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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on page ten of our original issue. -Matt
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement got its start on July 13th, 2013 at approximately 8:00 pm as the result of a conversation between Alicia Garza of Oakland and Patrisse Cullors of Los Angeles. Using their conversation as the movement’s moment of birth, BLM has its Sun (conscious identity), Mercury (communication), Jupiter (good fortune), and Mars (fighting) all in Cancer — considered the sign of women — with its Moon (emotional needs) in Virgo, the sign of service. According to an article published by Al Jazeera-America, the movement was sparked by the deaths of black men but is being led primarily by black women (Cancer) who are motivated by a desire to serve (Virgo) their kinfolk.
Jefferson Anderson says the mission of the Cancer/Virgo pairing is “to use your inner strength, compassion, and understanding to be of help, whether as a counselor, teacher, or concerned humanitarian.” (Source) That’s exactly what BLM’s leadership is doing: using the strength, compassion, and understanding they have built up from years of living within a systemically unjust society to counsel, help, and teach others about humanitarian issues that should be of concern to us all.
BLM’s stellium of planets in Cancer (sign of food, family, clan, and country) is opposed by Pluto (planet of power and purging) in Capricorn (sign of big business, big government). Cancer is renowned for its elephant like memory while most astrologers agree that Pluto in Capricorn is the astrological signature for both the police state and the corporate oligarchy. The BLM movement is thus fueled (Sun/Mars/Jupiter) by ancestral memories (Cancer) of abuse at the hands of an oligarchic police state (Pluto in Capricorn) whose roots go back hundreds of years.
Cancer is also the sign most likely to shed tears for friends and family in the here and now. Due to the highly disparate nature of our criminal justice system, a disproportionate number of BLM’s leadership have likely shed tears for loved ones abused and/or snatched away at the hands of the prison industrial complex — a deeply corrupted institution (Pluto in Capricorn) that is to their families what slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow were to their ancestors (Sun/Mars/Jupiter in Cancer).
BLM’s Venus (planet of love) is in Leo (sign of theater, drama, celebrity) and receives a trine (support) from Uranus (planet of radical breakthroughs). BLM’s protests often include radically dramatic forms of street theater while the movement has received lots of love (Venus) from celebrities (Leo) including Dave Chappelle, Lebron James, and Samuel Jackson.
The BLM chart has a conjunction (merger) between Saturn (planet of karma) and the North Node (point of destiny) in Scorpio (sign of death) in the 11th House of tribal consciousness. In his book Myth Astrology, Raven Kaldera associates Saturn in Scorpio with the myth of Cerridwen, a Celtic goddess who assists others by regenerating slain corpses in her cauldron. (Source) BLM obviously is not of the Celtic persuasion and obviously can not literally regenerate the bodies of those who have been unjustly slain. The movement has, however, certainly combined free speech, community organizing, and grass roots activism into a potent socio-political cauldron that has regenerated the spirit of the civil rights movement(s) of the 1950s and 60s — something recent events have made clear is needed now more than ever before.
