Introducing a special address to the Bundestag on the 27th February, Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Russia’s invasion as a Zeitenwende, a turn in the times, the change of an era, for the continent of Europe. The fall of the Berlin wall marked an earlier turn of the tide. Now at a stroke the post ‘Cold War’ era of relative stability is over, and no less than the Germans, all European nations face a military, economic and political paradigm shift.

The World Health Organisation had within the previous hour to this public designation declared this to be a Covid-19 ‘variant of concern’ because of its unusual mutations, raising the possibility that it might evade current vaccines.

The IIIrd house naming reflects the theme of the autumn (Libra) ingress where the potential square of Moon to Pluto was halted by an applying sextile to Jupiter, the saving grace of the vaccines. Here the Moon is void-of-course by major aspect and separating the opposition of Jupiter. We must take care not to over-interpret a void Moon chart, but on the current evidence the former powerful protection (Jupiter Lord VIth and medicines-Xth exalted in the asc.) may not hold into the New Year as well as we hoped, putting us collectively in a period of doubt and irresolution. (GC)

Simão Cortes alerted us to this remarkable and radical figure, which may be taken to signify World War Remembrances to come. He remarks on the Mercury-Saturn square from the depths of the VIIIth and the setting Moon applying Pluto, a sea of souls passing beyond the bound of words. Eternal silence moves us.

Our current Remembrance Day falls on the 11th Day of the 11th month each year, with Silence at the 11th hour. In its origin it honoured the Armistice, the formal cessation of hostilities of the First World War on 11th November 1918; it was renamed as Remembrance Day after the Second World War. This year the 11th day of November fell on a Thursday, coincident with Cop26, the international climate conference held in Glasgow. Remembrance Day should be distinguished from Remembrance Sunday designated as the second Sunday in November. Military and war veteran ceremonies of remembrance take place on this day, in the UK enacted at the Cenotaph in London. The red poppy became an emblem of remembrance with the second Armistice Day in 1920.