ICI, the inventor of the world's first plastic - polythene - and the first synthetic treatment for malaria - has agreed to be taken over by its Dutch rival company. It's another example of the Saturn-Neptune opposition, but this time it's got an unusual twist.

At the moment Saturn is at 27 and a half Leo. Neptune is at 20 and a half Aquarius. So they are 7 degrees apart from the exact opposition, i.e. 7 degrees past exactitude.

So it's interesting that ICI and Akzo Nobel have waited until way past the opposition to agree and announce their plans. But astrologically it's spot-on.

In ICI's chart Jupiter is at 21-22 Aquarius....... Neptune (chemicals, gases, oil, plastics) is at 27 Leo........ so whilst the Saturn-Neptune opposition is way past its point of exactness, it's almost exactly aligned with ICI's Jupiter-Neptune configuration.

And Jupiter-Neptune signifies 'giant chemical companies'.

Four new articles have just been published on the website affiliated with this blog, Astrology for the 21st Century (http://www.astrology21.co.uk)

They are:-

* Lunar Phases & The Stock Market: How the Moon's cycle correlates with the FTSE 100
* Prince, Master of Music: Saturn's cycles in his career
* Franchises Lost, Franchises Gained: Train companies GNER, Virgin Cross Country, and Arriva Cross Country
* Emissaries to the Stars: Short astronomy article about the five spacecraft heading out of our Solar System

To read these articles please visit www.astrology21.co.uk

USA shares have gone down in value due to fears about the mortgage market.

A few years ago I saw someone asking about the potential for a house market depreciation in the USA. I said that the most likely time for one, if one should happen, would be when Saturn gets to oppose the USA's Moon.

The USA's Moon is at 27 degrees 10 minutes of Aquarius. Saturn is now at 26 degrees 51 minutes of Leo. Almost exact - just 19 minutes away. It'll be exact on 11th August. The current retrograde Venus is about to highlight this, as it moves to oppose the USA's Moon.

When Saturn opposed the UK's Moon a few years ago the housing market stalled for a while, and there were lots of fears of a crash. But a crash didn't happen, so it's not something where a concrete event can be predicted, rather that the fear of loss and insecurity - which is what the Saturn-Moon transit symbolises - is itself what causes the problem........

Later this year Pluto will form a sextile with the USA's Moon (it's done this once already, earlier this year), highlighting homes and property again, but with a strong potential for reinvigoration and constructively dealing with the issues involved. And next year, Pluto will square the USA's IC. That's when a major restructuring of housing and property markets is most likely, should one happen. The need to face the fear of loss, to deal with insurance issues, and economic jeopardy are themes of this transit.

Of course, this is just a simplified picture, and none of this should be construed as investment advice - use or ignore at your own risk, no responsibility is assumed by this writer etc etc........ all the legal stuff!

Here is a graphic and literal example of astrology in action. It shows that symbolism is not just imagination, and reality is not just meaningless lumps of matter interacting randomly:

"A 15-tonne earth mover had just driven over Ross Marrs' Saturn, crushing the front of his red car into a clump of metal."

http://news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/223135

This happened on the day that Mars was square Saturn. Mars is associated with the colour red, and is in fact the red planet. Saturn is about contraction, and Mars-Saturn can be about an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. The man's surname is Marrs, his car's name is Saturn, his car is coloured red, crushing is the contraction, and there was a red (Mars) stop (Saturn) light on the traffic lights that wasn't heeded for some reason, and therein lies the theme of Mars-square-Saturn.Mars-Saturn is about accelerators versus brakes, starting and stopping, using force to push forwards when meeting heavy resistance.

"Gregory would not confirm which vehicle ran the red light and said police are still investigating."