Anoth­er very busy day.…Sun and Mars both trine Sat­urn, while Venus Squares Jupiter.

The Sun aligned with Sat­urn denotes an oppor­tu­ni­ty where we find our poten­tial (Sun) and our real­i­ty (Sat­urn) to be in per­fect sync. You shine when you ful­fill your respon­si­bil­i­ties with such capa­bil­i­ty and style! You are com­fort­able in your own author­i­ty. You faced a choice about inner ful­fill­ment and out­er respon­si­bil­i­ty in ear­ly Jan­u­ary; now every­thing has fall­en into place and you know where you stand and what you should do.

Mars trine Sat­urn indi­cates strong, steady progress is being made now. At the end of Decem­ber there was a big chal­lenge as you faced how to go for­ward as you encoun­tered out­ward blocks or inner doubts. Now, the stars are aligned and you move for­ward steadi­ly with enthu­si­asm, pur­pose, dri­ve and deter­mi­na­tion. You have the ener­gy and expe­ri­ence to get the job done. Suc­cess is at hand.

Lat­er in the day, Venus aligns with Jupiter and warns you to be care­ful. You may indulge your­self or give too much of your­self; Remem­ber too much is Too Much! Mod­er­a­tion is beau­ti­ful; less is real­ly more becoming.

Social­ly, Venus in Capri­corn says you must fol­low the prop­er rules, stan­dards and forms with one anoth­er and so main­tain tra­di­tion (and secu­ri­ty); while Jupiter in Aries says it’s a New Day and you must be free to be your­self!  Respon­si­bil­i­ty or Free­dom?  Why, both of course! Respon­si­bil­i­ty is renewed when we dis­cov­er one anoth­er in new forms; Free­dom is pre­served when we hon­or what has always been true.

Thoughts and beliefs come togeth­er per­fect­ly now. Some­times you get mired in the details, and some­times your head is in the clouds; but now you find your­self in per­fect bal­ance. You get the big pic­ture AND you under­stand all the steps it will take to make it hap­pen too.

You faced a challenge/choice around Jan­u­ary 11, but now you can see your plans and actions com­ing togeth­er. Your ideas have moved beyond the plan­ning stage. Think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­ceed effort­less­ly and ele­gant­ly. You are bril­liant and it feels good.

We’re all con­nect­ing now… Expect good news; then pass it on.

Venus the plan­et of val­ue, beau­ty and love moves into Capri­corn till March 1. Clas­si­cal val­ues and tastes are what we find pleas­ing now. Our needs are met with style, grace and stay­ing pow­er, no pass­ing fan­cies. Love is seri­ous, be atten­tive and respectful.

Secu­ri­ty, sta­bil­i­ty, and longevi­ty are what we want and need in our world of val­ues, and from one anoth­er. Tra­di­tions, cer­e­monies, dig­ni­ty and refine­ment rule the world of val­ue now. If you love each oth­er, then you show that you care by tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for one another.

The Sun aligns with Mars in Aquar­ius; ener­gy is no prob­lem! Every­one is moti­vat­ed, dri­ven and more than a lit­tle excitable now. So, bet­ter ease up before some­one gets hurt. There is a sense that we can dri­ve beyond the old lim­its, break through the bar­ri­ers and reach fur­ther than before.

Make a stand for social jus­tice, join togeth­er and you will make a dif­fer­ence. If the cause is just, you can lead and they will fol­low. Dreams can come true, but you have to act for some­thing that is more than just for your­self. Answer the call of free­dom by extend­ing your hand in friendship.

2011
The over­all pic­ture for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s astro­log­i­cal fore­cast for 2011 cer­tain­ly seems to be more pos­i­tive than that of 2010. The chal­lenges are for­mi­da­ble, but the oppor­tu­ni­ties are real.

Plu­to Trine Plu­to (Feb. 22, May 26, Dec. 22, Sep. 8, 2012, Sep. 27, 2012)
Plu­to was a great chal­lenge to Oba­ma in 2010, but what a dif­fer­ence a year makes. For 2011 and much of 2012 he will be under a most favor­able trine of his Plu­to by Plu­to. And this at a time when the USA is under­go­ing the Plu­to oppo­si­tion to Jupiter could pro­vide one of the means by which the US is able to make the most of that opposition.

Plu­to rules the willpow­er, which is the true source of our abil­i­ty to bring about self-change inter­nal­ly, and which also cre­ates our abil­i­ty to help bring about changes exter­nal­ly. While the US grap­ples with Plu­to oppos­ing its Jupiter, Oba­ma will be able to har­ness his own will pow­er, and by exten­sion, the will pow­er of the posi­tion his wields, the Pres­i­den­cy, to help bring about, what could be sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tions in the socio-eco­nom­ic-polit­i­cal order with­in our nation, and exter­nal­ly with oth­er nations. This is espe­cial­ly indi­cat­ed by the fact that Oba­ma’s Plu­to is in his 7th House of rela­tion­ships, and the tran­sit­ing Plu­to is mov­ing through his 11th House of social ideals.

What this might indi­cate is that Oba­ma’s abil­i­ty to be a re-builder, re-new­er, re-gen­er­a­tor of our forms of rela­tion­ship (Plu­to in the 7th house), will play out and be seen in 11th house mat­ters, which in a mun­dane analy­sis would be the nation’s ideals and dreams about the future as well as the Leg­isla­tive branch of government.

With a “divid­ed” gov­ern­ment, Oba­ma as chief exec­u­tive should be able to help bring about some con­crete actions to address some of the prob­lems the US is faced with now. With his Plu­to in Vir­go, and the tran­sit­ing Plu­to in Capri­corn, we are talk­ing about real, prac­ti­cal work­able solu­tions. Each side will have to sac­ri­fice part of its “agen­da” and dog­ma to get things done. Our con­sti­tu­tion, after all, is so arranged that coop­er­a­tion and mutu­al agree­ment are inte­gral to the polit­i­cal process, per­haps this year we will see it at work.

Pluto/Jupiter for the USA — Pluto/Pluto for Oba­ma
With the USA at the same time expe­ri­enc­ing the Plu­to oppo­si­tion Jupiter, Oba­ma’s tran­sit of Plu­to to Plu­to takes on much greater sig­nif­i­cance. The USA is prob­a­bly fac­ing a great strug­gle over prin­ci­ples this year; the strug­gle is over our prin­ci­ples of rela­tion­ship to one anoth­er inter­nal­ly and to oth­er nations exter­nal­ly; it is those prin­ci­ples that end up being enshrined in our laws and our treaties. Oba­ma’s tran­sit can pro­vide a coun­ter­point to the dichoto­my and strug­gle in the USA chart by the prac­ti­cal and respon­si­ble exer­cise of his lead­er­ship role. He can be a bridge between oppos­ing fac­tions and steer them toward some com­pro­mise over our rules of con­duct with one anoth­er, as he also helps to bring about new poli­cies in our inter­na­tion­al relationships.

Will he be able to keep the oppos­ing sides work­ing towards con­sen­sus and con­crete action? Plu­to would say yes. But to know that ful­ly we must look to the oth­er influ­ences mov­ing through his chart this year to see what else is in play on our stage of history.

 

Uranus Sex­tile Jupiter (Mar. 26, Nov. 17, Jan. 1, 2012)
Uranus Trine Mer­cury (Apr. 22, Oct. 1, Feb. 13, 2012)
Why are we see­ing two tran­sits list­ed togeth­er above? Because the plan­ets that Uranus is tran­sit­ing are in a rela­tion­ship with one anoth­er in Oba­ma’s chart. When­ev­er one is being “lit up”, so is the oth­er. The rela­tion­ship of Oba­ma’s Mer­cury to his Jupiter is an Oppo­si­tion. An oppo­si­tion is an aspect of aware­ness, a jux­ta­po­si­tion of two aspects of real­i­ty; the chal­lenge is to find a way of inte­grat­ing the two through syn­the­sis. The fail­ure would either to swing from one to the oth­er, or to live out one and sup­press and there­by project the oth­er onto others.

Oba­ma’s Mer­cury
Oba­ma’s Mer­cury is in Leo in his 6th House; his Jupiter is in Aquar­ius in the 12th house. With his Mer­cury in Leo Oba­ma seeks to express him­self in such a man­ner so that he earns respect, appre­ci­a­tion and approval. But if tak­en too far, it would mean that he would speak for an audi­ence, say­ing what they wish to hear so that they will approve him, and so in the end he would not be so true to him­self. When he gets it right, Oba­ma is cer­tain­ly a potent ora­tor; and, when he com­bines that Mer­cury with his Gem­i­ni Moon, his mes­sage can be con­veyed in such a man­ner that ideas and feel­ings blend togeth­er so that the lis­ten­ers are tru­ly touched.

Oba­ma’s Jupiter
Jupiter in Aquar­ius leads him to seek to relate to the world less per­son­al­ly, more in terms of group ideals and social con­scious­ness, more deal­ing with broad social issues and con­cerns, than the indi­vid­ual sto­ry. The prin­ci­ples he seeks to relate through are human­i­tar­i­an and uni­ver­sal, with an under­stand­ing that the bedrock of our democ­ra­cy is found­ed upon tol­er­ance and social jus­tice. But if tak­en too far, it could cre­ate a feel­ing of aloof­ness and detach­ment from the pub­lic; it would make him seem that he is not as able to con­nect to oth­ers in a more per­son­al way.

In a way, Oba­ma may fear that if he tru­ly speaks “his mind” that he might lose some of his rela­tion­ships to the Amer­i­can peo­ple or to oth­er nations; yet, if he tries to just pre­serve the rela­tion­ships, he will end up not being able to say much at all, (he will not be able to lead), or he will end up say­ing what he knows to be untrue.

Oba­ma’s Oppor­tu­ni­ty
The gift of this dou­ble tran­sit, of Uranus to his Jupiter and Uranus to his Mer­cury, is that it poten­tial­ly bridges this dilem­ma and pro­vides a path of syn­the­sis. He should be able to main­tain his com­mit­ment to prin­ci­ples from which he derives his pur­pose to rep­re­sent Amer­i­can Ideals, while artic­u­lat­ing the mes­sage about them in such a way that pro­vides a bridge of under­stand­ing and con­sen­sus for a broad spec­trum of the Amer­i­can peo­ple and oth­er nations. Uranus is the plan­et of inven­tion, of think­ing out­side of the box, (or not even see­ing the uni­verse as being “boxed up”!), and its align­ment with Mer­cury and Jupiter can help Oba­ma to demon­strate that the solu­tion to our “prob­lems” requires that we give up some of our old assump­tions (Jupiter/beliefs) and so cre­ate new ideas and solu­tions (Mercury/intelligence).

It would appear that Oba­ma has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin to trans­form what is at the root of our polit­i­cal sta­sis; that we just don’t lis­ten, under­stand or coop­er­ate with one anoth­er. It would seem that Oba­ma might be able to make things work out, right? Well, of course, there are oth­er fac­tors at play; and one of the big ones is the “wild card” in this very align­ment we have just been examining.

Here again, as with last year, the align­ment of Uranus to Venus in the US chart is also occur­ring in Oba­ma’s chart. The very plan­et that could be a bridge between Prin­ci­ples and Solu­tions, (Uranus to Mer­cury and Jupiter) is also form­ing a square to his Venus. So, what does this indi­cate on its own mer­its? And how will this affect his abil­i­ty to wield his will (Plu­to), hon­or our prin­ci­ples (Jupiter) and artic­u­late intel­li­gent solu­tions (Mer­cury)?

 

Uranus Square Venus (Apr. 12, Oct. 16, Jan. 31, 2012)
Oba­ma has his Venus in Can­cer at just under 2° of Can­cer; the Unit­ed States has its Venus at just over 3° of Can­cer. Just as in 2010, when Sat­urn passed over Venus for both, so too this year Uranus will tran­sit their Venus’ togeth­er. The Sat­urn tran­sit was dif­fi­cult since it cre­at­ed a feel­ing of a lack of self-worth, a lack of val­ue which results in all sorts of prob­lems for rela­tion­ships. But in the end it serves to clar­i­fy what is more valu­able with­in and around us. Uranus is a very dif­fer­ent ener­gy; cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent kind of chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for the US and Obama.

Just as the Uranus tran­sit to the US Venus calls for a new under­stand­ing and expres­sion of Amer­i­can val­ues, so too does this mean that this tran­sit to Oba­ma’s Venus calls upon him to ful­fill his role as a leader whose pur­pose is to artic­u­late those chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties we face now.

Uranus Shocks
Uranus is not gen­tle, espe­cial­ly when it is form­ing, as it is here, a “hard” aspect; it opens up new path­ways and pos­si­bil­i­ties through shocks, sur­pris­es and upsets. Often­times its ini­tial effect can appear as a loss, it requires a sac­ri­fice, but its true pur­pose is to break up the old forms of val­ue, (to release the spir­it of val­ue from a more lim­it­ed form of being), so that spirit/life may cre­ate new forms of val­ue which are to be expe­ri­enced, (in this case, most impor­tant­ly, in our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and to oth­er nations, the 7th House).

The chal­lenge of Uranus is met by being open and wel­com­ing of change; Uranus serves to break up old pat­terns that have sti­fled the flow of spir­it and there­by cre­ate con­di­tions for a new order. The dan­ger is that the upset or chal­lenge will be expe­ri­enced as some­thing to fear; reac­tion sets in that actu­al­ly brings about more painful shocks and adjust­ments that could have been more man­age­able had the ener­gy been allowed to do its work. The oppor­tu­ni­ty of work­ing with Uranus is that by being open to new forms and expres­sions of val­ue, the per­son or enti­ty can keep unfold­ing their spir­i­tu­al potential.

Spir­i­tu­al Law
Spir­it must take on form; it must lim­it itself and become some “thing” in order to be any­thing on the earth plane. But that form is lim­it­ed and will even­tu­al­ly lose its mean­ing, its relevance.…its beau­ty. So, the form must be tran­scend­ed so that Spir­it can rein­car­nate into a new form of expres­sion. This process is one of the most fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al laws that gov­ern our universe.

We do and must try to pro­tect, pre­serve and pass down these forms of val­ue as long as we can. How­ev­er, whether in great forms of art, or beau­ti­ful forms of human inter­re­la­tion­ship, even in our per­son­al val­ues, prin­ci­ples and laws, at some point the par­tic­u­lar form must be tran­scend­ed; spir­it must be free to form anew. One of the prin­ci­ple agents of such release and ref­or­ma­tion is Uranus.

Uranus and our Chal­lenge
The chal­lenge of Uranus in Aries to Venus in Can­cer is to re-define how we find or cre­ate secu­ri­ty in our lives, all the while our world is in the midst of great changes, (Even greater than we might at first imag­ine. I will come back again to this theme of the epic changes ahead, but just know that we have not faced changes as great as this for over 200 years).

If we stay attached to the exist­ing forms because we are afraid, we will suf­fer. If we re-affirm the spir­it that cre­at­ed those forms, we can find a way to renew our sense val­ue at the cen­ter of our lives, and so forge a new base of secu­ri­ty to stand upon. When the form is break­ing apart, we must get back to the spir­it behind the form; we need to go back to root ener­gies and so restore and re-affirm our spir­i­tu­al truth in renewed forms.  

Venus
Uranus is chal­leng­ing and break­ing up the old forms of Venus in Can­cer. Venus is the plan­et that binds us to one anoth­er through our shared val­ues, whose purest and truest expres­sion is found in our love for one anoth­er. In any soci­ety and cul­ture, what binds us to one anoth­er as a peo­ple is what we cre­ate with one anoth­er and share with one anoth­er. In any sys­tem, there are ener­gies hold­ing it togeth­er and forces pulling it apart. What holds us togeth­er is our love for what we share in as a people.

Venus and Amer­i­ca
With Venus in Can­cer, Amer­i­cans come togeth­er in our love of the indi­vid­ual, and the sacred­ness and dig­ni­ty that forms our dri­ving spir­it of self-deter­mi­na­tion. Our myth is the sto­ry of the jour­ney of the indi­vid­ual to dis­cov­er and con­nect to their root ener­gies, to be cen­tered upon one’s true self, and so be empow­ered to go forth and ful­fill his or her des­tiny. The spir­it of rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism has been giv­en form in our idyl­lic imagery of “the pio­neer”, of “the inven­tor”, of the “per­son of con­science”, which is ground­ed in our fun­da­men­tal belief that one per­son can (and does) make a dif­fer­ence. These and many oth­er images are at the core of every Amer­i­can’s belief in the essen­tial worth of the individual.

Yet, at the same time, with our Moon in Aquar­ius (and so the ruler of our Venus), we have had to acknowl­edge that an indi­vid­ual can­not find them­selves, they can­not be ful­filled, they can­not be “free” to do what­ev­er they wish, because an indi­vid­ual can­not have a life of mean­ing and pur­pose with­out sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tions with oth­er indi­vid­u­als. Here, in Amer­i­ca, we came togeth­er, as our founders stat­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, and freely chose to cre­ate a new soci­ety and in order to do so “… we mutu­al­ly pledge to each oth­er our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor.”

Venus, Rela­tion­ship and Our Sac­ri­fice
We are formed in and find our mean­ings through what we share with one anoth­er. We are not so dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er, real­ly. Our needs and wants find expres­sion in cer­tain forms because of the cul­ture and sub-cul­tures we find our­selves in. The devel­op­ment of our “unique” self is only pos­si­ble because of our well-matched capac­i­ty to sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. This is the core of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence of val­ue: that to be one­self and be free is found­ed upon a love of one anoth­er, that we pledge our alle­giance to one anoth­er, and so we are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for one another.

The word sac­ri­fice means lit­er­al­ly “to make sacred”. Sac­ri­fice is the key to love and self-ful­fill­ment. We make an offer­ing; we give up some­thing in order to achieve some­thing. We seek to become bet­ter than we were before. To sup­port one anoth­er in our own indi­vid­ual strug­gle to become what we wish to become, we must come togeth­er and sac­ri­fice to one anoth­er. We affirm our indi­vid­ual worth in our union which is based upon our shared val­ues. We affirm, strength­en and expand these core val­ues as we give up our attach­ment to less­er things.

Uranus and Our Sac­ri­fice Now
This has always been the chal­lenge of a cre­at­ing a “free” soci­ety. To ful­fill our­selves we must sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. Uranus Squar­ing our Venus (and Oba­ma’s) is remind­ing us that we must face our chal­lenges now in a spir­it of mutu­al under­stand­ing; and that requires the sac­ri­fice of our less­er alle­giances and our less­er val­ues. We need to be remind­ed, reaf­firm and make a real sac­ri­fice for our core val­ues that have bound us, formed us and guid­ed us. We need to restate our under­stand­ing of these core val­ues so that we are clear as to what it is that we stand upon with one another.

We need lead­ers who artic­u­late the truth that every one of us must sac­ri­fice if we are to meet the chal­lenges that lie ahead. For Oba­ma, for the lead­ers in Con­gress, for the lead­ers in the many agen­cies and insti­tu­tions of our gov­ern­ment, for busi­ness and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and for each and every one of us who seek to under­stand, inspire and guide us through this time, we all must free our­selves from our old reac­tive val­u­a­tions and refresh our expe­ri­ence of what is of most val­ue between us.

Oba­ma’s Sac­ri­fice
Oba­ma’s chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty is to be the leader who sets the exam­ple of what we need to become now. He will have to show his will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice some of his val­ues in order to dis­play courage and lead­er­ship. He must call each of us to those sac­ri­fices that will lead to a “new world”.

As it has been said before, “Beat­en paths are for beat­en men”. We need pathfind­ers now, we need lead­ers who have courage and chal­lenge us to rise above our dif­fer­ences and sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er… because we are one anoth­er. Uranus to Venus says renew your love for one anoth­er, because you will need one anoth­er if you are to meet the chal­lenge of your destiny.

The forces that are lin­ing up in the next sev­er­al years rival those at our found­ing over 200 years ago. We are at the end of age (which also means we are at the dawn of a new age). We must allow our­selves to be filled with the spir­it of under­stand­ing, to be inspired now to choose to turn to one anoth­er, again, and pledge “our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor”.