Why Wisconsin?

Just in case you've mentally misplaced Wisconsin....

When the news reports of February 16 burst forth in living color on the subject of protests going on in Wisconsin, I wondered why.

No, not on a political basis – but why Wisconsin? The world is full of protests at the moment…but then, it’s one Chiron cycle after the last time protests seemed to become the demonstration-de-jour, a fact which got discussed in the whole chat about Chiron entering Pisces.

(LINK to blog on Chiron entering Pisces)

So that people are protesting (not to mention how there’s plenty to protest!)...that wasn’t my question. My question was more about why the American media would focus on reports coming out of Madison, Wisconsin (the state’s capital) rather than somewhere else. What drew the media there?

Yes, the media likes to say it covers everything. But we know they don't. They can't! So...astrologically, what got them to thoroughly entrenched in this story? What gives the story its crux-of-the-matrix sort of vibe in astrological terms?

 Wisconsin's Capitol building

photo credit: Dori (2004)

The first thing I did was what astrologers always do…I tracked down the chart for the State of Wisconsin, which as it turns out was admitted to the Union on May 28, 1848 – apparently being the 30th state to join the star spangled red, white and blue of it all.

The chart for Wisconsin looks like this…

 Wisconsin admitted to the Union

May 29, 1848 (noon)

…which means that what jumped off the page (lo, to my wondering astrologer’s eye there did appear…) a 5th house/11th house cusp line of 13 Capricorn. (No, not tiny reindeer, but nice try!)

Hmmm…I said. I was thinking about the January Solar Eclipse at 13 Capricorn. And being that when you talk Capricorn you talk Saturn….(which as we have noted has in taking station and going retrograde towards the end of January served as a marker for a whole slew of protest inaugurations)…my text mental stop was Saturn at 24 Pisces in the 7th house of ‘the other’ or what you present to the world conjunct Vesta (sacred service), Sedna (entitlement), Arachne (entanglements), Haumea (‘shape shifting’ into youth – which here would be references to the youth of the state), that all-time rejecter of ideas – Scheat, and the South Node, signature of all things which are easiest to do.

Frankly, the first conjugation of this is that it’s easy for the protesters to get out there and grandstand their case and equally easy for the government to say ‘no more!’ in proposing cuts.

Please notice – there is no right or wrong here, just the ‘why’ this is so pronounced. That answer would seem to be that all this action is taking place in a 7th house colored by Pisces on the cusp.

Pisces is king when it comes to striking the common mass-market emotional chord. Aquarius may have the mass market idea of it all, but when you really want to get the people where they angst, go for Pisces – no question!

This would be answer to my question part one. But I didn't think it would be quite enough to get this amount of air time and reaction from so many parties.

So where next?

Well, when you’re talk about Pisces (as with any sign) it pays to check the ruler of the sign, which in this case is rulers. With Pisces, there is the ‘what you know about yourself and your emotional position in/about life’ part which is delineated by Jupiter. And in this case, Jupiter is positioned in the 11th house of income (check!), in the sign of the people – Cancer (check!) and oh yes – isn’t the 11th house the horoscope home of the media? Yes it is – (check, and triple check!).

Plus, all this would have really fired the media when? Well, as the Moon was pushing towards its highlighting Aquarian Full Moon phase on February 17th. Think of it as a tide seriously starting to rise, with this particular Full Moon being at 13 Aquarius, just shy of the Aquarius’ cross-quarter point.

  Sunrise at North Point Park

photo credit: Dori (2009)

And there is the fact that anything Aquarian always ‘rings a chime’ with all things 11th house just because Aquarius is the underlying nature of the 11th house. It was so the right moment for people and the electronic, mobile, mass market Aquarian media to get into emotional gear. And especially so in a very icing-on-the-cake sort of way considering how in this chart that Aquarian cross-quarter degree (15 Aquarius) is on the 6th house cusp – the 6th house being the house of responsibilities, jobs and employees!

Now isn’t that special!

Ah...I'm beginning to feel this whole media thing....!

Obviously the unions are seeing this as jobs, the employees are seeing this as being about them and the state thinks it has certain responsibilities which may be to these groups and which may be overarching – i.e., in spite of these groups.

The ‘outcome’ ruler of Pisces being Neptune, that Neptune is conjunct Eris (and Fomalhaut) in this 6th house gives us a very feisty (Eris = discord) employee base…not to mention that Eris is on station in this chart, so make that a double does of feisty with a cherry and whipped cream on top!

With that Neptune/Eris being conjunct Fomalhaut, the integrity of the ‘dream of success’ is what it is at stake…and the trine to calculated Lilith (society’s denial OR denial of greater societal opinions) conjunct Chiron (speaking of Chiron…) with these two exactly in conjunction at 5 Scorpio AND exactly conjunct the 3rd house of communication (at 5 Scorpio) sets off the whole ‘government does, worker's protest, media pays attention’ triumvirate.

Who will win what part of this financial debate? With the 3rd house cusp in Scorpio, both sides are likely to be manipulative. And taxes, financial/fiscal agreements, who has what power over what...that becomes the tug-of-war. With Scorpio on the 3rd house of communication, thought and mentality, obviously the optimal here is to think things through, to talk things out to try and conjure up a solution which feels good (Scorpio is a water/emotional sign) for everybody.

And lacking that? Well, the negative of Scorpio on the third is much delicious venting of spleen, grand standoffs, emotional manipulations, name calling and all the rest.
 
Plus there is that rather nebulous space between...the needy person who acts brave, the traditional strong-arm type who plays innocent...any way that emotionalism gets used to try to sway others is Scorpio, and when it comes as a matter of thoughts or words, that's 3rd house...and oh how apt for it to be about taxes, power, the funding of pension funds and all such.

In the end, Medea at 4 Scorpio just inside the 2nd house may be the answer. Medea being the sorceress whose impractical love so lacking in perspective not only drove her mad but in the end undermined her, causing her to lose everything she wanted…in the 2nd house of Wisconsin’s state chart this is the classic love of money. 

But still...all this wasn’t quite good enough for me. (Fussy, I know...) I saw why/how the chart was hooked together, but then I said why now? The 1848 chart has been Wisconsin’s chart for…well, since 1848!

WHY NOW?

So I poked around a little more, realizing in pretty short order that a new Governor has just been installed in the fair city of Madison…and that Governor Scott Walker took office on January 3, 2011.

Here’s that chart…

 Inauguration: January 3, 2011

Madison, Wisconsin

And what do our wondering eyes see as the Midheaven of this chart? 12 Capricorn. And what about that January 3rd date…wouldn’t that have been scant hours before the Solar Eclipse at 13 Capricorn? Why by jumbo-gingo yes! You can actually see the Moon (conjunct Pallas AND Pluto) at 5 Capricorn heading on up there as it’s about to do its eclipse thang.

And Eros (passion) is on the Midheaven. The aim is focal!

AND Eris (at 21 Aries) is right there, tucked in behind the Ascendant at 24 Aries where it can do the most exacerbating.

Oh – now we see, right? At it’s best, let’s remember, Eris stands for social reforming. At it’s worst, it’s just plain disruptive. But under all circumstances, Eris a symbol of life forcing us to become aware of something. Wherever Eris is in your chart (or in any chart) that’s where life wants you to focus your awareness.

And the converse is…?

Yes, that that’s probably what we’re least aware of…and therefore we need all that reminding.

 Milwaukee, Wisconsin

photo credit: Dori (2008)

The Saturn in this chart is opposition Eris in that 6th house of state employees and responsibilities. There’s even a nice Virgo Juno (leadership) opposition Pisces Jupiter/Uranus in 12 thing in this chart which suggests it’s the union leadership which is driving some agenda. This may be purely about the employees – and surely it’s about pensions, seeing as Jupiter and Uranus are in the 24 house.

It’s just…well, when you get into charts like this, astrology teaches you to be circumspect. With the outcome ruler of Pisces (Neptune) conjunct Chiron (yet again) conjunct Rhadamanthus and Orpheus… it’s the ‘faulty/insecure’ talent of the Orpheus which makes one wonder.

Whatever the facts are, they aren’t probably all so totally on the table. Between the manipulative-vs.-manipulating Scorpio 3rd house of Wisconsin’s statehood chart and this…Gosh, it’s so likely everyone is trimming the fat off the facts to suit their own emotional palate!

(A lot of food references in this blog, aren’t there? I must be hungry…)

To wrap this up, that statehood chart really does seem to make this an ‘intrinsic’ sort of problem which, considering when this situation reared its protesting head is not likely to vamoose all that vast.

There is an 11 Gemini Solar Eclipse coming up this June. That will hit the top of the Wisconsin statehood chart like a passing cannonball smacking a too-tall steeple. Given that the eclipse will occur on June 1st but as with all solar eclipses we can expect a six-to-eight week lead-in/breakdown period, we should hear a lot of things happening starting in…say, April.

More to focal point perhaps? That this chart, in having a 9 Gemini Midheaven and 9 Sagittarius Nadir lines it up pretty much perfectly with the current positions of Antares (in Sagittarius) and Aldebaran (in Gemini).

This is all about obsession versus integrity – with the integrity side at the top. The government of Wisconsin is asked to function from a position of integrity – which sounds like a big ‘duh’ although recent years of governmental activity seem to remind us that this isn’t always the case…

But maybe even more important is Antares at the IC, a position in any chart which has a real ‘love/hate’ quality. We stand on our IC so long as it is a solid foundation and when it isn’t, it’s the rabid dog which bites us wherever we want least to be bitten.

(Subtle, aren’t I?)

Seeing that Saturn will go direct in mid-June – right after the Solar Eclipse…well, at least one solar eclipse…this becomes a prime time for changes and fluffling in Wisconsin. With a highly emotional Lunar Eclipse going to also grace June at 24 Sagittarius – opposition Wisconsin’s Mercury-Betelgeuse which is currently colored by Bellatrix (ideas which should be easy to understand but which apparently are very hard to get across)…?

It’s to expect some rambunctious times are on Wisconsin’s dance card. July’s Solar Eclipse at 9 Cancer will hit at the other end of the spectrum from the January eclipse, activating Wisconsin’s Aries Pluto-Juno-Moon square the state’s Cancer Mars of discontentment in 11.

 Taliesin, one of the beloved design constructs

of architect Frank Lloyd Wright

photo credit: Jeff Dean (2006)

If I were the media, I would plan on being in and around Wisconsin for a while. If I was either a member of the Wisconsin government or inside any of the political machines or the union strongholds, I’d be seriously cleaning up not just my act, but the grout which seals my act and makes it water tight.

The state is going through some stuff. But at least now I know why it appeared in the news. It got there because everything about Wisconsin’s statehood and 2011 inauguration chart lined up with current celestial events.

Et voila! That’s how things come to the fore…and hence why blogs like this ever get into digital print!