Merriman Market Analyst

It started Monday evening, January 11, at 9:45 PM out of DTW. I arrived early, but the take off was 90 minutes late. I had the clue: Saturn was in its station, and Mercury was ending its -etrograde. What was I thinking, I thought again to myself, when I booked a trip under these signatures? And even more so, what was I thinking, given what was happening to my natal chart with the transits of Saturn and Pluto? So this trip started out with the “in-my-face” reminder of the power of Saturn and Pluto: it squared and conjunct (respectively) my natal Sun-Mars at 2- and 5 degrees of Capricorn. Saturn was barely in the first house, after having crossed my 27 Virgo ascendant for the first time.  I know… it will retrograde-station there, in opposition to Uranus (on my descendant) this spring. I can’t wait. But fortunately, I do learn from my experiences, even when they involve my stupidity, so all is not totally lost.

I landed at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, around noon, the next day. I was in CET - Central European Time Zone (+1). I was met by my hostess Irma Schogt, head of Schogt Market Timing (www.markettiming.nl). Irma is great. She has been teaching MMA cycles’ methodology to a strong core group of subscribers, and together they have forged their own interesting discoveries related to financial astrology over the past 8 years.

This was one of the first groups of subscribers that I met with personally, on last year’s visit. It was one of the highlights of my trip then. It would be again. The people who come to these meetings in Amsterdam are really amazing individuals. About 30-40% work in IT (Internet Technology). They are respectful, vibrant, hearty, have a great sense of humor, and are full of warmth. I told Irma that this meeting of subscribers in Netherlands  has a feeling of coming together with a clan from long ago. I loved it. It was so wonderful to experience such easy interaction with one another.

One of the epiphany moments for me on this trip came up during the subscribers’ private meeting following the Forecast 2010 lecture. One of our subscribers, a young man, asked, “What do you think people of my generation can look forward to in the future?” He was 31 years old, born in 1979. He too worked in IT. I suggested a few things that I thought might be the case based on my own children – each 21-40 years of age. He was right in the middle. Then it dawned on me that maybe he wanted to share what he thought his generation was like. So I asked what he thought. What did he think his generation had to look forward to in the future? What does your generation value? And he replied, “Balance. We look at our parents, who were mostly the baby boomer generation, and we see how driven they are with their career and work. We don’t want that. We want a balanced life, between work and non-work activities and relations.”

That was a wake-up call to me. I think I would also like to pursue that. Thank you. And yes, I also realized just then that the generation he spoke of has Pluto in Libra. How appropriate. But also how relevant this message is to my own life. I work too hard. I am a workaholic. I am a baby boomer. I want balance in life too. How can I break my addiction to work and learn to enjoy what I have created outside of just work? These are the thoughts I started to have after that meeting.

Perhaps I was having these thoughts because I was sick. In spite of the fact that Amsterdam was a personal enlightenment, it was also a lesson for me in terms of health, and accepting how astrology can indicate so clearly times of health challenges. As any decent astrologer might expect, with Saturn transiting my first house, in square to my natal Sun-Mars conjunction, I was exhausted as I began that trip. Each of these combinations can indicate exhaustion and overwork: Saturn near ascendant, Saturn square Sun, Saturn square Mars. Saturn was hitting every vitality part of my chart.

So, my European 2010 Forecast tour is a tale of Saturn’s woe. Transiting Saturn was also station, about to go retrograde, mind you. You would think I would know better than to push myself so hard on such a trip under such aspects. But am I not superman? Did I mention I have Neptune rising too? In my dreams, I don’t require sleep.

The airplane trip, which was late getting off the ground by about 90 minutes, seemed like a hospital ward. There were so many people sneezing and coughing. I know, I know. So I took some protection, called “Thieves” herbal spray (which is good for fighting off those kinds of germs… can you tell I am Virgo rising?). Well, it didn’t matter. I caught it anyway – whatever was going around on that plane and in Netherlands that weekend – I caught it. And it stayed with me for a week.

It ran through me, getting worse and worse every day until …. the 6th day, when I flew to -21 degrees Celsius in Moscow, Russia. What the hell am I doing here, in this freezer of a country, when I am sick? And then my hostess, Irina Antonyan, picks me up at the airport and proceeds to tell me the whole city of Moscow is sick. Good lord, I thought. They all have swine flu. I must have swine flu (did I say I have Neptune rising and an active imagination, which includes paranoia about germs????). She herself was just getting over it (or so she thought as she continued to cough). Well, by that Monday night, January 18, I was full-on with this cold or flu of the pig. I had to speak the next night. What the hell was I going to do? How could I give a speech when I can’t sleep, can’t stop sneezing and blowing my miserable red-raw nose?

And here is why the Russians - and Irina in particular - are so special. That next day, about noon, Irina brought over two herbal remedies to my hotel that she thought might help my condition. I took them right then, about 6 hours before my speech. I felt like … sick. Ill. Bad cold. Like a sick pig. But I was still going to give the talk under any conditions because, well, I am a professional. And then it happened. At about 4 – 6:00 PM, I suddenly felt better. The cold or flu suddenly disappeared. I could breathe and feel like I was without the cold. I have never experienced anything like this.

I was able to give the Forecast 2010 presentation to about 100 people in the center of Moscow. It was a great night with Irina translating. Everybody was fully attentive, even after the allotted 3 hours. The questions were intelligent, the audience very respectful and warm… very grateful to share knowledge with… remember, Russians are the fathers of Cycle studies, ala Nicolai Kondratieff. They were fascinated with this American who understood cycles. Or so I thought. Did I mention I have Neptune rising? I sense things that others only imagine. Or perhaps I only imagine that I do.

Moscow was a quick trip, but a noteworthy one. I arrived sick on Monday, got better in time for my speech on Tuesday, then caught a plane back to Amsterdam on Wednesday, where I would sleep over night before catching a plane to Zurich on Thursday. I was worried with this travel schedule on the “hospital ward” of an airplane, I would catch the swine flu again, for I was sure that was what I had (Neptune rising knows these things, or imagines them anyway).

But I didn’t get sick again. Irina’s magical remedy healed me. Regardless of what else happens in life, I will always remember Irina, the humble but magical healer from Russia. And a good business woman and publisher, on top of all that.

I arrived in Zurich Thursday afternoon, where my favorite chauffeur – Business astrologer Monica Kissling – picked me up, as she always does in Zurich. I could say that our relationship started out with me picking her up, but that’s another story for another time. It was Thursday afternoon, and I didn’t have a speech until Saturday’s symposia, featuring Karen Hammaker-Zondag from Holland, Monica herself, Verena Bachmann, Alexandra Klinghammer, Claude Weiss, and myself.

Now I have to tell you – if you have never been to a Swiss conference – they are the epitome of Virgo. Everything is on time, all the speakers and the conference itself are well organized, and there are no groups of astrologers and students of astrology on the planet that look and dress as well as the Swiss. They are smart and they look it. With my Virgo rising, and now that the cold was gone (thanks to Irina), I was in my element in Zurich.

The Symposia on Saturday lasted all day. I was the final speaker (I told you they were smart), and after dinner, the symposia ended with a two-hour interview, question and answer period, with all 6 of us speakers. And here came the second realization.

During the Q & A, I was asked not once, but twice, about “Why did the USA government go after the Swiss Banks to reveal holders of their private accounts who resided in America? Why did the US government pick on Switzerland in this matter, when the “tax avoidance” issue of banking is much worse in the off-shore accounts like Cayman, Bahamas, and other Caribbean islands?”  Now, I love my country, and I think of myself as a good patriot. But exactly what right did my government have to bully Switzerland to break their own laws so that we could go after possible tax evaders? And if they didn’t comply, we would throw their banks out of the USA (i.e. UBS), possibly leading to another major world banking crisis? In other words, the Swiss are pissed off at us for doing that, and I was being called out to answer on behalf of my government’s strong armed tactics. Did I mention that transiting Pluto was on my natal Sun? And Saturn square it?

The truth is, I don’t really know why the USA government felt it necessary to bully Switzerland into breaking their centuries-old banking privacy laws. I mean, this is Switzerland! They are supposed to be the world’s image of “Right banking.” And part of “right banking,” in its highest expression is confidentiality, and no one has done it better than the Swiss for centuries. And here we were, breaking the Swiss banking system down in the quest to ferret out USA tax evaders. I mean, what are we talking about here? A few billion dollars of unpaid taxes perhaps, owed to a government that has gone drunk on spending taxpayers’ monies to the tune of $12 TRILLION dollars? The idea of hypocrisy comes to mind. The idea of lacking respect comes to mind. The idea of bullying comes to mind (“if you don’t comply, we will shut all your branch banks in America down”). You know what the result is? Swiss banks no longer allow Americans to open up an account now in Switzerland. Americans are now denied access to the world’s most respected leader in banking. And Switzerland is angry at the USA for this. Is it worth losing good historical allies like Switzerland over a policy (confidentiality) that  is instrumental to the reputation in banking that they have developed – perfected - over this many years? At least wait until we - our own government – has demonstrated its own accountability and responsibility in handling our own national monetary problems. In the meantime, who are we to tell anyone how to handle their money matters?

Well, as I told the audience that night, I cannot support my government’s actions on this matter, because we – the world - need the Swiss to be like the Swiss we have always known and admired: the epitome of good banking. I think I am now an honorary Swiss. But they still won’t let me open a bank account now, because my passport says I am American. And truly, I am. I may not agree with everything my government does, but I love America. The problem is… I love other countries too that love Americans. And the Swiss really do want to love America and be friends with us. But it strains the relationship when we intervene in their politics and customs and bully (and humiliate) them to do things that benefit us, at the expense of the culture they have built upon over centuries even before we existed.

By the way, I don’t want to open a Swiss bank account to avoid or evade taxes. That’s not my thing. But I would like to open one just to have currency protection through diversification in these times of crisis. And if the Dollar falls much further, I think the Swiss Franc will be the currency of “safe haven,” just as it has been so many, many times in the past. We need the Swiss to be Swiss. We need to let them be the bankers they have always been, with the secrecy and confidentiality codes of honor they have always performed. And we need our government to begin to act with some kind of fiscal management responsibility and pay back its own debts.

The last day of my tour was Sunday, January 24. I had an all-day workshop on my methods of market analysis for about 30 people, including attendees from Japan, Germany, Italy, Serbia, and Switzerland. It was a good class, but again my greatest joy came after the workshop when I could meet privately with about 20 of our subscribers. I love learning about my subscribers. I was amazed when I learned that 35% of them in Amsterdam were IT people. I was equally amazed to find that probably half of the subscribers in Switzerland are either psychologists or bankers. But most of all, I was pleased to see that – like the Dutch – the Swiss and Germans were very warm, open, respectful, and very appreciative of what I am doing.

I am on the right path, because I am meeting those who appreciate my studies, and they are wonderful people, from all walks of life, from all over the world. The Winter 2010 Tour gave me a healing and opened my eyes in ways I never expected. A big thank you and warm hug to all of you who I connected with on this trip. I hope to see all of you again next year.

Ray