Chart USA: Saturn as National Teacher

  The United States' Capitol Dome in Washington, DC

(photo credit: Mary Ann Reitano, 2008)

After listening to the Congressional bollox this week, it occurred to me that it was time to catch up with the celestial doings when it comes to Chart USA.

Chart USA (the Appomattox Surrender chart)

April 9 1865  - 3:53 p.m. (LMT +5:15) - Appomattox VA

The chart is dated April 9, 1865 and is specifically timed for Appomattox, Virginia. The ins and outs of why this is can be found in a whole series of posts on the US Chart which can be linked to in the 'corporate and political posts' list in the sidebar.

For those who don’t need those details, let’s hit the high points on what’s going on. (Or the low points, if you prefer.)

October 2012 saw Saturn move into Scorpio. This was the month of all the political debates and, if you remember, a general heightening of everyone’s concerns about who was going to win the election. Prior to October, things were merely partisan. As of October, people really got focused, which fits with Saturn having moved from the theoretical ‘let’s talk about it’ airiness of Libra into the ‘hey, this is really important’ water sign emotionality of Scorpio.

The North Node of Chart USA is at 0 Scorpio 01. That’s a degree which is about bedrock qualities and choices which have the potential for much good or much destruction.

The Congressional moment which got my attention this afternoon – that of Congress picking up its toys and going home for Christmas with the nation’s fiscal issues still unsolved – comes as Uranus as gone direct and Saturn (reality) has just crossed over the nation’s Industria in the 2nd house of values and money.

Anyone who listens to politics – or who has listened to the news for the past week knows that the United States is heart-deep in discussions about gun control, mental health…and in general, the values of Americans as people. As a symbol, Saturn is about structural growth which as often manifests as useful rules and limits as it does with walls and refusals to consider anything but that which suits your needs. In the 2nd house of the national chart it speaks to the national coffers as well as the vital question of what do the people expect of their government. The 2nd house of this chart being ‘colored’ by Libra, the give-and-take of negotiation is a value to be held by the US government and which the people will always grade its government on.

Oh yes – the natal Saturn in this chart is at 27 Libra. That means the nation experienced a Saturn return rather recently – back on September 13th, to be exact. Saturn’s orbit being 29.46 years long, this means that the (2nd house) values and (Saturn) rules which came into play early in 1983 are over.

1983 was during the Reagan era. What the Saturn return tells us is that the US has learned the lessons which began back then. The nation is ready to - and needs to move on.

Saturn will come back to the degree of this Industria next September. What we have therefore seen is the opening round of a year when we are going to see a lot of hard choices and changes being put into the works.

And being resisted.

And getting torn down, torn apart and getting rejected.

A lot which was, will now end. A lot which needs to be built will be taken on. Saturn periods are not known for being kind or carefree. Often the bad news gets delivered in such a manner that the thing you have been avoiding or postponing taking on becomes the imperative which hits you in the face.

A lot of people don't like Saturn because they think life is about the reward and not the work which earns the reward. Saturn times teach us otherwise. 

Since you know I’m all about eclipses, November’s solar eclipse at 21 Scorpio opposed the national Venus (at 24 Taurus) in the 9th house of foreigners, education, law/legalities, religion, medicine and media. Since Venus is conjunct Algol (emotional reactivity) and Deucalion (finding the moral path) it’s not surprising to see things evolving as they are, touching on all these subjects from the perspective of the eclipse conjuncting Sisyphus and Child – the choice to do something back because you are childish or to children.

Pluto is moving through the 4th house of the people (and real estate). With the 4th also being the traditional house of families, habits, cultural values (traditions) and ‘setting the course’ this is a time when we would expect the US citizenry to be going through a lot of self-questioning changes with regards to who they are as a people…and what they really value. Pluto has been conjuncting Facies for everyone, of course…but in this chart Facies is at 6 Capricorn (fixed stars do move!) and thus Pluto ‘turned’ on Facies during that evidently fateful September period then came forward across Europa (getting carried away) and Niobe (pride goeth before the fall) at 7 Capricorn…and by February will be hitting Kallisto.

So as a people and as a people who are supposed to be in an ongoing partnership with their government, the US as a nation – politicians and citizens alike – are now moving between having realized where we have failed utterly and what really caring as a nation means.

The conjunction to Kallisto spans 2013 to 2014 and will see the US (and its citizens) struggling with what caring really means. The priorities of the nation at home and abroad will be looked at. The priorities about what resources should be put to and whether the US is a nation of individuals or a nation and national ‘family’ of sorts will be debated and thought through. Kallisto’s story is one which requires that you face the ‘bear’ you have been or acted like to others and survive through accepting that you have acted less like a person and more like an animal.

(Don’t look at me…I don’t write these myths, I just report on them!)

It’s worth noting that the Neptune of this chart sits at 8 Aries, too. Uranus will conjunct this point during 2013 and in doing so, create an opposition to 8 Libra, a degree known for loss.

Given the length of this transit, the fact that Neptune is involved and that we’re going to be experiencing a series of solar eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio which are going to hit several other Chart USA planets, it’s likely that some very bad things are going to be seen, learned and found out before things get straightened out….which should happen somewhere around 2017.

I did also look at the chart of the GOP, seeing as it was the Republican-led House of Representatives which led the exit from Washington today.

The Republican Party

March 20, 1854 - noon (LMT +5:55) - Ripon, WI

The thing which seems striking about this chart (which deserves a full discussion of its own) is that Neptune is currently in the process of ‘dissolving’ the GOP’s Venus…and from there will move on to working over the party’s Eris. With this Venus involved in a grand square which includes the nodes of this Chart GOP, we can expect there to be a lot of strain on the party's relationships individual and public.

It’s been about 150 years or so since the Civil War and Lincoln as the Republican President of the country. That’s about half a Deucalion cycle – Deucalion being the symbol of ‘finding the moral path.’ Today the US has a black President whose powerful ability with oratory makes him sometimes seem like a modern Lincoln.

The nation is struggling with what it has been and what it wants to be. Ten years from now the GOP will be a substantially different party and the US will be set on a new course.

 The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC

The day I went to see this statue I was in so much pain I probably should have been in a hospital. 
But I wasn't. All I remember is wanting to walk up those steps and see Lincoln for myself.
By the time I got there, I was in such terrible pain that some kindly tourist came to help me
up the steps. I was so moved...I just stood there and cried.     

(photo credit: Erich Robert Joli Weber, June 2012)

But in the interim, there is bound to be some pain. When it began, the Civil War was a war of economics which involved the very vital question of what being ‘human’ means, and what rights – and responsibilities – go along with being human.

Those same questions seem to be coming around again. Back then, the nation and its people went through hating each other because it seemed some people cared more about human dignity than economics. Then, as now, it was the rich who protested and the poor who went on working.

I doubt the Republicans are going to cede (even if Texas has toyed with the idea).

I’m also not surprised to know the nation is going through its Saturn return...and that such a time in the history of the United States would be filled with tests and needs and pain and challenges galore.

We are also told that if we accept the hard work Saturn brings, if we will put ourselves through the course of living up to our own very best standards, we will come out the better for it, too.
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