened in the months between the August 2010 Independence Day celebrations for both India and Pakistan and when I finally posted the Pakistan 2010 Solar Return in late February 2011 even though I’d posted India’s on time. So I’ll post my initial notes, or rather the notes that became the long overdue Pakistan Solar Return for 2010 before moving into the actual Solar Return. In this sense, I suppose you can say this serves as the “birthing” process of what happened as I was seeing the chart so many months into the 2010 Return. What I couldn’t see in July and August 2010 became an eye-opener for me six months later.

February 2011

Despite my repeatedly, sternly telling myself over the last six months that there was no turning back or running away, it was time, right now to look at Pakistan’s Solar Return for the remainder of the year before its next “birthday,” I have struggled to find the time and energy to do this reading. Especially this time, I admit India’s and Pakistan’s Solar Returns are so close, it’s very difficult to read them as two separate entities. So perhaps as a result, I kind of fell into the trap of being unable to read one after the other. Every time I tried to get a better idea of what held me back, however, I fell short of understanding.

I started to write this at the same time I was writing India’s Solar Return analysis in July, but the flow was just missing. I don’t try to understand the rare occasions when this occurs, I just accept that it does.

Not to leave Pakistan out of the mix, and also using the natal chart with the same transiting Grand Cross against it, the Jupiter and Uranus conjunction falls in what’s called an interception in the 12th house, in opposition to an intercepted 6th house stellium (3 or more planets conjunct) of Moon, Saturn, Venus and Mars, squared by the natal Moon in the 3rd and opposed by Pluto in the 9th.

In addition, the nation’s second house natal Mars-Uranus conjunction (emphasis on Mars here) forms an out-of-sign square to the transiting 6th house stellium, the transiting 12th house Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and the opposition to 9th house Pluto–and because of all these transits, that creates a bridge to form a conjunction between the 2nd house Mars-Uranus and 3rd house natal Moon. This time, the focus is on the Moon because Pakistan’s natal Moon is drawn into that Grand Cross with the Solar Return Moon. This does not bode well for the country.

What held me back was my own hope that a delay might make it clearer for me, less negative in my mind…but there’s no getting around this: I just don’t feel good about this one.

Back in July when I tried to start developing this, I apparently was also looking at the nation’s Lunar Return because it didn’t feel good. There were minor shifts between the chart I was looking at and the Lunar Return. The two were separated by 14 minutes, in fact. What did change was a shift from an Aries rising to a Taurus rising within 2° of the natal chart’s rising, bringing Venus more into the focus, but the planets didn’t change any houses. It felt so much like it did a couple of years ago, when I warned that Pakistan wasn’t ready for a total democracy. I wrote in July, “It seems like this will be more proof of that.”

As I look back to that period, still without plunging into the charts that have to be reprinted because I can’t find them in the maze of paperwork on my desk, I think of the Mars-Neptune conjunction that took place in July and wonder when the flooding started in Pakistan. This may be something worth noting. I just wish I had a solid date for that tragic nightmare…

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why I didn’t realize I had done this, but I hadn’t noticed (although I had written it) that I never switched the natal chart to the outside of the Solar Return chart. Making the transitions with that minor (not so minor! it’s major!) detail, everything kind of slapped me in the face:

Despite the tensions I was seeing in the chart, nothing was connecting because I was looking at the wrong houses–and the wrong timing. The last several months have been uneasy but nothing one could really call earth-shattering from the perspectives of those living in Pakistan. Now, things appear to be coming to a head again, and I see the timings here.

[I even found my little reminders at the base of those notes today, May 1, 2016, to show the sequence of what I was seeing back then.

look at mid-April (22 GE 30) to early May (ca 25 GE) – natal UR/MA conj MC (mid-March to early April shows GE MC squaring Part of Fortune and Merc in VI 13-16 VI)
Mid-May – MC is at 0 CA in square to SR Moon at 0 LI and UR at 0 AR – stellium section of MO/SA/VE/MA between mid-May and mid-June (Grand Cross 3/6/9/12 activation from May through July)
Early June – MC around 3 CA in opp to SR PL at 3 CP on IC
Mid-June – MC at 7 CA 30 in sq to SR MA at 8 LI 30
Early July – Natal MO conj MC – 11 CA

And then came the Solar Return itself as it was published back then.]

Long overdue: Pakistan’s 2010 Solar Return

For the longest time, I have struggled to get exactly what I was missing when I plunged into the Pakistan Solar Return chart. Now I suppose I could bury this, but the fact is…this major faux pax is something that could happen to anyone and is an important lesson for anyone interested in learning astrology:

Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, or perhaps I was just lulled into seeing things that would flit in and out of my brain. I couldn’t seem to focus and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Most of the time, I figured the flow was missing because I had been working on India’s Solar Return at the same time. But where India’s Solar Return flowed for me, this simply fell flat.

This week, I was absolutely stunned when I discovered what was wrong all this time: I had been looking at the natal and Solar Return charts as if the Solar Return was a simple transit instead of as important as it was! So different, and so critically important–enough that it virtually crippled me all these months and, even with more than 25 years of experience under my belt, I had taken it all for granted.

The Fourth House is rising in the August 2010 Solar Return for Pakistan, with the Sun in the First House, and a predominance of planets in the Eastern hemisphere. But all of those Eastern planets are below the horizon, so I get the feeling that there’s a mysterious air to the way things are being handled in Pakistan right now.

Neptune falls in Pluto’s natural home, the Eighth House, and Uranus and Jupiter are both in the Ninth House, making me wonder about the possibility that the nation has international funds coming in that seem to be in contrast to the will of people. The Third House of daily affairs boasts a four-body stellium of the Moon, Saturn, Venus and Mars, all within 8° and all opposed to that Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the 9th House of international affairs, politics and legal matters.

When I look at a national chart and see the 9th and 10th Houses, I’m really looking at the foundations of the government through its actual workings– the politicians, the lawmaking body and those who serve as the nation’s executives. The Ascendant in this chart gives me the feeling that the nation would like to appear to be hale and hearty with a strong body of people who might even believe in its leaders; but all of those planets below the horizon just nudge me and tell me that something else is going on. It’s as if the nation is wearing a cheerful mask with many secrets being kept closely guarded. No emotion, no conversation outside of the realm of normal business affairs, and no indications as to the health of the nation.

I can’t even say this is a mask that’s been prompted by Pakistan’s interactions with national leaders in other nations. I doubt it is. That predominance of planets in the East tends to put the blame squarely on Pakistan (I don’t mean the people, but the nation as represented by its governmental leaders, I’d imagine). Not only are the Sun and Moon in the Eastern hemisphere of the chart, so are Mercury, Venus and Mars. Even Saturn is there as a part of that stellium I mentioned above. In the Western hemisphere, Pluto sits in the 6th house of health in square to Jupiter and Uranus in the 9th, pointing to Pluto as the arm of a Cardinal T-square–Jupiter and Uranus in opposition to the 3rd house stellium of Moon, Saturn, Venus and Mars and in square to Pluto.
For a brief time, I had even thought the massive flooding that had consumed Pakistan last year was perhaps behind all of this veiled stance and international funding, but I don’t think so. I seem to recall, though, that the funds intended for the victims of those floods were not allocated as expected and had been inappropriately used by certain government officials. Such actions may be behind what I’m seeing in the chart that will lead to what I’m seeing heading their way now.

Around mid-April to early May–more likely closer to early May–the Solar Return’s Midheaven will have progressed to conjunct the natal chart’s Uranus-Mars conjunction, warning of a possibility of chaos or another financial crisis for the country. What concerns me here lies from the period that begins in early May, showing a successive run of events that could affect the country with massive upheaval not unlike what we’ve been seeing in parts of the Middle East. Again, I’m concerned about the possibility of a civil war, much political unrest and what seems almost inevitable that the country will be “turned inside out” as a result.

This isn’t the first time I’ve cautioned about possible military control of the country. I seem to recall writing about that a few years ago. This time, however, the emphasis of this T-square dynamic begins with the Moon at the first point of the stellium (in a tight, tight opposition to Uranus just 14 minutes in orb from exact), followed by what appears to be a feeling of conservatism through some control shown at the closest points of that T-square–retrograde Jupiter in close opposition to Saturn and retrograde Pluto squaring that opposition. It smacks of military control, of battles within (Saturn square Pluto). I just don’t get a good feeling about this.

Mars represents the last point of the stellium in square to Pluto, which indicates to me something along the lines of a highly volatile atmosphere rather than something that would be calmed by military efforts. As near as I can figure with what little I actually know of Pakistan and her most recent history, this is not a land in which people really want a dictatorship; but they aren’t ready for a democracy either.

The natal Mercury sits on the Ascendant of the Solar Return, inclining me to believe this isn’t something that can simply be swept under the carpet and hidden. Events will probably force the news to surface from the very beginning of this kind of shift in energy but they may not be understood as such at first. I expect we might see some hints throughout the month of March but in the great scope of things, I don’t see March signaling enough to alert us to more. Even April might be a bit iffy although if Pakistan’s economy doesn’t come to light in March, it should do so in April. (I remember a conversation we had in Scorpio related to the world’s economy a few years ago, and the asker had felt it was possible that people would start to rebel as a result of the economy. He apparently had a good call on that.)

This kind of air I’m seeing reminds me of the quiet that was in nations like Egypt and Libya just weeks ago. It’s obvious that people were fed up with the government–but it initially appeared as if they were angry at the economy and the government’s role in the economic problems throughout those two nations.

May appears to be a completely different tale. I look at these aspects and get the feeling that I’m seeing something like an astrological molotov cocktail, an explosion just waiting to happen in May. And frankly, with that Leo rising in this Solar Return and the Sun ruling that rising also sitting in the first house, this whole thing strikes me like an overload of testosterone. (Sorry, guys! I’m being honest!)

The nation began with a five-planet stellium in the 4th house, and it seems as if they were heading in the right direction. But when I look at the progressions of this Solar Return, I keep seeing how the progression of the Midheaven will swing Pluto to the 4th house and activate this chaos.

By the time July rolls around, I think we could be looking at a huge amount of change in Pakistan. I’m wondering if I’m looking at a coup since the natal Moon will have moved to the progressed Midheaven at this time, bringing the square to the Solar Return stellium into play as a Grand Cross. Without that natal Moon, it’s a T-square. But the natal Moon is in just the right place that it appears to reveal that enormous change before the next Solar Return. The Moon is where we look for the emotional tone, and these appear to be emotional times arising in Pakistan.

I suppose I was a bit lazy till now because I had known that nothing was going to happen before March, or at least it appeared that way. Now, there’s really no turning back. Hopefully this will be a quiet kind of huge change, but I really don’t think “quiet” and “huge change” can be said in the same breath. In Pakistan, it just may be that the land has been quiet long enough. I don’t think people are going to be sitting back and taking whatever is coming in stride anymore.

Again, everyone, my sincere apologies for the excessive delay in my posting this.

On to part 2…

Namaste, I love you,
Michelle

©2016 Michelle Young