The fall of the Anne Frank tree: symbol of change within Israel itself

“Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year…” – Anne Frank, 13 May 1944 (cited on Wikipedia)”
On Monday 23 August at approximately 13.30 (source nrc.nl) the most famous chesnut tree in the world finally succombed to sickness and old age. The Anne Frank tree stood for 150 years in the garden of Prinsengracht 263 but high winds on Monday proved too much for both the tree and the steel construction which was built around it in 2008. For Anne, this chesnut tree probably symbolised life, nature and the cyclical process of renewal, but the tree is perhaps a symbol of much more. I get a sense that Israel itself is changing, and that attempts to hold back (as the steel construction attempted to hold up the tree) and block this change will not be able to stem the tide.

2010 started off badly for Israel. On January 20th a group of Mossad agents, using false Europeans passports assasinated Hamas commander Mahmoud  al-Mabhouh in Dubai. This was followed in May by the storming of the Gaza flotilla by Israeli troops. It became clear after this enormous blunder that US/ Israel “special” relationships was cooling down. World wide sympathy and support for Israel is running very thin these days. Ultimately though, this series of events has somehow led to a new round of talks between Israel and Palestine, which will take place in Washington in September. Good it seems can come from bad.

However on another level too, something deep within the psyche of the Jewish nation is changing. On August 24th the news came out that Arabic lessons are to become compulsory at Israeli state schools, with the aim of promoting tolerance. Last week, the outrage that artist Jane Korman  could make a YouTube film at Auschiwtz, Lodz and other holocaust related locations, which shows Grandfather Adolek Kohn dancing with other family members. The music used is the Gloria Gaynor disco- hit “I will survive”. Clearly a new generation is granting itself permission to view the holocaust from a new perspective. The need to keep the horrors of the past alive carries with it an enormous emotional weight. Time changes things and that is a normal process. This is perhaps why we say: time heals all wounds. Deep cathartic change is clearly linked to Pluto’s process, but Saturn and the role of the collective shadow is also engaged. The t-square over the axis of the world is evidently stirring up the past in attempt to urge the unconscious to evolve in a new direction. That Israel is directly linked in to this energy is evident. In the country’s natal horoscoop, Saturn and Pluto are conjunct. Viewed from the this perspective, the fall of the Anne Frank tree is an appropriate symbol for change within the Jewish nation itself. Clearly while change can be resisted (Saturn), the deep rooted and natural processes of life itself (Pluto) can not.

The horoscope for the fall of the Anne Frank tree:

This is the second in a series of articles, which will examine the state of Israel.

copyright: Elizabeth Hathway DFAstrolS