Icelandic banks – A storm in a teacup, or the mirror of all our problems?



This was an article I wrote in late May/early June, but didn’t post. You will see that at the time I was thinking about it- I posted “the astrologer’s dilemma” as a result of my musings on the prediction problem. However in the end I just chickened out of writing off a whole country.Well at least no-one can blame me for what has ensued. And to be fair I got the timing wrong by a whole 6 weeks. Anyway here is the original, complete, with a few comments from today added in Orange.



In mid May, the banks of Sweden Denmark and Norway, unveiled emergency facilities to be used by Iceland in the event of any sustained financial crisis or attack by speculators. The question is will it be enough?

Sceptics often comment that astrologers failed to predict this, that and the other. The reason for this is not a failure of the astrology, usually it is not even the failure of the astrologer- although, as in most professions, there are some bad ones out there; no, the failure is that astrologers are for the most part working alone and can only look at one thing at a time. And they tend to select what is close to their heart.

So last July and August when I was looking at the charts of Northern Rock and the Bank of England, I never for one moment considered looking at the banks of Iceland as well.

However, it is not too late to take a peek now. And, we are not interested in the outcome for any specific bank here, the banks are massive compared to the size of the country. So, it is not necessary to track down the charts of the individual banks, the chart of the country should be quite sufficient.

The most recent Iceland chart is quite delightfully descriptive of the country name, with Neptune on the ascendant, and Saturn on the Midheaven (MC)– quite literally “Ice”. Fascinating but not terribly relevant to the question in hand, though it does affirm the validity of the chart.

The first indication that there has already been a problem is that transiting Neptune has been opposing the country’s Jupiter throughout February and March. Neptune creates uncertainty dissolves, deceives and with Jupiter creates inflationary conditions. At the same time transiting Saturn was retrograding over the country’s progressed Jupiter and MC. Saturn creates hardships, in this case difficulty with the credit markets. Given that the country clearly resonates to Neptune and Saturn, it is not surprising that the countries economic wealth, and banking system have been the subject of speculation, both theoretical and actual.

Since both planets have passed these critical points we might be tempted to relax and think any potential crisis has also passed. However, by June, Saturn has gone direct and Neptune then retrogrades. By early July, Neptune will again approach an opposition to Iceland’s Jupiter and Saturn again transit the progressed Jupiter and MC. Unfortunately we can expect the liquidity issues of these banks to resurface then. Since Neptune moves slowly, and Saturn goes on to transit progressed Venus by September, it is difficult to see the problem blowing over quickly.

This turns out to have been the understatement of the 21st century. As you can read in my wider analysis “Reviewing the situation” that precedes this post. The eclipse did indeed create major upheavals but they have taken longer to work through the system than I expected.


There is an interesting tie between Iceland’s Jupiter and the UK Saturn, which means that the August eclipse will affect both Sterling and the Krona. There is a further tie between Iceland’s progressed Jupiter and MC and the Jupiter of the Bank of England, this is a long term, albeit not permanent link between the two. Clearly Iceland is sensitive at present to the economic events of the city of London. And as we have seen those events don’t look good for the summer.


Since the Icelandic banks are exposed to property and to retail, we might conclude that economic problems in the UK and elsewhere are going to lead to financial pressures on those Icelandic banks this summer.


And as we can see now, with the deposits frozen, the effect appears to be working both ways, with BOE having to bail out who knows what Local authorities, charities and whatever by the end of the day.


Since the relationship is between Jupiter and Neptune in this case, it may bear little relationship to fundamentals- speculation may indeed be the order of the day. It seems that Iceland will need all the help it has already been promised and more.

And even that is an undertstatement…..

The Jupiter/Neptune conjunction of May 2009 and December 2009 also hits the Icelandic Jupiter. Suggesting further episodes of speculation and or inflation. Though as we will see elsewhere these events aren’t likely to be confined to one country

Worse is the long term outlook. Iceland has an Ascendant of 2 Libra and an MC of 3 Cancer. The degrees of the major upcoming cardinal cross and, interestingly, of the Euro. Pluto will start to transit these degrees in 2009 and will be joined by Saturn on the country’s Ascendant by November/December 2009, and Uranus and Jupiter on the Descendant in summer 2010. If Iceland was a company, it would be highly vulnerable to a takeover in such a situation. Indeed, it looks like the situation may result in a sudden change of government in 2009 as Uranus squares the country’s sun.

Or takeover by Russia as has been suggested by some!!


Essentially what we can expect then is increased banking and speculation problems. It looks like this will definitely result in a major contraction, although whether there will be a complete meltdown of the banks is less obvious.

I confess I thought yes, but couldn’t quite imagine what that would entail nationally or internationally. The nationalisations have answered that question, although we still wait to see what happens in the longer term to the country as a whole.

What is clear is that the medium term outlook ( 2-4 years) is for a severe recession in the country and probably the need for more external support.
But that statement can just as easily be applied to the UK or US. Iceland is a microcosm – nothing more.

Oh dear!!! That does not bode well does it?

In fact it is the fact that the Universe is pointing to Iceland as a microcosm, that from an astrological point of view is the most interesting. The universe is not just telling us to look at Iceland’s banks – it is telling us to look at what Iceland represents in the world today – namely the universe is also pointing us to the question of climate change and energy. It wants us to use credit as a metaphor to solve our more fundamental problems for the future.

Given the current situation it is difficult to imagine any more fundamental problems. But in fact the credit crisis is the hologram equivalent of the longer term issues.

Chart used:


Iceland. 17 June 1944, 14.00 local time Reykjavik, Iceland.

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