Control: Everybody’s Testing Ground

 

Almost everybody hates taxes. Have you ever wondered what astrology has to say about that?

I’m not sure why…maybe it’s because of the current (expected) onslaught of political jabbing going on here in the US with regards to Election 2012. Maybe it’s because the US Supreme Court just upheld the viability of the individual mandate connected to the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (not-so-affectionately known as Obamacare) and how when asked, people immediately go to the question of how said Act will affect their taxes.

Basically, it all comes down to control. People are afraid of losing control. People are afraid of having taxes imposed upon them – which is the very embodiment of ‘loss of control’ in the area of one’s money.

Having said all this, it probably won’t be a big surprise to hear that taxes are a Scorpio item on the astrological level. Scorpio is all about control – and feeling threatened by the loss of control, whether that will harm us or not.

Inheritances are also Scorpio – as are investments. Known as the sign of ‘other people’s money,’ Scorpio is so named because of its association with the 8th house – a house which sits across the zodiac from the 2nd house (the native house of Taurus).

And yes, in ‘pop astrology,’ Taurus is often referred to as ‘my money.’

 

 

First of all, in this particular astrological arena it’s probably safer to say that it’s the houses (more than the signs) which refer to the ‘my money’ versus ‘other people’s money.’ You could have any sign in the zodiac on your 8th house and it’s STILL going to be the house of ‘other people’s money.’ The house carries the ‘vibe’ of the sign, to be sure.

(And yes, the sign carries the vibe of the house!)

The first three houses of the horoscope – whatever sign is on their cusp – denote the ‘basics’ of life. They describe how you will learn those basics and your basic orientation to many things in life. I have a cousin who has Libra rising. That’s Libra on the house of “I Am” and one of her greatest life lessons has been learning that she has to take care of herself in order to have anything to give…that she doesn’t have to be the person or act or dress as others say she should – that her vote not only counts, but defines who (in the end) others are going to see her as.

The 8th house is also the house of conception and death, meaning it’s the house of birth control and abortions.

People fight over (and about) inheritances. They debate and resent taxes. The 8th is also the house of debt - and everybody gets on edge about debt. People treat the entire subject of conception, birth control, death, debt and abortion as if its being done to them even when a given situation is happening to someone else they will never, ever meet.

Why is that?

That's because the 8th house is where our psyche, where the emotionality of our Being meets that of other people. It’s the house of sex…and therefore the house of every kind of situation and choice which asks that we get ‘naked’ with somebody else.

Even with our Self. Psychology is an 8th house subject, war is an 8th house subject, surgery is an 8th house subject.

The divider between our negativity and willingness in all 8th house issues is control. We hate having something imposed on us. When we’re made to comply, we often feel diminished or helpless – hence the 8th house’s association with the fight-or-flight instinct.

War is probably one of the ultimate 8th house functionality – it inflicts death in a singularly uncaring way. Those who start wars and who run them feel entitled and valid in their choices. To others they may look like madmen (or women). But to those who choose to do the act, to inflict the cost, to decide that putting your life on the line in surgery (we have to risk your life to save your life) …the choice seems obvious.

Obviously the dividing line here is the ability to choose…the other end of which is the loss of control. “Consensuality,” let’s call it. When sex is consensual, it’s fine. When its not consensual, it’s rape.

The 8th house confronts us with situations and changes (and changing situations) which evoke and provoke our emotionality, making it the house about our experience of change - or where our emotions are tested.

Being a natively water sign house, no matter what sign you have on the 8th house cusp in your natal chart, you experience your emotions in conjunction with others through indications pertaining to this house.

Conversely, when something or someone provokes your sense of risk, your sense of threat – that situation (and/or person) is representing your 8th house dynamics.

The water sign houses – houses 4, 8 and 12 – are all about emotional experiences. The 4th house (natively Cancerian) is where we learn about emotions. The ‘patterning’ of childhood builds the native and rather kneejerk emotional ‘habits’ we associate with the 4th house. Located in the lower half of the horoscope, the 4th house is always going to be about us – our insides. It’s the house of our subconscious.

But the two other water sign houses (the 8th and 12th) are above the prime horizontal in the horoscope.

Anything above the horizontal is public. It’s what people see of us, and what we see of others. It’s what we learn through being part of our world and what the world gains by having us be part of it.

The 12th (natively Piscean) is part of a global, universal…almost ‘backdrop’ sort of quadrant. Everything we do in the 4th quadrant is about something which will build the framework within which we will live our life. So it’s about society, our social circles, income, pensions, commerce – all that stuff which shapes our world but isn’t our (personal) world at a personal level.

 

But the 8th house…the 8th house is part of an interactive quadrant. It’s all about our direct give and take in life. It’s about how well we put ourselves and our ideas out there and how we’re received by others. It’s about whether we know how to negotiate (7th house) achieve emotional understandings without feeling quashed (8th house) and whether we can deal with what it takes to get where we’d like to go, dealing with the learning curve (and learning better) which happens along the way (9th house).

Most people can handle the 7th house part. The 7th house is theory and idea driven. Passionate or passive, ideas are ideas – they aren’t threatening until and unless we move from the idea being tossed back and forth to making an agreement which commits us to putting our values, our integrity – and yes, our money – on the line.

That’s the 8th house. Anything which can delight or punish, heal or harm, unsettle or salve, embarrass or enchant, excite or entice – that’s 8th house.

And yes, control is on that list. Taxes are part of this because in being born, we become subject to the world in which we live. We are not in control of all things.

And man oh man, do we dislike that or WHAT?

The theory with all things 8th house is that they are where our self worth and basic sense of security (2nd house) are tested through choices we make to interact or not interact.

Again, it’s that sense of consensuality which empowers us. If we choose the wrong stock, we may feel amazingly stupid when we suffer a loss, but we know it was our choice. If we invest and a guy like Bernie Madoff comes along and steals our money we go to war.

Get the difference?

The idea with any investment – as with any intimate relationship – is to know what you’re getting into. The ‘why’ here is because you will feel sad (upset, etc.) to the degree that you have risked what you aren’t comfortable and secure with in your own heart.

The fact that political debate gets so heated is probably less about the abstracts of the issues than whether we feel ‘safe’ with the other person’s ideas and that they – in essence – want to foist them on us. Here in the United States there have been a number of recent political snarks which have had one party make a suggestion and, as soon as its adopted by the other party, reject their own idea.

If I was going to be glib here I would cite the old Groucho Marx line: ‘I wouldn’t want to be the member of any club which would have me.’ Groucho aside (it’s hard to tell whether he was kidding or not) to reject your own ideas would astrologically seem to be more about the idea of being controlled than the validity of the idea.

There are those in this life who cannot consent to being intimate with others. Why that is varies – but it’s always 8th house. That someone else can incite a sense of personal vulnerability or inferiority is a problem no one can fix for us.

And when we don’t fix it, we find everything to be very – (yes…) – taxing. Those who are overtaxed emotionally will fight anything merely to maintain control. The problem isn’t the tax or the need of the moment, personal or otherwise.

The problem is with the Self. Its about not thinking that you can survive. It’s about valuing the act of war or the money or the sex more than your Self.

There are no substitutions for security. Life drives us to experience where we are weak specifically so that we will deal with those issues. The instinct is to blame ‘them,’ the reality is otherwise. The 8th house is where we earn respect from others. It’s also the area of the chart which, no matter what sign its on its cusp, represents how and where we need to work through our own vulnerabilities in order to move forward in life and achieve all those aims which leave us satisfied.

From satisfaction of the 2nd house type comes the understanding of others. That understanding is fostered by our lack of concern, our feelings of safety in knowing we don’t have to prove anything to ourselves – and therefore others....that which forms the foundation for our feeling 'at home' in this world - the ultimate Cancer aim.

The ability…and the willingness to accept ourselves is thus what underlies our security. And a lack of acceptance of self motivates the avarice of competition, the inability to tolerate or truly value others…which in the 8th house, as through the Scorpio testing quality of Scorpio interactions, earns us the respect of others. And maybe more importantly, respect for Self.

Self worth fosters the ability to try. Through trying, we learn where we need to grow or hone our approach, abilities, skills and confidence…that magical thing which is where self-worth finds expression. Where confidence shrivels in the face of others it is no longer confidence – it’s arrogance. It’s braggadocio and all those many forms of posing, posturing and browbeating which though they may win the situational short game, don’t give us internal peace.

Those water sign houses…they are not just where we find emotionality – they’re also the houses of wealth. The 4th is real estate, the 8th is investments (of money or effort) and inheritances, and the 12th is pensions, annuities, royalties and such. The ‘my money’ of Taurus is the end product of Scorpio ‘choosing to get involved’ situations, which can be direct (for instance when we invest) or because a good intimate relationship empowers us to do more with our life.

By itself, money doesn’t (as they say) buy happiness. That only happens when we go through AND master the water sign house process as emotionality. The peace which is the reward for those who will not just feel their feelings (trial enough for some!) but also feel themselves feeling …and therefore feel how they feel about their feelings (emotional responsibility) in the end are those who find their way to some level of acceptance of Self – the catalyst for turning the self worth which allows us to try into the self worth which is about (Taurean) satisfaction.

In every ‘elemental process’…be it earth (Taurus-Virgo-Capricorn), air (Gemini-Libra-Aquarius), fire (Aries-Leo-Sagittarius) or water (Cancer-Scorpio-Pisces) there is one sign which is cardinal (action oriented), one which is mutable (flexible, able to change course or hone the process) and one is fixed. The fixed sign is where we meet up with the challenge of the overall ‘elemental lesson’ with the question being where is that sign located in the process…as all such processes are a continuum.

With earth, that fixed sign comes first, with air that fixed sign comes last. But with fire and water, the fixed sign is the second step in the process, which may be why fire and water people have an instinctual interest in each other even though the combination can be somewhat volatile.

Fire likes theory, water seeks an emotional certainty. It’s a challenge!

The point here is this: to have the fixed sign in the middle of the triad is to be tested during the heart of the process. With a cardinal sign first up in the water triplicity, human emotions are quickly evoked and when evoked, create the motivation for action (Cancer is a cardinal – action oriented – sign).

And then we hit Scorpio. NOW we’re going to get tested?

The philosophical lesson is all about having the feeling doesn’t mean you have to go with the feeling. (How many of us have learned that the hard way?)

More practically, the lesson really becomes: you can’t grow your emotional stability without putting yourself into…and working through emotional situations. The ‘thing’ is not the object here – the investment, the love relationship, the political point. ‘They’ are not the threat. The Scorpio Thing is really all about the Taurus Thing: can we survive and be not cowed by our shame for having chosen as we did?

That’s where control comes from. It’s not about what they think…it’s our not wanting to feel ‘less than’ not in their eyes, but in our own.

It’s a thought worth thinking about. Thoroughly. Or, since this is the 8th house we're talking about - carefully.

After all, we have everything to gain - including peace of mind, heart and soul.

CHART USA (Pt. 7): Transits and a Nation in Transit

A map of the United States and Terrirorites

One of the truly useful things about astrology is in the fact that from the time/space map which any natal chart is, we can then look at transits - prescribed angles being struck by celestial objects as they continue their orbital path around the Sun.

For those who wonder why this might be a valid consideration from a scientific point of view, the answer is fairly simple, if entirely metaphysical. Working from the concept that the entirety of Existence is energy (the 'E' in E=mc2'd), then we are each born as manifestations of energy - energy bundles, if you will (shades of kiddihood) - which are 'hallmarked' by the moment and position in that All of Existence-time/space in which we were born. And much like any other 'bundle' of energy, we would be reactive to harmonics as energy frequencies (time/space) marches on.

Those harmonics are created (physically and metaphysically) by the continuing movement and reorientation of time/space as a whole - in which celestial objects are a very convenient set of markers. They do not thus 'do' anything except what all celestial objects do: they move through space, they exude magnetic waves, they disrupt the general field of space-time by moving through it.

Astrology simply reads when those waves reach Earth. And for those who say 'yes, but astrology started back in Babylon' the answer to that would be yes. And obviously back in Babylon, people weren't all that up on Relativity and magnetic resonance and the like.

But we were still human. And one of the great things about human beings is their unceasing curiosity which, when coupled to the human power of observation often leads to great discoveries. (When we're in the mood to be observant, that is.) As it happens, people evidently started observing and correlating movement of celestial objects with things here on Earth back in Babylon. People probably would feel better about astrology if such observations had begun in modern times, but that's not the way it worked. Nor does astrology's origin in antiquity make it any less correct, as discussed in a different blog post touching on some correspondence I had with that most successful and open-minded of planet hunters at CalTech, Mike Brown (link).

In any case, despite the to-be-expected debates among astrologers about transit nuances (what, you think astrologers should debate less among themselves than  politicians, lawyers, clergy and doctors do? Why should we miss out on all the fun?)....despite that, transits remain an interesting and often dispassionately reassuring source of information.

How so reassuring? Well, one of the things about being an astrologer is that you tend to hear from people when they're having a really bad time. And when you're having a really bad time, that bad time is usually marked by a transit which has a beginning and ending date. By giving those dates to a client, I provide them with a sense of when they're going to see 'the light at the end of the tunnel.'

Not that the tunnel always lets out onto their land of milk and honey, mind you - but most people would rather be able to see what they are dealing with rather than stumble along in the dark.

So where are we with Chart USA when it comes to the big and wonderful world of transits?

 
Starting with the broadest of big brush strokes, the karmic and evolutionary powers of transformation (symbolized by Pluto) moved across the IC/Nadir (foundational bottom) degree of this chart in 2002. As discussed elsewhere in this series, the IC degree of the Appomattox chart (17 Sagittarius) is one which displays a native and innocent (rather purist) belief in God - or what one believes in, even if that is a belief in nothing.

That this time corresponds to when the United States began its recent, rapid and highly polarizing/polarized  radicalization with regards to religion(s) is notable. Given this idea, we can also say that this trend will continue until Pluto moves out of the 4th house that the IC serves as cusp to. That will not happen until 2019, so enjoy the debates. 

As of 2006, Pluto also opposed Uranus, a Uranus positioned in the governmental and most worldly house of the chart - the 10th house. For astrologers/readers who time a transit uptick when a major planet comes within the standard 5-degree conjunctive orb, that moves the date back to January of 2004, suggesting that domestic and foreign difficulties ranging from the war in Iraq to governmental disorganization when greeted with the ravages of Hurricane Katrina were part of a more karmic 'shakeup' of the nation.

Uranus - source: NASA

Uranus in the 10th asks a government not to be too rigid, points to the people's need not to allow their government to be too rigid, too inaccessible, too erratic, too detached from the national mood, or too polarized/polarizing in its politics.

By 2006, a lot of these challenges had become rather obvious. And with Uranus opposition Jupiter in the natal 4th, the division and divisiveness which began in the halls of government and all it was up to would then shift to the people, as Pluto moved on from 26 Sagittarius to 28 Sagittarius, conjuncting Jupiter.

Jupiter - source: NASA

As with all things astrological, there are pluses and minuses to everything. Depending on your politics, you saw the election of Barack Obama as either a big improvement or a wholesale detriment. Whatever it was on a purely political basis however, Obama's election (and the very serious bid Hillary Clinton made in that election) did represent a clear 'broadening' of the public view on presidential politics. With this being neither a  referendum on good or bad, it is wholly Jupiterian, since Jupiter represents 'expansion' and in the house of the people denoted the 'expanding' of the popular and populace point of view.

Currently, Pluto is in the process of opposing the national 5 Cancer Mars, a symbol fraught with disruptive energy when not used in a truly universal manner - the United States' 'We the People' credo. With this transit having ratcheted into full effect in May 2010 (and running through October of 2011) its 'orb effects' where witnessed as soon as Pluto entered Capricorn.

Interestingly, given Pluto's yearly retrograde patterns, Pluto first entered Capricorn in late January 2008, just after political caucusing had begun to greatly thin down the list of candidates. As Pluto turned direct during September in the midst of a crumbling economic situation, the nation prepared to head off to the polls in early November. Duly elected if not yet sworn in, Obama's team began taking over the reins of power as Pluto committed to its transit of Capricorn in late November and the GW Bush administration appeared to have all but left the field.

Cancer is ruled by the Moon, symbol of populace and economics. With the Moon of this Chart USA also at 5 degrees, it is no wonder that the people and American government are entrenched in a debate of economics and citizens rights. From immigration to health care to national debt and so on, we can expect these heated debates to continue through October 2011, and the discussions involved therein not to be even half-way sorted out until December of 2013. 

With all of this noted however, one thing is good to know: given how the IC of any chart represents one of its biggest tests, Pluto's passage over this point tells us the United States is moving through its most internally volatile period to be seen in the roughly 150 years since the nation was re-birthed, rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Civil War. (Which is a very 8th house image and thus much in keeping with a national 8th house Sun!)

Yet there is no question that the US is really hard up. The Appomattox chart shows a natal Saturn in the 2nd house of talents, abilities, resources and the national coffer. This is clearly a 'what you earn you reap' symbol. Not only that, but natal Saturn sits in a grand trine with Uranus in 10 and Juno in the 6th house of employees, jobs, health, civil servants and the military.

A computer-generated image-map of Pluto - source: NASA

This means that when Pluto first started afflicting Uranus, it also began afflicting the whole Uranus-Saturn-Juno system. So we shouldn't be surprised to look back and track the roots of fiscal (Saturn) problems which entangle everything from military expenditures to health care to Wall Street, big oil and the rest of it back to that time. Saturn moved across the national Vesta (service) potently placed behind the Ascendant as the economy collapsed and rolled across that Ascendant on November 2nd, 2008 (a day before the Presidential election).

That would make the election a Saturn call for dealing with the public's economy, recalling pundits tossing around the slogan 'it's the economy, stupid!' Beyond that, it would also say that everybody would be highly disgruntled no matter who was President during the period Saturn was to transit the national 1st house. This having begun on Election Day 2008, it will continue until August 2014.

Currently, the whole of the nation is highly disgruntled and about to get even more so: with Pluto squaring the national Moon and opposition its willful (loudmouth) Mars by long-term transit, Saturn is also posed to square Mars on September 8th and conjunct the Moon on September 14th. (Those who are political junkies may also want to mark their calendars for September 27 and 28, when the Sun reaches 5 Libra, setting these transits off.)

Having moved into the national 6th house of health-work/jobs-service in May 2007, Neptune's continuing presence in this house until somewhat after 2050 suggests the United States is in a period of long term discussion and development of its own understanding of what the term 'universal' means. And what it doesn't or even can't mean to a nation. Nations have boundaries - Neptune doesn't.

 Neptune - source: NASA

This isn't an easy question, though in time the United States is likely to invest in tougher standards for citizenry and foreign aid. Why? Both reasons come down to the Mars/Ixion/Uranus sandwich in the national 10th house. For one, no nation can be in all places. Secondly, other nations don't think the way the United States does. The US is likely to get very sulky as it concludes (reluctantly) conclude that they don't get to play (Cancer) parent to the world (amidst grumbles about other nations acting like ungrateful Ixion children). Yet in the end, the nation will either pull itself back within its own boundaries or like the mythic Ixion, get roasted for sticking its nose into something totally and entirely none of its business.

It rather gets back to the boundary thing: like many parents, the US wants to protect the whole world. This is emblematic and symptomatic; parents are supposed to be models of behavior which children emulate - a nation which demonstrates war-like behaviors should not be surprised that the world and its own youth pay more attention to winning than the quality of life.

More rough waters are expected in the short run as Uranus moves through the early degrees of Aries, squaring the Cancer Mars and opposing the national  Moon.

We've already felt the entrees of these effects as Uranus hit Aries in late May 2010; considering this is Uranus in action, the center of the dispute is governmental, whether domestic or international. These transits will come into full force as of April 2012 and extend through February 2013, suggesting among other things that the next Presidential election cycle will make this last one look like afternoon tea in the Queen's most secure, demure study.

These being only the most sweeping of broad brush strokes we could go on endlessly, defining and refining transits to this chart for the United States as a modern nation forged and essentially reforged at the end of the Civil War. Just to note that the calamity most people know simply as 'Deepwater Horizon' was marked to the day by a Venus return to the Appomattox chart shows how accurate the chart is.

As this series started out, between all the intriguing explorations of the chart has remained the essential question: what is the real chart for the United States of America? Astrologers have been debating this one for at least the thirty years I've been involved in astrology and probably for more than that.

It seems pretty astonishing to this researcher that no one ever stepped back and took the time to think of the nation not in terms of where it started out (working forward), but as the nation it is today. Starting from today, working back through the tale of years, there is only one point at which the nation came apart. That's what defines a national chart - a nation which comes together and is forged from disparate parts.

During the time these blogs have been being posted, I've heard from astrologers protesting that the Union never accepted the Confederacy's breaking away. To my thinking, that simply doesn't matter. The Confederacy was enough of an entity to have its own legal tender, it's own government, its own standing army, its own constitution and other nations recognizing its existence (though granted, they dallied with whether they wanted to go public on that score.) What more can anyone ask? So what if the North didn't like it - that's why the war got fought.

 Cemetery at Shiloh National Military Park

 
Ask a hard core southerner whether the nation fractured. You'll get chapter and verse on how it did - and by some, why that was a very good idea. 

As a researcher, the feelings can't matter. What has to be accepted are the facts. In this case, the South ceded and created its own nation. The North invaded, conquered, and subdued its former territories.

The chart which came out of that was the chart erected for General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant in a little borrowed farm house in Appomattox, Virginia. The date was April 9, 1865 - the time (as near as we can make it) was 3:53 pm, which produces the following chart for the United States of America as the nation which exists today.

Chart USA 

April 9, 1865 - 3:53pm - Appomattox Court House, VA

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CHART USA (Pt. One): A National Divorce

 

The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by John Turnbull

 

I want to go on 'instant record' here saying I’m not a historian. Frankly, I kept my high school US History textbook for years simply because it was the one thing knew I could just look at with the guarantee I would be asleep very, very soon.

Five minutes, max: no drugs required. 

Yet after listening to umpteen astrological debates I began to puzzle. No one seems to know what the chart of the United States really is. There are several charts for July 4, 1776 - that famous date of declaring independence. But should the chart be cast for the moment when people began signing? Or when the last quill hit parchment on that date, leaving its inky scrawl?

And maybe you're not aware that all those signatures at the bottom of the document didn't sign that day.

Fed Ex being a century yet to come, it took months to get everybody signed on.
 
Then there are those who like the idea of a US which became a nation while bewigged forefathers were dunking crumpets into tea while chatting over  Continental Congress doings. That was an even less official occasion, so good luck with that chart.

Into all this comes Robert Hand, esteemed astrologer, good guy and fine scholar.

Being his usual pithy self, Rob pointed out (during a lecture to a packed auditorium) that every one of the 1776 charts has Mercury retrograde and/or a Void of Course Moon - which would describe the US as a hesitant, even shy nation which never gets anything done.

Shy? Hesitant? Does this sound like the US you know? Okay, so we don't always like what the US does. But we gotta go with the concept that the modern US we know and sometimes cheer and sometimes groan about is generally neither subtle nor shy about things. There are even days when we think it might be better if it was.

As for Rob, he had similar objections to all the other charts as yet proposed, too.

Still, when one looks at the premises under which the U.S. was originally founded, the 1776 ‘we’re gonna sign this here-now document’ let's-begin-to-sign-this-thing chart is pretty darn good. It's elitist Aquarian Moon and a self-editing Mercury retrograde really fit the time and day.

How's that, you ask? Well maybe you don't know but back then the United States-ians were really grand about talking freedom, but not so good on delivering it. Considering that slavery was allowed, obviously not everybody actually got to be free. And then there were those rules which said only some could own land. And only some being allowed to vote.

It was plainly not the nation of today.

So what happened? To answer this fine question we should start by considering what a US national chart is really about. The United States is not a single entity: it’s a unity of individual states - a marriage of separate entities.

And when we consider the United States in that light,  the whole thing slowly begins making sense.

Look at it like this...try thinking of the US as a (poly-state) marriage. A marriage chart is calculated for the time and place when a ceremony ‘fixes’ the bond and two people ‘become one’...even though plainly they still remain two separate people.

So if we look at the US this way, its bond is all about a  ‘federal marriage’ or national fusion – a joint acceptance of risks and possible rewards being taken on by each and every state (allegedly for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, etc. etc.).

That being mutually invested this is a very Scorpio idea. In light of that, it makes sense that a lot of astrologers favor US charts with Scorpio Suns or Scorpio risings.

But if the US as a national structure is akin to a marriage, that means we have to also consider the 'traditional' marriage exit door - meaning divorce. How does that work?

When a marriage fails, the date of the final divorce decree indicates when the two partners become free to marry other people. But the reality of the marriage (the emotional commitment to the union) is over long before any judge's gavel hits decree. As anyone who's been through (or around) the process knows, the marriage as it was is over when the parties first file for the divorce.

Even if they overcome their differences, the innocence and purity of intent which gelled in that original bond...that's gone. Indeed, if things have gone far enough that the court has become involved, the marriage is re-established not when they kiss and make up (or whatever they do) but when on that date when the court approves dissolution of the suit.

Astrologically, this means a new “marriage chart” is required once any original pledge is quit (i.e., broken). Yes, the original vows become a romanticized ‘shadow’ chart the partners always remember (that being here perhaps that Aquarian Moon/Mercury retrograde 1776 chart)…but the reality of the marriage lived from that time forward is built on a new agreement.

And hopefully wiser people, yes.

So how would this apply to the United States? There seems little debate about whether the country started out as that Mercury retrograde and Aquarian Void of Course Moon kind of place. That's all over the history books.

But then came the Civil War: divorce American national style. And a bloody divorce it was too.

Civil War uniforms, flags and weapons Union and Confederate.

Now there are some who will argue that it wasn’t really until the passing of the Civil Rights Act (some hundred years after the Civil War) that the US really became the nation (or even began becoming the nation) it claimed to be in its original Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Yet astrologically, that just doesn’t work.

Why not?

Because said Civil Rights Act was not part of creating a nation. It thus therefore cannot generate a new national chart. It's a 'working inside the given’ sort of document, which astrologically means it should coincide with a transit to any valid US chart. The Civil Rights Act was a big deal so the transit should be a major transit. But it isn't the sort of motion which creates a new chart.

No, the United States only broke apart once - with the beginning of the Civil War, a national divorce action if there ever was one. The South filed and moved out. And to be sure, the North contested said divorce. But the moment that the Confederacy declared itself and established its capital, leader and constitution, the 1776 ‘marriage’ – for all astrological purposes it was over.

And no, there is no divorce court for nations. It might be better if there was, but there isn't.

Following the 'it was over' logic, the union we now call the United States would have been be ‘born’ when war ended and the nation was officially remade into one - the ‘remarriage,’ if you will.

And when was that? That chart would be timed by General Robert E. Lee approving the document of surrender at war’s end, an event which took place in a private home borrowed from a gentleman named McLean in a little Virginia spot known as Appomattox Court House.

McLean Residence in Appomattox Court House

Records show the meeting between Lee and Grant began at 1:30 p.m. on April 9, 1865. But Lee didn’t finalize his (the South’s) side of the peace treaty until ‘just before 4 p.m.’ - the delay being due to rewording Lee required before signing on.

According to reports by persons in the room, after surveying the document one last time, Lee approved, accepted the stated terms then stood up to have a short conversation with Grant. After that he left, with the time of his departure being noted as 4 p.m. In light of these reports (with additional checking of events against both resulting chart axis) the reasonable rectification therefore puts the time of signing at 3:53 in the afternoon.
 

Actually the Treaty was not actually signed at this moment, due to (of all things!) a lack of ink and paper to recopy General Lee’s requested changes. And this for some may recall President Obama taking his Oath of Office twice. The answer to 'which is right?' here lies in the moment of commitment: when when we actually commit to something is the moment for which the chart should be erected reflecting that event. The Obama Administration thus began when the President took the  Oath of Office the first time - just as the Civil War ended when General Lee accepted Grant's terms for peace.

And never mind the ink...in that moment the South laid down arms. In that moment, soldiers on both sides rushed to embrace each other as country and kinsmen once again. In that moment the North’s supply corps began moving in to feed an estimated 25,000 hungry Confederate troops. That's the end of a war.

But if we need more validation, we have that too - in the form of a governmental nod from President Lincoln. Upon returning from Richmond to news of Lee's  surrendered, Lincoln walked out onto the White House balcony and with fireworks exploding overhead, made a short speech acknowledging that as the South surrendered at Appomattox, war had ended and the nation had again become one.

That unity bond in federal marriage is reflected in the chart below, horoscope erected for 3:53 on that fateful afternoon in Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Chart USA(ppomattox) - End of Civil War 

It's an interesting chart, this Chart USA(ppomattox). And yes, the events of a nation in years since are seen reflected by transits to its various points.

Starting tomorrow we'll start walking through just what this chart says. But in the meantime, to Robert Hand: 'look Rob - no VOC Moon and no Mercury retrograde!'  

See you all tomorrow back here at astroPPM.