Tran­script of Radio Show: Kar­ma and the USA, The Plu­to Return – A Rebirth of Value

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

Today we will con­tin­ue our exam­i­na­tion of the plan­e­tary influ­ences in the chart of the USA. In my last show on Jan­u­ary 3^rd, (here is the link to the tran­script for the Jan­u­ary 3rd show) we looked at the role of Nep­tune in the charts of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can par­ties; I exam­ined the influ­ence of the cycle of Nep­tune in the two charts and US history.

Nep­tune Oppo­site Nep­tune, Our Epis­te­mo­log­i­cal Crisis
I not­ed then, and have men­tioned numer­ous times, that Neptune’s role in the USA chart is of great impor­tance, and the fact that here in 2020 and 2021 tran­sit­ing Nep­tune is oppo­site the USA Nep­tune, indi­cates that our “Bub­bles of Belief and Real­i­ty” are very sep­a­rate from one anoth­er at this time. We are divid­ed in our under­stand­ing as to what and who we are as Amer­i­cans, and we have sort­ed our­selves into very sep­a­rate group­ings, sec­tors, and realms, and  because of this we can­not agree as to what is True ver­sus False, what is Real­i­ty and what is Fantasy.

We are as a Nation going through what is known as an Epis­te­mo­log­i­cal Cri­sis, where the very nature of knowl­edge and truth is in dis­pute. And this same align­ment of Nep­tune oppos­ing Nep­tune sig­naled a sim­i­lar divi­sion into dif­fer­ent World­views that pre­vailed just before the Civ­il War in the late 1850’s. Then the divi­sion was between Slave and Free States, between North and South, and which was resolved by what many his­to­ri­ans note was the inevitable and exis­ten­tial cli­max of our war between the states from 1860 to 1865.

Keep­ing that mes­sage of Nep­tune in our minds, I want to con­sid­er the impor­tance of Plu­to in the chart of the USA and exam­ine the sig­nif­i­cance of the upcom­ing (and first-ever) return of Plu­to to its natal or birth posi­tion in 2021 and 2022. It will have been 246 years since the found­ing of our coun­try and giv­en the promi­nent posi­tion and sig­nif­i­cance of its posi­tion in the chart, I believe it will shine a light upon our his­to­ry and the crit­i­cal  events of our cur­rent period.

Plu­to in USA Chart
Plu­to is the ris­ing plan­et in the USA chart, and it is placed in the 2^nd house. The sec­ond house holds the answer to this pri­ma­ry ques­tion: what is of Val­ue for the USA? Tra­di­tion­al Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy would assign cat­e­gories of val­ue to the sec­ond house such as: a nation’s wealth, tax rev­enue, stocks, bonds, shares, exports. Of places deal­ing with cur­ren­cy, such as banks, trade and com­merce, stock/commodity exchanges. Val­ues formed by nation­al expen­di­tures and receipts, cir­cu­la­tion of cur­ren­cy and oth­er liq­uid assets. In sum, it is the wealth of the nation as mea­sured by the population’s earn­ing and pur­chas­ing power.

Source of Value
All of that is true, if one assumes the point of view of a prac­ti­cal and mate­r­i­al under­stand­ing of val­ue, and even more espe­cial­ly in the cul­ture and econ­o­my that is dom­i­nant in our time. But for me, look­ing at this ques­tion spir­i­tu­al­ly, the real nature and source of val­ue for any human com­mu­ni­ty, whether they be hunter-gath­er­ers, pas­toral­ists or farm­ers, or part of a high­ly com­plex hier­ar­chy of pro­duc­tion like our cul­ture and civ­i­liza­tion, what I would claim that is com­mon to all these types is this: that the true mea­sure of val­ue for any cul­ture is to be found in the peo­ple them­selves. It is their spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment, their intel­lec­tu­al adept­ness, their emo­tion­al depth, and their phys­i­cal well-being that com­pris­es the wealth of their com­mu­ni­ty and their val­ue to one another.

Capri­corn
For the USA, Capri­corn is the ruler of this house, which would indi­cate that the USA would expe­ri­ence its val­ue and strength as being root­ed in the val­ues that “have stood the test of time”, i.e. Truths formed into the Insti­tu­tions of the nation, and that this would find its ulti­mate expres­sion in what is known as the Wis­dom of the Ages. It is cer­tain­ly true, that although we take pride in being a nation born through “rev­o­lu­tion”, we are a Nation that takes our val­ues seri­ous­ly and con­ser­v­a­tive­ly, and I mean here con­ser­v­a­tive in the spir­i­tu­al not polit­i­cal sense. These val­ues are embod­ied in all the great tra­di­tions and teach­ings, and they are most sim­ply but pro­found­ly expressed in the root of wis­dom-teach­ing, that we are here to “Love one another”.

For today, I wish to con­sid­er the natal place­ment and cyclic mean­ings for Plu­to in the USA sec­ond house. I con­sid­er Plu­to to be the Avatar of the Will and the Pow­er of Alche­my. As the Avatar of the Will, Plu­to holds the Truth of Spir­it that all ener­gy-forms exist in their “own sacred space”, and that the will forms and main­tains these sacred cen­ters. Since all cen­ters of spir­it are sacred, the fun­da­men­tal pre­cept for us as humans is that “Thou shall not Tres­pass”, and that to impose one’s will upon anoth­er, or to vio­late their space is quite sim­ply a Spir­i­tu­al Crime.

The Mean­ing of Plu­to and Alche­my
As the rep­re­sen­ta­tive (along with the Sign Scor­pio), of the Root Pow­er of Cre­ation, Plu­to indi­cates that the USA is meant to be a trans­former of val­ues through the pow­er of Alche­my. The whole of Cre­ation is formed at it cease­less­ly unfolds and becomes what it will be through the innu­mer­able com­bi­na­tions and trans­for­ma­tions of the Ener­gy-Forms of Spir­it. Whether by atoms comb­ing with atoms to form larg­er atoms, mol­e­cules with mol­e­cules, organ­isms with organ­isms, on up to the plan­ets, stars, and galax­ies, what dri­ves Cre­ation is the Pro­tean Pow­er that is Alche­my, which is the mag­ic and mys­tery of combination.

At the human lev­el, we com­bine in part­ner­ships, col­lab­o­ra­tions, joint ven­tures, enter­pris­es, com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures, and nations. To form any union, we must make a sac­ri­fice which elic­its our change and growth; we let go of our less­er qual­i­ties in order to com­bine with one anoth­er by our deep­er val­ues, and by this we move into a greater real­i­ty. We forge our own growth and make pos­si­ble our greater and shared qual­i­ties through com­bi­na­tion. When prop­er­ly guid­ed by love and under­stand­ing, we give up for one anoth­er what we must, but we hold to the core of who we are, sac­ri­fic­ing our ego but lift­ing our hearts and minds together.

The very found­ing of our nation was a com­pact, an agree­ment made by indi­vid­u­als who sought to free them­selves from tyran­ny and pledged to one anoth­er, a sacred oath that estab­lished “a new order for the cen­turies”; and that they would cre­ate a new kind of soci­ety and gov­ern them­selves by mutu­al con­sent. Their ideals and inten­tions stat­ed in our Dec­la­ra­tion res­onate to this day, “that all men are cre­at­ed equal”.

USA Kar­ma
But they, like we, were not per­fect, and though they sac­ri­ficed much, they also held onto that which they should not. More than half of the sign­ers of the 1776 Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence were slave own­ers, and of the del­e­gates to the 1787 Con­sti­tu­tion­al Con­ven­tion, almost half were also slave own­ers. This shame­ful fact is one-half of the orig­i­nal sin of the Unit­ed States, the oth­er being the bru­tal con­quest of Native Americans.

The Pro­tean Pow­er of Plu­to can be used for good or ill, as can all the gifts of Spir­it. As much as it is the source of cre­ation by freely formed com­bi­na­tions, it is also by its mis­use and tres­pass­ing, which is so often found through­out human his­to­ry, the source of destruc­tion by the dom­i­na­tion and con­trol of one per­son or group over anoth­er. The sub­ju­ga­tion of the native peo­ples and the enslave­ment of mil­lions of African peo­ples is the root curse that hangs over the promise and dream of Amer­i­ca. What we wit­nessed in the storm­ing of the Capi­tol on Jan­u­ary 6^th, is that same evil ener­gy-form of White Suprema­cy and fear-based rage attempt­ing to seize power.

When­ev­er you treat any fel­low human being as less than your­self, that is when you turn from the path of Spir­it. For hun­dreds of years, the US slave pop­u­la­tion was treat­ed as a thing, to be used by their own­ers to pro­duce wealth and pow­er, and their human val­ue was stolen by tres­pass­ing upon the sacred cen­ter of each and every slave. After the Civ­il War, in a very few years, Recon­struc­tion was chal­lenged, erod­ed, and final­ly bro­ken, and the for­mer slave pop­u­la­tion was re-enslaved through peon­age, seg­re­ga­tion, and ter­ror for almost 100 more years. For over 400 years, ful­ly or par­tial­ly, con­trol, manip­u­la­tion, dom­i­na­tion, and ter­ror of one peo­ple over anoth­er cre­at­ed the USA’s karmic calami­ty of racism and caste in America.

Harm to all
Make no mis­take, this hurt con­tin­ues to harm every Amer­i­can of every creed and eth­nic ori­gin; we dimin­ish and reduce the self-ful­fill­ment of every one of us when we treat oth­ers as less than our­selves. We can only meet our self-real­iza­tion through and by one anoth­er; if we lim­it the self-ful­fill­ment of one or some, we hurt all of us. If we are to meet the promise of our dreams, we must forge the real­i­ty where each and every per­son is able to real­ize the full­ness of their poten­tial here and now. This is the spir­i­tu­al cri­sis we are fac­ing; and that is why what is hap­pen­ing is so mean­ing­ful and challenging.

A Reck­on­ing
Many have com­ment­ed upon the nature of our his­tor­i­cal moment, as we wit­ness erupt­ing once more from the dark­est depths of our Amer­i­can Kar­ma the shad­ows and fears formed by the ter­ri­ble lega­cy of dom­i­na­tion and ter­ror expe­ri­enced by many in our his­to­ry and to this present day. This tim­ing is not an acci­dent of course, for we are com­ing to the return of Plu­to in the USA chart in 2021–2022. The erup­tion of this neg­a­tive ener­gy-form into right-wing domes­tic ter­ror­ism is a very real and present dan­ger. For our con­sid­er­a­tion today, there are four major moments or turn­ings in any plan­e­tary cycle: the wax­ing square, the oppo­si­tion, the wan­ing square and the return or con­junc­tion. Let us look at the four turn­ings of Plu­to and see how they framed our choic­es and his­to­ry, and how that may guide us in our own time of the Plu­to return.

We should remem­ber that the align­ment of espe­cial­ly out­er plan­ets takes sev­er­al years to become exact, so the peri­od of the exact aspect rep­re­sents the cli­max or cul­mi­na­tion of that influ­ence. There­fore, these moments are cli­max­es of expe­ri­ences that had been grow­ing over sev­er­al years. More­over, with regards to Plu­to in the USA chart, its natal aspect with Mer­cury extends this peri­od of mean­ing­ful­ness even more.

If we are to look for the mean­ing behind these turn­ing points, we will see that the issue posed by Plu­to at each turn­ing will be gen­er­al­ly framed around our under­stand­ing of and actions tak­en with regards to this fun­da­men­tal ques­tion of how we under­stand the true nature of val­ue for our coun­try. That is, it will reveal how close or far from the ide­al of “equal­i­ty and equi­ty and jus­tice” we are in our jour­ney of self-ful­fill­ment for one and all.

Plu­to Squared Plu­to 1848–1850
Zachary Tay­lor, a hero of the Mex­i­can War, elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Whig Par­ty and served March 1849 to July 1850 (suc­ceed­ed by his VP Mil­lard Fill­more). Though a slave­hold­er him­self, he did not push for expan­sion of slav­ery, but tried to work out a com­pro­mise. The pres­sure to expand slav­ery into the lands tak­en from Mex­i­co, espe­cial­ly Texas but also for all ter­ri­to­ries includ­ing Cal­i­for­nia, was extreme, as the slave­hold­ing inter­ests des­per­ate­ly sought to main­tain their con­trol of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Their plan was to have every ter­ri­to­ry and state per­mit slav­ery. Much like now, there were ris­ing threats of vio­lence around the coun­try and in Wash­ing­ton, and real vio­lence broke out in both the House and Sen­ate cham­bers, with crowds gath­er­ing out­side the Capi­tol in antic­i­pa­tion of open war­fare over the issue of slavery.

This strug­gle led to the Com­pro­mise of 1850, where Cal­i­for­nia was admit­ted as a “free” state, and the lands of Texas, New Mex­i­co, Utah, and Ari­zona could put the ques­tion of slav­ery to their cit­i­zens. To pla­cate the slave-hold­ing states, it also estab­lished a much tougher Fugi­tive Slave Law. Many his­to­ri­ans see this com­pro­mise as mere­ly delay­ing the inevitable by post­pon­ing the Civ­il War for the next 10 years.

Plu­to Oppo­site Plu­to 1936–1937
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempts to res­cue the nation from the depths of the depres­sion with new agen­cies and laws led to a series of bat­tles with the Supreme court over his pro­gram of eco­nom­ic reforms. He attempt­ed to cre­ate a court more favor­able to his pro­gres­sive eco­nom­ic agen­da by adding Jus­tices through leg­is­la­tion (fear­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al bat­tle would fail). But he failed in his attempt to “pack the court”, and some of his reforms were overturned.

But then, by retire­ment and new appoint­ments, between 1938 to 1941 his new appoint­ments turned the court away the focus upon the New Deal’s pro­gres­sive eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­tions as the court came to focus upon the issue of civ­il liberties.

As a result, Roosevelt’s poli­cies for eco­nom­ic jus­tice and greater racial equal­i­ty began the his­toric shift of black vot­ers from the Repub­li­can Par­ty to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, which was espe­cial­ly sig­nif­i­cant in the North­ern States.

Plu­to Square Plu­to 1982–1983
Ronald Reagan’s elec­tion was found­ed upon the premise that “the gov­ern­ment is the prob­lem”, and his admin­is­tra­tion spent 8 years work­ing to dis­man­tle the laws and pro­grams of a greater safe­ty net for all Amer­i­cans, (Social Secu­ri­ty, Medicare, Labor Laws, and Eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­to­ry Laws that had lim­it­ed the reck­less greed of Wall Street), which had been place since Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930’s and 1940’s. It was a counter-rev­o­lu­tion dri­ven by a Neo-lib­er­al ide­ol­o­gy that took as its objec­tive the dis­man­tling of the state to pro­mote greater growth in the econ­o­my. But the poli­cies begun dur­ing the 1980’s and through the era of George W. Bush were the dri­ving force behind the destruc­tion of the fair­ly equi­table eco­nom­ic growth for all cit­i­zens that had pre­vailed since the 1940’s. The result is that by 2020 the USA has the largest gap between the wealthy and the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans since the 1920’s.

Inte­gral to the polit­i­cal pow­er of the Repub­li­can Par­ty for the past 40 years has been an ever increas­ing “pol­i­tics of divi­sion”, where pow­er was main­tained by divid­ing the peo­ple of the USA by race, eth­nic­i­ty, region and reli­gion. This polit­i­cal agen­da, com­bined with spe­cif­ic news out­lets and social media cam­paigns, has cre­at­ed an insu­lar and ever-shrink­ing minor­i­ty that strives to wield polit­i­cal pow­er over the major­i­ty, and which has also led to grow­ing acts of right-wing domes­tic ter­ror­ism from the 1990’s and 2000’s up to the present day.

It has become very clear to many Amer­i­cans, (and here the Nep­tune to Nep­tune oppo­si­tion in the USA chart is rel­e­vant), that a grow­ing and core com­po­nent of the Repub­li­can base have become beguiled and delud­ed by unin­tel­li­gi­ble con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, with a hard core that are com­mit­ted to White Suprema­cy. And it is these fear-based fol­low­ers who made their bold­est move by the attempt to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion and destroy democ­ra­cy by seiz­ing pow­er. They are not dis­suad­ed by their fail­ure, and they pose a real and present dan­ger to our coun­try, our insti­tu­tions, and our fel­low citizens.

The Plu­to Return of 2022
Of course, every cri­sis is ulti­mate­ly a Spir­i­tu­al Cri­sis. The seed of our twin crises, Cli­mate Change and Racism, spring from the same root cause, and that is the sin of divid­ing our­selves from the greater whole of which we are a part. Humans have sep­a­rat­ed them­selves from the oth­er king­doms of life on this plan­et, and in doing so we have made all oth­er life-forms an object for our use with­out regard to the del­i­cate, inte­gral bal­ance of the hier­ar­chies of life on this plan­et. We are destroy­ing the web of life on which on our own human lives depend. This spir­i­tu­al crime, of mis­us­ing the essen­tial beau­ty and boun­ty of Earth has cre­at­ed the exis­ten­tial cri­sis of Cli­mate Change, and one more proof of this is the Covid-19 Pan­dem­ic that has cir­cled the globe.

Humans have equal­ly, (and here we are unique among all oth­er species of life on this plan­et), we have equal­ly and most griev­ous­ly divid­ed humans from one anoth­er; we sep­a­rate our­selves by race, eth­nic­i­ty, gen­der, reli­gion and cul­ture, and by so doing we treat some humans as less than oth­ers, turn­ing them into the objects of fear based pro­jec­tions, into scape­goats for blame and pun­ish­ment. This virus of divi­sion and hate is how we are equal­ly destroy­ing our­selves too.

Plu­to Return, A New Beginning
The return of Plu­to is very much like a New Moon of Val­ue for the USA. It rep­re­sents the release of a new seed of Val­ue; it is the hope and promise of a new begin­ning for Amer­i­ca. But know this, before we can enter what might become a bright New Age and ful­fill the promise of uni­ver­sal self-ful­fill­ment, we must hold our­selves account­able to what we wrought and what we must make right.

The only way for­ward is to under­stand where we are com­ing from; we need to under­stand our his­to­ry, to tell our sto­ries to one anoth­er and rebuild our com­mon under­stand­ing with one anoth­er. The inequity in our present cir­cum­stances that divide us by race and eth­nic­i­ty, the vast dif­fer­ences in income and wealth, in health­care and gen­er­al well-being, in the cir­cum­stances of secu­ri­ty and safe­ty which are so  dis­pro­por­tion­ate and dead­ly, all of these are no acci­dent but the results of the fail­ure to live by the spir­i­tu­al truth that we are here to love one another.

We must recom­mit our­selves to our orig­i­nal dec­la­ra­tion of equal­i­ty and self-ful­fill­ment for one and all. But to build anew we must also make amends; we must face the truth and act to reverse the sys­temic inequities, injus­tices, and spir­i­tu­al harm we have done to one another.

As I often have said, we are the mak­ers of one anoth­er, and we owe our well-being and can only become ful­filled through one anoth­er. We are, as is the entire­ty of Cre­ation, made by and become what we are through the mys­tery of Alche­my. We are what we are through join­ing with one anoth­er in our sacred spaces of Union.

Tru­ly, we are indi­vis­i­ble from one anoth­er, and we must treat one anoth­er with love, respect, and hon­or. If we are to meet this Spir­i­tu­al Cri­sis, then we must renew our sacred com­mit­ment to make it pos­si­ble for each and every per­son to ful­fill their poten­tial for self-realization.

Here in 2021 and 2022 we are at an end which is a begin­ning, so let us pledge to one anoth­er that we will pro­tect and secure our true val­ue, which is our human family.