Valentina: As a contribution towards undoing the effects of the Berlin Conference, we have been performing astrological readings to identify its weak spots, as well as points of interventions that may be available to us today. We begin with the Berlin Conference natal chart, which you can see in the ground floor, which shows the position of the planets in the sky, as seen from Berlin, when the conference first gathered on November 15, 1884. While it displays the infinite possibilities of that moment, it also gives neat indications for the kind of project that the conference inaugurated.

Denise: Then we move on to read the Berlin Conference Solar Return chart, which shows the position of the planets on the day of the conference’s “birthday” this year, on Nov 15, 2025. It describes how the project is currently unfolding, and when compared with the Berlin Conference natal chart, it gives clues to how to undermine its project. 

V: Reading this synastry chart - which you can see on the ground floor - we identified the project’s current “weak spots” and highlighted 3 astrological configurations that serve as points of interventions. For each one, we propose an action or a practice to undo or halt the effects of the Berlin Conference.

Let’s begin by reading its Natal chart…

D: It shows how the scramble of the African continent, the decision that has defined the Berlin Conference historically, has produced both Europe and the global context. More particularly, it has supported accumulation of capital by organizing two sites of extraction, namely Soul and Soil. As we read the charts (Natal, Solar Return, and Synastry) it appeared evident that intervention is possible at the level of Sense and Sorrow.

V: Soul and Soil begin appearing as sites of extraction when we pay attention to the conference Ascendant in Pisces and its Sun in Scorpio, which describe respectively how the Imperialist project that the conference inaugurates appears in the world and conceive of itself.

The third sign of the water trilogy, Pisces relates to fantasy (ideals, dreams, illusions, addiction), but also to poesy, melody and all things spiritual, that is, inspirational and figural. It has also been referred to as the moment in which the self dissolves in the collective unconscious, and the element of Water.  Together with this illusory quality, Pisces’s duality gives a sense of hiding or deceiving, which in this case can be grasped in terms of an in/distinction between moral and material values, in how the conference appears in/to the world.

D: Things become a bit less vague when one looks at the position of its Scorpio Sun, which happens to be on the 8th house.  The position of the Sun tells us about the core of the conference, its self-perception. In Scorpio and in its natural house, the 8th house, the core of the project has to do with death and transformation. The 8th house also relates to other people’s money, and resources, to all that we share with others: institutions, sexuality but quite literally also to material extraction, as it exposes that which is supposed to remain hidden.

When reading this triple water combination – Pisces Ascendant, Scorpio Sun, in the 8th house (Scorpio’s home) in context (that is, the whole chart), it was not difficult to find that vagueness in regard to the distinction between moral and material values, also in the pairs civilization and accumulation and education and extraction (Scorpio, Pluto, 8th house). For what was the twentieth century if not the period in the history of State Capital in which it claimed to be spreading Western values across the planet, claiming that it was taking Western Civilization to the territories coming under imperial domination.

V: Looking at the second house, we see again how extraction is at the core of the project initiated by the Berlin Conference. In the second house, which describes the architecture, the resources, infrastructures and values that the conference inherited, we find the ruler of its Pisces Ascendant: Neptune, and the ruler of its Scorpio Sun, Pluto, as well as Chiron. This powerful aspect occurs in Taurus, which is at home in the Second House and is related to inherited natural and moral resources: the earth, the soil, the body, as well as traditions, moral values, and so on.

 Read as such, this triple conjunction indicates how the decision that marks the Conference would carry on extraction, as an economic practice and an inheritance of European colonialism, with moral and material consequences.  Not only that, it also shows that the conference inherits and reproduces an infrastructure of material extraction (Pluto) related to water (Neptune), through the creation of defined territories (Taurus). The scramble of Africa literally organized the extraction of raw materials from the centre of the continent to Europe, through navigable rivers.

D: Moreover, this Pluto-Neptune configuration also indicates the significance of psychical extraction, of how the exploration of interiority – of the soul, that is, affective and imaginative abilities – would be at once its strongest (in terms of efficacy) and the weakest (in terms of fragility) characteristic. As extraction, dissimulated under a civilization mission (education) manifests a duality, which is both physical (Pluto) and Psychical (Pisces), or, of soil (territoriality) and soul (subjectivity); that is, the duo extraction-education reflects the two sides of State Capital, as figured in the phrase nation-state, which became the key political subject in the world that emerged out of the conference.

V: At home, on the cusp of the Third House, the house of communication and immediate relations, Gemini hosts Pluto, Saturn, and Chiron, the last two in powerful aspects with Mars in Sagittarius on the Ninth House and the Midheaven in Sagittarius, respectively. This configuration highlights the significance of sense and sense-making, of communicating and explaining, like teaching, as we already mentioned. But also, the importance of creating and expanding sense (philosophizing), and of evaluating and assessing (morality) – in Europe’s constitution.

Also Saturn, the planet of restrictions, structure, time and authority, is conjunct with the IC, adding a certain coldness and sense of isolation to this idea of Europe but also showing how it structures itself as a foundational authority, one of an intellectual kind.

D: What this configuration indicates is how the conference inaugurates the entity we call Europe, which, by projecting itself, makes “the rest of world.” That is, Europe emerges by projecting itself as spiritual and philosophical authority and superiority, by claiming Sagittarian qualities of beneficial positive expansion and moral goodness. When considered in light of the total violence that accompanies extraction, for which the scramble of Africa created a juridic structure (Imperialism), the perversity of the mobilization of sense, in the framings of souls (through sense-making, teaching, philosophy and morality), and extraction of soil, becomes all the more evident.

That Saturn is opposed to Mars, the planet of war and aggression, only emphasizes it. For, sense-making has justified wars, territorial occupations, and other expropriative practices, by projecting them as products of morally superior European designs. In sum, here we have a snapshot of how interiority (through sense-making) and exteriority (though soil extraction) has been crucial in the emergence of Europe.

V: When looking at the overall pattern of the chart and in particular to the beneficial relationships (trines) between the planets in the second and third house (related to values and communication) and the 7th house (related to committed relationships and contracts), what we get is a sense of sorrow.

The inherited (and reiterated) value that is placed on soil extraction (as shown by Pluto in the second house) that marks the emergence of Europe, enables disruptive ways of relating with its “others” (as shown by Uranus in the 7th house). Chiron, the wounded healer, in the third house in Gemini –  conjunct with Gemini Pluto and Taurus Neptune, both of which are in the Second House –  reveals the pain of not being able to share, to communicate and belong which informs and affects the ways in which Europe is able to appreciate and relate with, the “other” (as shown by Venus in the 7th house).

And then Saturn, conjunct the IC, gives a sense of deep isolation, which in trine with the Moon in the 7th house, reveals profound sadness in the way of feeling, a sense of rigidity in relation to intuition and a sense of indifference and severity towards the feminine. This overall sense of sorrow that is constitutive of Europe is also a weak point that can be activated.

More weak spots can be found by reading the conference Solar return chart, which you can see upstairs, in the outer circle of the synastry chart on the ground floor.

D: The Solar Return Chart gives us an image of how the decision that marks the 1885 Berlin Conference, the scramble of Africa, would/could unfold, realize itself, in the period between November 15, 2025 and November 14, 2026. Reading the Natal Chart, one hundred forty years later, we gathered the indications of what has indeed unfolded, namely, the setting up of an Imperial juridic infrastructure for extraction of soil (mining of territories) as well as a symbolic infrastructure for the extraction of souls (mining of subjectivity), which has supported capital accumulation in this almost century and a half. When reading the chart, we sought the configurations and relations which give clues at how to halt, to undermine that project. 

V: The first was: Cancer Ascendant, with Jupiter in the first house

The Cancer ascendant gives the political project a heightened emotional quality in its appearance this year, with Jupiter landing its extra expanded-and-expanding force. No wonder emotions are running high. Today’s outer presentation of what unfolded from that project is up for further expansion, now in the guise of the emotional infrastructures that Cancer signals, aided by Jupiter’s amplifying powers. Taking this combination in as an image for the extractive structures that are being put in place, it is evident that however it is to unfold, this expansion of water infrastructures, it will involve both material and emotional aspects.

D: Another configuration we paid attention to, was the Scorpio Sun, in the Fifth House, opposite Uranus in Taurus, in the Eleventh House.

From this positioning of the sun, at home, in the Fifth House, with an Opposite Uranus in Taurus daring it to explore the unconventional, we gather two simultaneous trends. On the one hand, the extractive core of the project will express openly and fully (as weird Uranus reflects it like a Full Moon). On the other hand, because this shining is taking place in the Eleventh House, the whole ethical (ideal) and social (juridical and economic) structure will be evident to anyone who bothers to look. That opens up for the disruptive Uranus, also at home in the Eleventh House, to animate general rebelry, that is, collective revolting against this global power structure the 1885 Berlin Conference unleashed.

V: We also looked at Pisces on the Cusp of Midheaven, in Conjunction with Saturn, the North Node, and Neptune in Pisces, in the Tenth House

With such a cluster of planets on the Pisces Midheaven, the public positioning of the project will also take the form of a water infrastructure. With Saturn (the planet of structure, authority and limits) at home in the Tenth House and Neptune (the planet of ideals, illusions and addiction) at Home in Pisces, the depths and the stability of this infrastructure will be at stake, both, in its material and emotional presentations, soul and soil. Whether this is about global warming-related disturbances of the planet's water systems or emotional disturbances caused by the political and economic situation, the expropriative and extractive program initiated by the Berlin Conference is up for restructuring its ideals and ideology this coming year. Or perhaps, and this because Pisces recalls the deepest depths, what is being restructured, reshaped, is the psyche itself, or the modes of emotional and psychical identification with it.

D: The Moon is in Libra in the fourth house, opposite the Saturn, Neptune, Pisces Midheaven Conjunction.

 That we would find the Moon at home in the Fourth House (belonging, home) in Libra should not come as a surprise as water signs, houses, and planets are so present in this cycle. Now it is there Opposite to the Tenth House cluster, which indicates that the restructuring we mentioned above will not only be public, but it will reflect on the forms that characterise its private aspects, the inner domains, of the extractivist program the 1885 Berlin Conference unleashed. With this Moon we read the refashioning of that program (the restructuring of its ideals) is about how peaceful and balanced people can feel home and rooted in their closest relationships (the Moon). The shift occurs at the level of relationships, how they are understood and how they feel, most intimately, which can equally oppose that restructuring or make it work at the deepest level.

V: On the ground floor, you can see the synastry chart comparing the natal chart of the Berlin Conference with its Solar Return chart for this year, which we are reading to identify the project’s current “weak spots”.

We identified 3 points of intervention, for each one we propose an action or a practice to undo the ongoing effects of the Berlin Conference.

D: 1.Solar Return Uranus conjunct Natal Pluto & Neptune conjunction, opposing both Solar Return and Natal Sun & Mercury.

This configuration allows us to activate Uranus’s disruptive capacity to expose and dissemble the infrastructure of extraction and education – for the appropriation and occupation of soils and souls – that to this day supports the political economic program inaugurated by the conference. We are shining black light (UV light) onto this configuration and invite everyone to shine black light onto any infrastructure of extraction they may encounter.

V: 2.Solar Return Chiron 1st house Aris opposite Natal Moon 7th house Libra

In this configuration, we activate Chiron’s pharmacological capacity (poison + remedy) to bring awareness to the generality of pain – physical and psychical (emotional and spiritual) harms caused by the European project. The goal here is to expose and undermine the  very mechanism that allows for its consequences to be explained away as the fault of those under colonial and racial subjugation. We propose a practice of reaching out to touch something or someone else, any time you feel pain.

D: 3.Transiting Neptune + Saturn conjunction opposing Transiting Moon

This configuration inspired a tool (a fake therapy card set) through which we try to break through the psychical (of emotion and imagination) hold the European project has over our minds. You are invited to use the tool.