On Friday, July 19th, at or around 2pm CT, the cybersecurity company Crowdstrike released a faulty software update which caused widespread computer outages across the world, disrupting various industries including air travel, banking, hospitals and retailers. This event appears to align with the astrological symbolism of the planetary movements at the time of the outage. What follows is an attempt to unpack the themes and meanings behind these astrological movements and their effects on this earthly sphere.
https://apnews.com/article/what-is-crowdstrike-worldwide-outage-94b4fc5ac6eed46ddcd565a5f1e4b916
At this time, Mars, the planet of severing, separations, and strife was still within a 3 degree conjunction with Uranus, the planet of sudden disruptions, technology, and things that move at lightning speed, in the fixed sign of Taurus. Uranus at this time was still conjunct the extremely malefic fixed star of Caput Algol and is thus drawing in that malefic energy to Uranus’ need to upset the status quo. Both planets have a need for speed, but here, in the fixed sign of Taurus, Mars and Uranus must express themselves in an environment that is resistant to change. For most companies using the 3rd party Crowdstrike platform to handle their cybersecurity needs, instability, disruption, and unexpected events are to be avoided at all costs.
But what makes this transit especially interesting is that both Mars and Uranus were in a square based aspect to Mercury, the planet of communications, commerce, and banking. A square is a tense, challenging aspect and signifies a lack of harmony. In a square, the planets on either end of the 90 degree angle tend to work at cross purposes.
Additionally, Pluto in Aquarius forms a sign based opposition to Mercury and a square to Mar/Uranus, thus creating a tense T-square aspect. Pluto represents destruction/regeneration, upheaval, and tends to intensify whatever planet he aspects. In the sign of Aquarius, Pluto has thus far appears to be responsible for the unearthing of deep fears regarding rapid technological advances in AI and their power to control humanity. The landscape of Aquarius is concerned with innovation, new ideas, and humanity as a collective. Interestingly, the Crowdstrike cybersecurity platform Falcon, which was responsible for the world-wide disruption, employs AI technology to detect cybersecurity threats. So here, we have a single piece of technology backed by AI with the power to throw the world into chaos. Very Pluto in Aquarius.
To summarize, we have Mars and Uranus signifying a sudden, instantaneous severing of technology working at cross purposes with Mercurial communications. The Mars/Uranus sign-based square to Pluto in Aquarius, as well as Mercury’s adversarial sign-based opposition to Pluto, represents a doubling up of significations of technological upheaval surrounding communications.
*As an addendum, Crowdstrike has another association with Uranus in Taurus. Uranus’ time in Taurus since 2018 has signified sudden disruptions to material things like currencies, energy, and food. The great journalist Whitney Webb has spent considerable time reporting on the World Economic Forum’s partnership with large corporations to explore Central Bank Digital Currencies tied to a digital ID. In the article linked below, she names Crowdstrike as one of the corporate WEF partners seeking to disrupt global currencies through technology (Uranus in Taurus).