Astrologer’s Diary: Political Times

One of the photo's from NASA's 'Earth at Night' series (2012)

Initially I thought of this post as a form of ‘update’ to a piece logged into the astroPPM flow as of January 11, 2011, namely ‘2011’s Fixed Star Eclipses and the Eclipsing of the US Congress’ which for a mélange of reasons likely obvious and inexplicable has been wrested from relative reader obscurity to the position of number one all-time read post here at the blog.

Mind you...all this happened without anyone so much as commenting or sending me an email. But being not insensible to interests being expressed (and well aware of the sudden swelling of noise, discord and violence around our world) lists were duly compiled, birth data was dug out, charts were cast and research was begun.

What turned up?

Something which though not entirely comfortable, is highly informative - if you consider things from the metaphysical perspective, that is.

First, a full and proper confession: I did not pull charts on every last living member of the US Congress. There are hundreds of congress people and not even a dedicated researcher such as myself was up for that task.

So what list was used? Simple: the US Congress has two houses - the House of Representatives and the Senate. If you head either chamber, you went on my list (hello, Senator Reid and Representative Boehner) with the same ‘invitation’ being extended to majority and minority leaders and their respective party whips.

(No, I’m not going for that joke. That's just too easy.)

After that came a group of congress people thought of as Those Who Stand in Front of Cameras. In other words, if you’re a member of Congress whose name has become engraved amidst the folds of my gelatinous if retentive brain merely because you show up on the news all the time, you were on my list.

To those of you who are students of astrology I will answer what is often the next question I gets asked about such studies: where do you start? My answer is generally ‘anywhere,’ though dates (or ranges of dates) help, as that will give you a time period in which to look for planetary stations, eclipses or some other ‘celestial notice’ to test against your mass of charts.

Which is what I did, with the celestial notice in question being April’s 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse, an eclipse which occurred in conjunction with fixed stars Schedir and Hamal.

- link to -

April’s 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse

(Pt. 3: Stars and Patterns)

What I found was that there was a definite split by party. While by no means a 100% occurrence...which is not to say every Republican and/or every Democratic members was affected, nor would those which were ‘hit’ by the eclipse affected identically...there was indeed a pattern: if aspected by the eclipse, Republican congressperson charts tended to be aspected by conjunction or opposition as opposed to the eclipse squaring objects in the charts of Democratic congress people.

Here are a few examples...

Speaker of the House, John Boehner (Republican)

November 17, 1941 - Reading, Ohio - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

Speaker of the House, John Boehner (Republican)

November 17, 1941 - Reading, Ohio - Aries Wheel (text chart)

With Mercury at 6 Scorpio, the 8 Taurus eclipse was in opposition, indicating testing situations and trying interpersonal matters, all of which have to do with the ability, manner, purpose or denial of [Scorpio] profitable connections, all of which would have been in what might be called ‘oppositional focus.’

Because no time is given for Speaker Boehner’s birth, no Moon is shown in his chart. However, given its position at dawn (2 Scorpio), unless the Speaker was born in the first few hours after midnight (say, by 4 in the morning) his Moon will be in Scorpio and will also be involved in the opposition by eclipse - which would be a rough emotional ride for anyone.

Heroes and villains alike have quailed under such pressures.

Moreover, Mr. Boehner isn’t out of the celestial woods as yet. Also highlighted in his chart is Juno (the principle of ‘management’ or ‘protecting the use of XYZ through proper application of management’) at 28 Libra, a degree which brings up one’s ‘mental culture,’ particularly where integrity, honesty and willingness to try/work/make an honest effort are concerned.

This Libra Juno is going to be eclipsed by October 2014’s 0 Scorpio solar eclipse.

And yes, that will be by conjunction.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican)

June 6, 1963 - Richmond, Virginia - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican)

June 6, 1963 - Richmond, Virginia - Aries Wheel (text chart)

When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his recent bid for re-election in the preliminary (primary) round, everyone was shocked. Everyone who didn’t have his chart, that is. Eclipses atop Black Moon Lilith are all about a ‘mass rejection’ whether that’s by others or by us. With the natal Black Moon in Scorpio anything which promotes or provokes emotions or emotionality (or emotional responses) is the venue - and with Black Moon Lilith conjunct Sabine (a point which can mean ‘raped’ but more often refers to a confinement or some sort of restriction) in the natal chart, when added to the idea that Mr. Cantor’s primary fell within the purview of Neptune’s early June 7 Pisces station, Neptune opposition Pluto (transformation) + Ceres (standing for defense) + Hebe(helping) + Deucalion (independent morality) + Child (physical children, childhood, immaturity, innocence)... that would seem to be the ‘recipe’ for voters evidently feeling Mr. Cantor was (reportedly) “too liberal” on immigration (that being the Neptune opposition) and too “out of touch” with their needs... which caused him to be ‘eclipsed’ (voted) out of office.

The charts above are less typical than some in that they have dual signals, but they are fairly typical of Republican charts as sampled...with the caveat that yes, those who would speak out (be seen on the news) would probably be those people whose charts were being eclipsed and who experienced that as passionate experiences, be they pro or con. And on the other (Democratic) side we have charts like this - the chart of Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House last time the Democrats controlled that chamber:

Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat)

March 26, 1948 - Baltimore, Maryland - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

 Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat)

March 26, 1948 - Baltimore, Maryland - Aries Wheel (text chart)

Holding to standard (Ptolemaic) 5-degree orbs for conjunction, opposition and square, the eclipse at 8 Taurus is not in conjunction/opposition with the Nodes of this chart. But it was in square to Representative Pelosi’s Pluto, just as it is in square to Pallas (dispassionate perspective) and all the many indications of variable pressures denoted by Pluto in the chart of Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat)

June 22, 1949 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat)

June 22, 1949 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Aries Wheel (text chart)

Yet the details to all of this (interesting though they may be) are not nearly as illuminating as the idea of how distinctly charts of party members fell into pattern with each other, which makes sense if we think of how ‘like minded’ (or even relatively like minded) people would tend to gravitate towards one rather than the other party - particularly in what has come to be America’s basically two-party system.

And that leads us to the charts of the Republican National Committee (known widely as ‘the RNC’) and the Democratic Committee (known as ‘the DNC’).

Republican National Committee (RNC)

June 17, 1856 - Philadelphia PA - Noon (glyph chart)

 Republican National Committee (RNC)

June 17, 1856 - Philadelphia PA - Noon (text chart)

 Democratic National Committee (DNC)

May 22 1848 - Baltimore MD - Noon (glyph chart)

Democratic National Committee (DNC)

May 22 1848 - Baltimore MD - Noon (text chart)

One of the issues the RNC is dealing with (and which it has been dealing with for a couple of years now) is the rise of the Tea Party wing, a segment of Republican thought which seeks to change the status quo in a rather across-the-board kind of way, making its point by (among other things) working to bring about Eric Cantor’s primary defeat.

That movement to change the party from within the party is a hugely Plutonic sort of process, and with Pluto in Taurus the issue is values while Pluto’s placement in the 8th points to the ‘field of play’ being a place where values must be negotiated and joined, whether within the party or across party lines.

(Just to note: this being a chart for a worldly ‘entity’ it automatically gets a noon time, so we know the house placement.)

Being that this chart dates from 1856, fixed stars Hamal and Schedir are not at their current position of 7 Taurus - they’re at 5 Taurus, which puts them exactly in conjunction with the RNC Pluto, a combination which will tend to point to potent tenacity if a cyclic tendency to expand and contract depending on how the idea of ‘restraint’ (Schedir) is internalized and dealt with.

More important in this moment, this 5 Taurus Pluto-Schedir-Hamal was eclipsed in April and will be eclipsed again in October, pointing to an extended period of turmoil which will naturally reflect and be reflected in the work and feelings of party members.

The Democratic Party isn't going to escape turmoil either - both parties are solidly founded in Piscean Age ethics and thus will inevitably change as we move into increasingly Aquarian Age times. So we can expect more turmoil...but that turmoil is part of what might be called 'necessary evolution' - the trading of one set of considerations for another. Piscean ethics are always emotional. Aquarian ethics are always conceptual.

It's a process, one in which metaphysically, individuals feeding into (or on) a given party’s turmoil... or an industry's challenges...or the debates of one or many nations - they are all responding to the overture of our times. Political parties, being theoretical entities which operate within a realm of ideas, formulating concepts as 'product' are always going to be more wholly ‘theoretical’ than anyone of flesh and blood corporeality could possibly be.

And that would be why they...along with all things theoretical, conceptual and to some extent "not real" (like the internet) represent the means by which the influx of our times stimulate our lives...our thoughts...our perception of the world we live in.

This is what seemed so interesting to me. As we enter the Aquarian Age...

The wheel of the Aquarian Age (Aquarius rising)

   

...Scorpio - the sign which tests our security - rises to the top of the wheel. In that position, on an individual basis it represents our desire to achieve or gain enough power over our life to feel secure - though surely some will interpret that as simply the lust for personal power.

And that’s the test for governments as well. The point at the top of the horoscope wheel - the Midheaven - is also the cusp of the 10th house, a house which in the worldly sense speaks to everything which structures our life, which ‘runs’ things we then deal with (or don’t deal with). In positive mode the 10th is inspirational and motivational. In negative mode the 10th is restrictive, paranoid and suspicious.

This is the polarity we all will be dealing with for the whole of the Aquarian Age - all 2,160 years long of it. Aquarius is the sign of systems and mass collectives, of the marketplace and everything which powers our world... our thoughts... our willingness and ability to join together... or not.

And here’s the point: Aquarius is an air sign, and air signs function through considerations of thought and concept, which makes it not at all surprising that the reality of functionality which is - and which is going to be  the Aquarian Age is making itself known not just in this instance, but across societies and our world through the theories we like or don't like. Which we discuss, debate, deny, which we excuse ourselves from any responsibility for (lack of responsibility is a famously Aquarius negative quotient)...which we debate, explore, abandon, work to purify, get upset about and yes - occasionally explode and go up in smoke about. Aquarius calls our attentions to foibles so that we can take responsibility so that we have an opportunity to conjure up the type of inventiveness which gets us past our sticking points and testing times.

Note please...not their sticking points, our sticking points. Aquarius functions well only when all points in the system are engaged, properly utilized, attended to and kept current. Though Aquarius honors equality and a lack of those distinctions which under the winner/loser, ruler/ruled, rich/poor, upper/lower class Piscean Age were both common and accepted, there will come a time - probably not all that long from now - when Aquarian imperatives will provide the means by which such things as cast, gender (as identity) wealth and other such  qualities become less important than our humanity... a humanity which, to put it in Aquarian terms, we will adopt and adapt to as soon as we are truly done being inhumane - most of all to our Selves.

Not that all this will come to us as easily as breathing - which is good cause to see and grasp and understand what is going on in American politics. Yes, there is a level at which it is entirely about the laws and budgets and human beings.

But it's also about the flow of time... and when it comes to Aquarius, though Aquarius honors equality, its early manifestations are often disruptive, elitist, intolerant and far from the stuff of dreams. It takes time for us to learn that as individual as we all are, we only all gain when we all pool our knowledge, when we become willing to let go of personal priorities and cease  arguing about ownership in favor of discussing the ideas which really  count.

Which is really what politics is all about - if often challenged by.
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