So visually, on the day the NYSE was born, as the Great Bull rose in the eastern sky, just as Ursa Major was walking upon the earth to meet the Great Bull head on, the world's most influential stock exchange was born. The power on that day seems to be with the Bull as he contains both Mercury and the Sun which sit in the shoulder of the Great Bull of Heaven close to the Pleiades. But this is not the only conflict or balancing act in the sky that day.

Figure 2. The birth of the New York Stock Exchange - morning of 17th May, 1792, in New York.  Saturn and the Moon both sit on the cords that hold the fishes of Pisces together,
while Venus moves through the Stare of Cetus.

At the same time the Bull of Heaven is squaring off to the Great Bear, the Saturn-Moon conjunction in the zodiac sign of Aries (see natal chart above) is occupying the fishes, stressing that this time period is about the drawing of things together, holding them as one, the desire to keep a balance Meanwhile  Venus, who seems so gentle with her paran to Vindemiatrix, we can see now is located firmly in the Stare of Cetus (see figure 2)

The visual astrology of Venus caught in The Stare of Cetus

Visually Venus has just entered that part of the sky that sits in the Stare of Cetus. In the April 2008 Visual Astrology Newsletter Darrelyn defined this as independence or supremacy of an individual or a concept that comes at a price, for it is trapped in the stare of the sea monster and there will be hidden issues which sit beneath it. We can add further information to this as this part of the sky is bounded on the other side of the ecliptic by the Stare of Medusa (Algol) in the constellation Perseus. Algol contains immense female power and a strong consuming passion which can devour with anger, rage or violence. So this is a highly charged part of the sky and to have Venus, the planet with the ability to radiate and empower, passing between these two gates of passion means the client will have to deal with all the hidden collective neuroses associated with money and the power that money wields.

Now we can understand our client's tendency to move from times of stability to times of great drama and passion; now we can understand the constant struggle to balance; and now we can understand the battle between the bear and the bull and how these have been embodied around the world's markets.

Looking ahead - the predictive work for 2008-2010

Since early April 2008, transiting Neptune has been making a conjunction to Pluto and squaring Mercury. For the client, this is a year when all forms of communication and mercantile pursuits become vague and imprecise or they become lost in the virtual world. If this was your client, you would be counselling them to double check any contracts that he or she needs to sign, and above all to maintain their ethics and integrity, for there is not the same clarity of thinking as in previous years and they can be open to deception and disillusion. Indeed a better way for your client to use this transit would perhaps be to begin studying areas to do with the arts, metaphysics or healing. However, your client is determined to continue trading, so all you can do is look ahead  and when you do, you see that this transit continues until the end of 2009. Not only that but in early 2010 transiting Neptune squares the Sun which we could delineate as the dissolving of the client’s sense of identity.

In conclusion

We have considered the NYSE as a "client" in order to approach the situation of the world financial sector through another lens. In this way taking into account the natal placement and then adding in the parans and the visual astrology, we gain a deeper, more three-dimensional sense of the issues at hand. Adding in the predictive work by transits gives us timing.

What do you tell your client? There is no "quick fix" to this problem. The bailout bill is a Band-Aid bill that does not heal the problem, but like the Panic of 1907 it may well lead to reforms to the market. In combination with the larger movement of Pluto moving into Capricorn, what is being undone or dissolved through the banking/trading systems with these Neptune transits must be remade in the ways of ethics and integrity and that is going to take time. However we do know that our client does have the ability to regain balance after great crises but for the time it would seem the Great Bear is going to get the upper hand over the charging Bull until we get to 2011.

from Visual Astrology Zyntara Newsletter..........Oct. 2008