Pirates at crossroads

Today, the icelandic Pirate party elected their first chairman since the party was founded just over thirteen years ago. The choice was between two trans people, Alexandra Briem and Oktavía Hrund, but Oktavía came out on top. This marks a turning point not only in the history of the party but also globally, as Oktavía is the first non-binary person to take the chairmanship of a political party in Iceland and possibly worldwide ¹.

Mundane astrology is a sub-branch of astrology that examines star charts for events, associations, politicians and other individuals and groups that have influenced history. The chart for the founding of the Pirate party is based on the timing of the founding meeting, which was at 2 pm on November 24th, 2012. There are several interesting things about the founding chart itself, but here I will examine it in the context of the transits that are taking place today.

The party's chart in the inner circle with the transits of today's meeting in the outer circle.

In recent weeks, a grand water trine has been prominent in the stars, forming between Jupiter in Cancer, Saturn (and Neptune) in Pisces, and the faster-moving Mars, Mercury, the Sun, and Venus in Scorpio. Each time the faster planets have passed through the last six degrees of Scorpio, they have activated this trine, and at the same time they have drawn in the Pirate party's North Node, which is at 26° Scorpio. The North Node in mundane astrology is mainly used as a sign of Lunar and Solar Eclipses, but the party was founded under a Lunar Eclipse in Gemini. Eclipses are always signs of major changes in mundane astrology, so although we are not in Eclipse Season right now, it is not surprising that the Pirates' North Node has been at the center of these movements throughout the past few weeks while this major change in their governing structure has been taking place. The decision to change the party's structure took place at the general meeting, which was held on a Solar Eclipse in Virgo in the party's ninth house.

Today, Mercury is reversing course after its retrograde motion through Sagittarius and Scorpio, but when stars turn in or out of retrograde, they seem to be stationary in the heavens for a long time, and then their influence becomes extremely strong. It is interesting to see that Mercury is not only stopping just two degrees from the Mercury of the party's inception chart, but Mercury in the inception chart is also almost stationary, as the planet of communication and organization turned direct from retrograde just two days after the founding of the party. Such a repetition reinforces the importance of today's meeting and puts it in context that today's meeting is the second attempt at the leadership elections; the first meeting about a month ago was ruled illegal due to a mistake in the meeting's announcement. Mercury clearly wanted to be in the lead role of this meeting!

When the party was founded, Neptune had just begun its journey through the sign of Pisces, but this year this slow planet has taken its first steps into the next sign, Aries. It takes Neptune about 164 years to complete a full circle through the zodiac, and about 13-14 years in each sign. Neptune is actually playing a big role for all of us these days as it slowly moves into the sign of Aries, because it does so in parallel with Saturn, which takes about 2-3 years to complete each sign. At the same time, Uranus and Pluto are also moving into new signs (Gemini and Aquarius), so all the outer planets are changing their environment at the same time. Therefore, the years 2024-26 have been marked as years of enormous social change around the world, and astrologers have long awaited and watched these changes with impatience. It is particularly fitting that the Pirates were founded when Neptune entered Pisces with their flat structure, because the Pisces archetype feels much better in such an environment, where the power structure is flat or at least not a straight line. Now that Neptune and Saturn are going to be conjunct in the sign of Aries, which is much more likely to want to clarify power dynamics and to appreciate role models to follow — in the fourth house of the party that is the foundation of the chart — it is time to change the structure of the party. I assume that Saturn's time in Pisces (since February 2023) has made this need increasingly apparent.

Last year, the party was knocked out of parliament in a somewhat unexpected result of the Althingi elections, but it has remained prominent in the work of the city of Reykjavík. Shortly before the elections, the party celebrated its twelfth anniversary, which in astrology marks the beginning of a year under the influence of the first house. First house years are often prominent, both for people and event charts, as we usually go through a lot of introspection and even some sort of rebirth during those years. The Pirate party inception chart has a rising Capricorn with both Pluto and Mars on the Ascendant, which means that the party has often had difficulty with its identity, especially externally. As a party without classic power hierarchies that does not define itself along the right-left axis, the party's emphases have often been changeable and even unclear externally. On its thirteenth anniversary, a year began that will be under the influence of the second house, and it is particularly appropriate for that house that the party is building a more regular structure that will undoubtedly sharpen the party's emphases and values. The second house in the chart is in Aquarius, another Saturn sign, but Aquarius is Saturn's daytime sign so there is a greater chance that this year will be a little easier for the party than the last.

This post started as a small update on Bluesky which then grew until I decided it needed to become a proper post here. Please let me know if you enjoyed reading this and I will try to write more often here about mundane astrology, or if you would like to hear more about the movements that are taking place.

The main sources for this post were news stories that I included as links in the text, and the book Mundane Or National Astrology by H.S. Green (1911).

¹ At least I haven't been able to find information about other non-binary or trans people who have been elected as chairs of active political parties, but I haven't dug very deep so I welcome suggestions and corrections!