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

In my pre­vi­ous show on Octo­ber 2^nd, I had hoped to talk about both the Plu­to return to its Natal posi­tion in the USA chart and Neptune’s oppo­si­tion to its Natal posi­tion too. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there was not enough time to do both, so we should con­sid­er today’s show as part two of that pre­vi­ous show.

But we will need to keep in mind, that in order to dis­cuss and under­stand any one of what I call the Tri­ad of Spir­it, “The Three in One” of Plu­to, Nep­tune, or Uranus, that we will only under­stand any one of them when we also see that each one is nec­es­sary to the oth­er two, as they are prin­ci­pal Avatars of the Inte­gral nature of Spir­it in our system.

Tri­ad of Spir­it – Plu­to — Nep­tune — Uranus
I like to think of these three in this man­ner. Plu­to is the hold­er of the Will and shapes and molds every Ener­gy-Form into a def­i­nite or defined Con­tain­er of Spir­it, (whether that be a mon­ad, atom, cell, organ­ism, plan­et, or star). Nep­tune is the hold­er of the Uni­ver­sal Ener­gy-Form of Uncon­di­tion­al Love, which is the Ener­gy-Sub­stance at the root of all or the One. This Love of the One is the root source of the Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness for every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation. And Uranus, is the hold­er of the Quin­tes­sence of Spir­it, because each and every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is also an Indi­vid­ual. By this we also know that all of Cre­ation is formed by the innu­mer­able indi­vid­ual sparks of the Divine, every one of which is fol­low­ing their Swab­hā­va to be and become a unique instance or expres­sion of the One Divine Light.

What we have been dis­cussing (for quite some time) is that two of these Avatars of Spir­it have made crit­i­cal align­ments in the USA chart. Plu­to has reached the end of its first cycle of 245 years around the Solar Sys­tem and has returned to Pluto’s Natal posi­tion in 2022. The USA is expe­ri­enc­ing its first ever Plu­to return, and this is most impor­tant as we dis­cussed last time. Mean­while, Nep­tune is oppo­site to its natal posi­tion, as it was only once before from 1858–1859. The com­bi­na­tion of these two align­ments, (along with the influ­ences ema­nat­ing through Uranus), can illu­mi­nate and guide us through the moment we are in now.

For today, let us look at the impor­tance of Nep­tune in the USA chart, and the cycle of its mes­sag­ing for the past, and how that may guide us here today. What we need to appre­ci­ate is that Nep­tune has one of the most sig­nif­i­cant place­ments in the chart of the USA, being close to the mid­heav­en (the realm of des­tiny) and locat­ed in the 9^th house of Law, Truth, and Belief, what I like to under­stand as the house of Storytelling.

Nep­tune
Nep­tune is the avatar of the ulti­mate and uni­ver­sal ener­gy-form, which is Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, and it is this which forms the most infin­i­tes­i­mal of par­ti­cles on up to the heav­en­ly hosts, and that is why we should under­stand and expe­ri­ence the Cre­ation as quite lit­er­al­ly the Body of the One. There is but One Spir­it, there is but One Life, and there is but One Mind, and it holds the whole of Cre­ation as one, (all the innu­mer­able ones held as One), and every one of us is made of this Ener­gy-form that you know and feel as Divine, Uncon­di­tion­al Love. It is by this Ener­gy-Form that the bound­aries between the hier­ar­chies and ranges of enti­ties becomes translu­cent, tran­scend­ed, and ulti­mate­ly dis­solved. By Nep­tune you come to your spir­i­tu­al heart, as you walk the path of awak­en­ing to expe­ri­ence the bless­ings of cos­mic con­scious­ness, which is made man­i­fest as love, com­pas­sion, and empa­thy between one anoth­er and real­ly between all life-forms in the cosmos.

But just as we have seen that the Will of Plu­to can be mis­ap­plied and lead to the vio­la­tion of sacred spaces, lead­ing to the sin of tres­pass­ing and great harm done to oth­er souls, Nep­tun­ian ener­gies may trig­ger and form, (by the mis­un­der­stand­ing or mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of this dissolving/transcending ener­gy-form), a cacoph­o­ny of fan­tasies, illu­sions, delu­sions, and decep­tions. We have had his­tor­i­cal peri­ods of a greater shared under­stand­ing, where what I call our “Bub­bles of Belief” align and agree with one anoth­er. And we have expe­ri­enced times of con­fu­sion, doubt, and greater mis­un­der­stand­ings too.

But the divi­sions we are expe­ri­enc­ing in the present day, the break­down of com­mon under­stand­ings and the grow­ing divide between var­i­ous peo­ples with­in com­mu­ni­ties, between regions and coun­tries, has cast a shad­ow of fear, doubt, and con­fu­sion upon our world. We have reached a yawn­ing abyss where we can­not seem to agree on what is fic­tion and what is fact, of what is “real­ly real”. What we are expe­ri­enc­ing is not a local but world-wide break­down, and this does hap­pen peri­od­i­cal­ly, espe­cial­ly when­ev­er Nep­tune moves through the sign of Pisces like now.

And though this might seem whol­ly neg­a­tive, again there lies part of our delu­sion and con­fu­sion. There is a very spir­i­tu­al pur­pose that dri­ves this moment in Neptune’s cycle, and it is this: we are being inspired to move into a more inclu­sive form of con­scious­ness. But the path to this greater under­stand­ing requires that we have to go through a peri­od where we are con­fused, because it is only then that we will let go of our lim­it­ed under­stand­ings, so that we might per­ceive beyond the dark clouds of fear, and so be able to see revealed a new and high­er and more inclu­sive and lov­ing way to under­stand our­selves and our world.

Nep­tune in Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy
For our pur­pos­es today, we need to con­sid­er Neptune’s role for Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, which is that Nep­tune is the chal­ice or ves­sel for the dream of any nation, it is the Avatar for the sto­ries and myths that inform and explain the char­ac­ter of that polit­i­cal-cul­tur­al order. For the USA, one of the most dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of its found­ing myth is the claim that it is spe­cial or excep­tion­al. In the Nation­al Seal for the USA, we can see that the founders believed that they were engaged in an enter­prise that was unique­ly dif­fer­ent, and they declared to the world that the USA was to be a “New Order for the Cen­turies”. Unlike oth­er nations, the USA would be a land for peo­ple from around the world, and that it would be found­ed upon a new type of polit­i­cal order­ing, it would be a “covenant nation”.

The Nep­tun­ian ide­al for the USA was estab­lished upon Uni­ver­sal Prin­ci­ples, in that it would be unique and not like any oth­er nation. His­tor­i­cal­ly, nations were found­ed upon parochial or lim­it­ed deter­mi­na­tions, whether of being made of one par­tic­u­lar peo­ple, or by one her­itage or eth­nic­i­ty, or by one faith. The USA claimed that it would be a land where Free­dom, Tol­er­ance and Com­mu­ni­ty would be pro­claimed and pro­tect­ed for all peo­ples; it would be a new type of nation formed by the many creeds and by the many cul­tures of humanity.

USA – A Covenant Nation
The heart of this cre­ation of a new type of nation was the prin­ci­ple of a covenant com­mu­ni­ty. The USA would be found­ed upon the truth that each individual’s self-ful­fill­ment is depen­dent upon, and real­ly is only made pos­si­ble by being a mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty. This prin­ci­ple was stat­ed in our first doc­u­ment, The Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, which says that we, “Mutu­al­ly Pledge To Each Oth­er Our Lives, Our For­tunes, And Our Sacred Honor”.

This dec­la­ra­tion was a forg­ing of a new covenant. The prin­ci­ple enshrined by the Dec­la­ra­tion, and lat­er by the Con­sti­tu­tion, is that in order to cre­ate this new space of indi­vid­ual free­dom and self-ful­fill­ment would require that the mem­bers of this sacred com­mu­ni­ty would have to agree to work with­in a social-polit­i­cal sys­tem of mutu­al con­sent. This would cre­ate a space of free­dom and jus­tice for every indi­vid­ual, but to do this we would need to forge an inte­gral bal­ance between our indi­vid­ual lib­er­ties with our com­mu­nal respon­si­bil­i­ties. Our free­doms would be pro­tect­ed, but we agreed to cir­cum­scribe our indi­vid­ual free­dom to pre­serve our com­mu­ni­ties too. In the USA, all pre­vi­ous priv­i­leges would be removed, so that we were not behold­en to any lord, king, or mas­ter; we were cre­at­ing a freely formed, self-deter­mined soci­ety based on equal­i­ty of all before the law. In the USA, only the Law would be our King, and all would be equal before the law.

The Promise Bro­ken
But of course, what was held up as the found­ing ide­al of the USA was nev­er made real at that time, or even now some 250 years lat­er. From the moment of “first con­tact” by Christo­pher Colum­bus in 1492, to the final mas­sacre of native peo­ple at Wound­ed Knee in 1890, the near extinc­tion of the native peo­ples was one part of the bro­ken promise of equal­i­ty and jus­tice for all. The oth­er orig­i­nal sin for the USA was the enslave­ment of African peo­ple until 1865, and their denial of full cit­i­zen­ship by one means or anoth­er even down to the present day. The Karmic Ques­tion the USA faces today is quite sim­ply this, “How do we make right over 500 years of Geno­cide; how to we make right over 400 years of Racism?”

Yes, we are at a turn­ing, and Nep­tune, the hold­er of dreams and myths, of illu­mi­na­tions and delu­sions, has returned to the posi­tion it held as the Unit­ed States faced its great­est exis­ten­tial and spir­i­tu­al cri­sis formed by the divi­sion into two visions or myths of Amer­i­ca, whether to be Slave or Free, in the Civ­il War. The ques­tion was then and quite remark­ably but not sur­pris­ing­ly is also the same now, “will the fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al truth, that all humans are cre­at­ed equal, and should be treat­ed as equal with love and com­pas­sion be made our real­i­ty or not”?

Neptune’s Turn­ing Points

In order to frame our under­stand­ing of what we are faced with today, we need to exam­ine our his­to­ry, and the oth­er turn­ing points in Neptune’s cycle through the chart of the USA. Neptune’s orbit is about 163 years, and it will align with the USA Nep­tune every 40 years or so for the more sig­nif­i­cant or so-called “hard” aspects, the dates for which are: 1816–17, 1857–58, 1897–98, 1938–39, 1980–81, and now 2021–22. Most impor­tant, are the Oppo­si­tions and Returns to the natal place­ment. The first and only return of Nep­tune to its natal posi­tion was 1938–39; and the two oppo­si­tions in USA his­to­ry were 1857–58 and the oppo­si­tion we are expe­ri­enc­ing in 2021–22.

Oppo­si­tion of Nep­tune to Nep­tune
The oppo­si­tion should be under­stood as the rev­e­la­tion and out­come of that vari­a­tion of expres­sion from the first or natal imprint­ing and then any suc­ceed­ing returns. The seed plant­ed in 1776 of Neptune’s “Dream of Amer­i­ca” became ful­ly revealed in the first oppo­si­tion (like a Full Moon) of 1857–58. From Neptune’s embod­i­ment of the dream of Amer­i­ca in 1776, “That all men are cre­at­ed equal…”, a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem formed in which a very small num­ber of white, prop­er­ty-own­ing men would hold and wield pow­er. And it would turn out that a great many of them had secured and main­tained their wealth and pow­er through own­ing oth­er humans as prop­er­ty. But an ever-grow­ing divide of the ways of eco­nom­ic life, and in cul­ture and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, between the planter soci­ety and the rest of the USA forged an exis­ten­tial cri­sis in the USA, as two very dif­fer­ent Nep­tun­ian dreams of Amer­i­ca came to a cli­mat­ic con­fronta­tion dur­ing the 1850’s over a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Would the USA con­tin­ue as and for­ev­er be a “slave labor coun­try” or not?

The Oppo­si­tion of 1857–1858
The Nep­tune Oppo­si­tion of 1857–58 laid bare the ever-advanc­ing pow­er of the slave­hold­ing states in the Con­gress and over the Supreme Court. This was most clear­ly revealed in 1857 by the Dred Scott deci­sion of the Supreme Court. This deci­sion deter­mined that for­ev­er more the USA would be a slave coun­try, because a white man’s prop­er­ty was more impor­tant than human lives, and so the law of the land would be that “slaves and descen­dants of slaves were nev­er, nor would they ever be cit­i­zens, and that they would remain the per­ma­nent prop­er­ty of their mas­ters”. Slav­ery would be forever…

As a con­se­quence of this clear divi­sion of the two America’s laid bare by the Supreme court’s deci­sion, and by the Leg­isla­tive pow­er of the slave­hold­ing states, Lin­coln spoke of this divi­sion with­in the coun­try, between the slave states and the free states, when he declared, “that a house divid­ed from itself can­not stand”. He pro­posed that this divi­sion would be solved one way or anoth­er, and that the US would either become a nation where in every state all humans would be free and equal, or that in every state there would be slav­ery and inequal­i­ty forever.

Of course, what hap­pened was the Civ­il War, and the abo­li­tion of slav­ery and amend­ments to the con­sti­tu­tion to estab­lish a more just and equal soci­ety. But the peri­od known after the Civ­il War wit­nessed the ever-increas­ing ero­sion of that more just order, until by local laws and com­mon prac­tice the dream of a more just Amer­i­ca was denied again.

Neptune’s Return 1938–39
Astrologers con­sid­er any plan­e­tary return like a “New Moon”, a seed­ing of a new vari­a­tion of the ener­gy-form that for that plan­et, Nep­tune for us now. This would mean that a new begin­ning was formed dur­ing the pres­i­den­cy of FDR, with his efforts to restore the USA econ­o­my after the Great Depres­sion, while he equal­ly led the USA to pre­pare for the exis­ten­tial con­fronta­tion with the rise of Fas­cism in Europe and Asia in World War II.

What is quite remark­able about this moment, as it will be in the next two Nep­tun­ian align­ments, was it was at this time accom­pa­nied by the Plu­to oppo­si­tion to Plu­to; the remark­able syn­chronic­i­ty and mes­sag­ing for the USA at this time led to a restate­ment and rebirth for the promise of the USA, so that a renewed effort and strug­gle was begun to extend equal­i­ty before the law and have a more or less equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for self-fulfillment.

Dream Renewed – The New Deal
Roosevelt’s New Deal was sup­posed to be a Fair Deal for all Amer­i­cans, but of course this was not at all true for the South, and for many com­mu­ni­ties through­out the coun­try, where local laws and cus­toms con­tin­ued to dis­en­fran­chise a great many peo­ple. But it was true that dur­ing FDR’s term, and for many years there­after, the gen­er­al growth of pros­per­i­ty in the Unit­ed States was more or less fair­ly shared by the entire pop­u­la­tion. The com­mit­ment to a Lib­er­al State form of gov­er­nance, from the 1940’s into the 1970’s, cre­at­ed a lift­ing tide of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, where that ris­ing tide was seen as, “lift­ing all boats”. It cer­tain­ly was not per­fect, but there was a gen­er­al feel­ing that there was more equi­ty, bal­ance, and fair­ness in how we cre­at­ed and shared our well-being with one another.

But some­thing began to change in the 1970’s and then most cer­tain­ly in the 1980’s. You might won­der, what changed? What hap­pened to the New Deal and the Dream of America?

Nep­tune Square, 1980–1981
There had been a gen­er­al con­sen­sus in the 40’s and 50’s for both major polit­i­cal par­ties that the mod­ern lib­er­al order was the answer. But as the strug­gle for civ­il rights in the 1950’s and 1960’s led to the pas­sage of the Civ­il Rights act, which over­turned the local and state laws deny­ing full cit­i­zen­ship to many, there rose up a counter-rev­o­lu­tion to the lib­er­al con­sen­sus. It came under the guise of an eco­nom­ic the­o­ry, called neo-Lib­er­al­ism, and its main thrust was artic­u­lat­ed by the pres­i­dent-elect in 1980, Ronald Rea­gan, who ran on the slo­gan that the prob­lem with Amer­i­ca was the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Once again, Amer­i­ca was a at a turn­ing, and once again the plan­ets were at a turn­ing too.  If fact Nep­tune squared Nep­tune, and Plu­to squared Plu­to at this time. Remem­ber, a Square presents a choice; it holds both an oppor­tu­ni­ty and dan­ger. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is to rise to the chal­lenge with love and faith, or to react with fear and lit­er­al­ly fall backwards.

This Nep­tune-to-Nep­tune square of 1980–81 should be seen as the reac­tion or counter-rev­o­lu­tion to Roosevelt’s New Deal for Amer­i­cans. But what was the result of fol­low­ing the poli­cies of neo-lib­er­al­ism, of less gov­ern­ment? How can we see or mea­sure the ben­e­fit or the cost? The rise of neo-lib­er­al­ism led to a dra­mat­ic shift of income and wealth in the coun­try. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of the growth of wealth from 1940 to 1980 is stark­ly dif­fer­ent than that from 1980 to 2022. If you look at the eco­nom­ic pic­ture of these two peri­ods in USA his­to­ry, it is like you are view­ing two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The rea­son is that choic­es were made to turn away from fair­ness for the many, and to pro­mote ram­pant self-inter­est­ed beliefs and actions that led to self­ish­ness, greed, and great wealth for the few, and the result was the dec­i­ma­tion of the mid­dle class and the poor. Today, we have a coun­try that is divid­ed into the very wealthy few, a shrink­ing upper and mid­dle class, and final­ly the rest who are just strug­gling to survive.

2021–22 Nep­tune Oppo­si­tion (and Plu­to Return)
We find our­selves at the next great turn­ing of Nep­tune (and of Plu­to) here in 2021 and 2022. We are most cer­tain­ly expe­ri­enc­ing great divi­sions between var­i­ous mem­bers and sec­tors of our coun­try. It is quite remark­able that just like in the 1850’s, when Nep­tune was oppo­site to itself, and when Plu­to was squar­ing Plu­to, that we can see that the very same exis­ten­tial ques­tions are before us once more: Who is an Amer­i­can, who gets to decide, and are we equal to one another?

As I spoke of in my last show, we are at this moment in order to address the ques­tion of the Plu­to return, which is “what is the essen­tial val­ue of the USA”? I stat­ed then and would reit­er­ate here that the heart of val­ue for our nation (and real­ly any nation) is the people.

And we are also at a “Full Moon” for Nep­tune, just like in the peri­od of 1857–58. Nep­tune is pos­ing the ques­tion, “what is the Dream of Amer­i­ca”? With Nep­tune once again in Pisces, the spir­i­tu­al inspi­ra­tions of Uncon­di­tion­al love are resur­gent now, and many are work­ing to meet the chal­lenge of this moment by their com­mit­ment to increas­ing social jus­tice, of try­ing to build new bridges of under­stand­ing and care for one another.

But we are also, just like before, expe­ri­enc­ing the veil between realms becom­ing much thin­ner now because of Nep­tune in Pisces, and as much as we can hear the call­ing of our bet­ter angels when we turn to and are guid­ed by our gen­tle, lov­ing high­er self, we are also wit­ness­ing that for many the images and feel­ings that are being evoked, that they are found­ed not upon faith but in fear, and from these dark shad­ows we are con­front­ed with the mount­ing dan­gers of con­fu­sion, mis­un­der­stand­ings, delu­sions, and deceptions.

We are divid­ed in so many ways, but prin­ci­pal­ly it is because our Amer­i­can Dream of equal­i­ty and jus­tice, which is the foun­da­tion for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-ful­fill­ment, has become increas­ing­ly unreach­able for more and more Amer­i­cans. We can­not live our Nep­tun­ian dream with­out a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. We do not have that, we can­not have that, when wealth and pow­er are con­cen­trat­ed in the hands of so very few indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, and com­pa­nies. As many have not­ed, the USA is an Oli­garchy, a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem that is ruled by Plutocrats.

We are going through a spir­i­tu­al cri­sis, and the strug­gle by so many to try and under­stand, to try to do what is lov­ing and good, well that is what gives me hope. The chal­lenge is for each and every one of us to remem­ber where our true wealth lies, it is found­ed in our love for one anoth­er. If we can under­stand that the secret to our hap­pi­ness and well-being depends upon every­one being enabled to real­ize their fuller poten­tial, then we will rise togeth­er into a bet­ter world.

The ques­tion at the cusp of our Civ­il War is the same ques­tion we face today, “will the fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al truth, that all humans are cre­at­ed equal, and should be treat­ed as equal with love and com­pas­sion, will that be made our real­i­ty or not”?

Let us face this moment as we must, with the faith, love, and wis­dom that is held by the eter­nal truths and light of the One, whose cen­ter is every­where and whose cir­cum­fer­ence holds us all as one.

Immortals in Mortal Frames

The Uni­verse is formed by a hier­ar­chy of Ener­gy-Forms, rang­ing from the most infin­i­tes­i­mal of par­ti­cles, through the atoms, mol­e­cules, organ­isms, plan­ets, stars, and galax­ies. From the low­est to the high­est, each of these “fields of the lord” are formed and shaped from below and from above by one anoth­er. Every speck of Cre­ation is formed by mon­ads upon mon­ads that are the hosts of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, which is their total­i­ty are the ONE, whose cen­ter is every­where (in each and every mon­ad), and whose cir­cum­fer­ence is nowhere in the myr­i­ad spaces of space, and the many dimen­sions of spirit-matter.

The Zodi­ac is the Design-Body of Cre­ation, an elec­tro-mag­net­ic field of Ener­gy-Mat­ter, which holds the Twelve-dimen­sion­al Hier­ar­chies of form and space. The Zodi­ac is omnipresent as the form-builder for all of Cre­ation for every mon­ad, whether it is an atom, mol­e­cule, being or star. That is why we need to open our minds and release our­selves from a fix­a­tion on Sub­stance and Mat­ter; we need to expe­ri­ence the world before us at it is, fields of ener­gy-forms, each par­ti­cle or being hav­ing their own Zodi­a­cal field, which is aligned with the next high­er being or realm, and so on. As the say­ing goes, real­i­ty or the uni­verse can be seen as wheels with­in wheels, a vor­tex or spi­ral of ener­gy-forms, each aligned to one anoth­er and final­ly to the One.

Because of this, each Sign of the Zodi­ac is inti­mate­ly relat­ed to, formed through, and sup­port­ed by the oth­ers. Each holds a range of expe­ri­ences and truths about our Uni­verse and about me and you. In truth, it is quite impos­si­ble to real­ly under­stand any one of them with­out hold­ing them togeth­er because of their inte­gral exis­tence as the noume­nal avatars behind the phe­nom­e­na of life.

Today we enter that most spe­cial “field of the lord” that we call Scor­pio, and at this time, and wher­ev­er Scor­pio is found in your chart, you enter what is the cru­cible or forge for Cre­ation. Here in Scor­pio you reach the ever-renew­ing heart of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness. Scor­pio holds what is the foun­tain-source behind the whole of Cre­ation, which is that every­thing and every­one is formed, and grows and becomes ever more what they are to be by the agency of com­bi­na­tion, through the won­der of Alchemy.

In this month of Scor­pio, and wher­ev­er Scor­pio is found in your chart, you face the oppor­tu­ni­ty and chal­lenge posed by the “Cru­cible of Union.” From the small­est of par­ti­cles and beings, every­thing and every­one in the Uni­verse is formed by com­bi­na­tions. In the begin­ning, the One became the many, and from the atoms which com­bined with oth­er atoms, to the mol­e­cules join­ing with oth­er mol­e­cules, and organ­isms with organ­isms, and so on, this is how Cre­ation was made and con­tin­ues to be remade. In phys­i­cal terms the whole of Cre­ation can be seen as just Chem­istry; but when we reach the realms of self-aware cre­ators, we know this same pow­er of becom­ing as Alche­my. This is the heart of Scorpio.

In Libra, you pre­pare the spaces or frames for rela­tion­ship; but it is in Scor­pio that you enter into the heart of rela­tion­ship, as you forge your sacred unions with one anoth­er. The rea­son we say “sacred” unions is that all com­bi­na­tions require some form of sac­ri­fice, and that in order join, in order to grow, you must be will­ing to give up some­thing, to sac­ri­fice some­thing in order to make pos­si­ble the union with anoth­er. The expe­ri­ence of sac­ri­fice, of let­ting go of the less­er is how you grow into your greater self. The pain of sac­ri­fice is real, but the joy of rebirth and growth is greater. This is the way of Spir­it, to be and become through Union and Transformation.

It is in Scor­pio that you expe­ri­ence the great­est of heights and the low­est of depths, the bound­less joy of pierc­ing beyond the illu­sion that you are alone, as your heart leaps at the won­der of being made more whole with one anoth­er. But you will also face here the awful pain of when that union ends, when you must take your leave or when they must part from you. Tru­ly, in Scor­pio you face the truth behind all truths, and it leaves you with­out words, you are in deep­er waters here, and you have to work with your feel­ings to find your way.

For this is Truth, this is what it means to be an Immor­tal in a mor­tal world. You can­not expe­ri­ence Love with­out the agony of loss. You can­not have Joy with­out pain, for they are insep­a­ra­ble. If you did not feel these things as such, you would not, could not be human.

But always remem­ber, you have noth­ing to fear. You are an Immor­tal danc­ing through mor­tal realms. It is here that you will face the ulti­mate Truth; that all things must pass away. But it is equal­ly true that you will feel and know this Eter­nal Truth, you are part of the One who is Ever­last­ing. It is here in Scor­pio that you expe­ri­ence a know­ing beyond reason.

Here in Scor­pio, you hear the Song of the One, and as you wing your way through the stars you sing as does the Cre­ator, “There is no end­ing, there is noth­ing to fear, for I am an Immor­tal, danc­ing through mor­tal worlds”.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — Nep­tune and the USA chart (Octo­ber 23, 2022)

In my eighth show of 2022, we will con­sid­er the sig­nif­i­cance of Nep­tune mak­ing its sec­ond ever oppo­si­tion to its Natal posi­tion. I had hoped to include this in my pre­vi­ous show on Octo­ber 2^nd, and we will weave in the sig­nif­i­cance of the Plu­to return with the Nep­tune oppo­si­tion in today’s show.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Octo­ber 23^rd @ 2 pm EDT:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2022/10/23/astrological-musings-neptune-and-the-usa-chart

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638

Please join me on Sun­day Octo­ber 23^rd @ 2 pm EDT as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

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

As we move through the last quar­ter of 2022, I thought it would be help­ful to con­sid­er once again the inte­gral sig­nif­i­cance of what is hap­pen­ing in the USA chart at this time. Not only is there the first-ever Plu­to return to its Natal posi­tion this year, but there is also the ongo­ing oppo­si­tion of Nep­tune to Neptune’s posi­tion, and that oppo­si­tion is only the sec­ond time in its his­to­ry. The com­bi­na­tion of these two align­ments (along with some oth­er sig­nif­i­cant align­ments) has informed, guid­ed, and shaped this crit­i­cal year in US history.

What we see is that the four major align­ments of the Plu­to with itself in the US Chart, the wax­ing square, the oppo­si­tion, the wan­ing square and now the return, pro­vide a unique win­dow into one of the more fun­da­men­tal and con­se­quen­tial shapers of US history.

But as in any chart inter­pre­ta­tion, we must begin with what the Natal or birth chart indi­ca­tions hold for each plan­et, and then con­sid­er their cycle of rela­tion­ship to see the “how and the why” of the cir­cum­stances that unfold­ed in ear­li­er peri­ods, and by these analy­ses we might bet­ter under­stand their sig­nif­i­cance for us now. When we con­sid­er the three out­er­most or trans­for­ma­tion­al plan­ets, Plu­to, Nep­tune and Uranus, their natal indi­ca­tions and evo­lu­tion­ary influ­ences over time should be very impor­tant indeed.

Con­tent of His­to­ry
But I also need to remind us of this fun­da­men­tal and unwa­ver­ing Truth, that “what” hap­pened, and what is hap­pen­ing now, what is the con­tent of the his­to­ry of Unit­ed States, or of any coun­try or nation or peo­ple, it is that their cir­cum­stances, what was their past and is their present, these real­i­ties were not cre­at­ed or formed by the plan­ets. Rather, as I under­stand it, the plan­ets hold the Ener­gy-Forms that inspire, inform, and guide our jour­ney on Earth, but the actu­al con­tent of what is formed, of what hap­pened and will hap­pen, that real­i­ty is made by the com­plex of ener­gy-forms of we on Earth, forged by the liv­ing spir­it of us human actors, by our ances­tors and by you and me today.

Tri­ad of Spir­it
More­over, though I wish to focus most­ly upon Plu­to, and also some­what on Nep­tune now (or in our next show), we have to remem­ber that for us in our solar sys­tem, the three out­er plan­ets must always be con­sid­ered or held togeth­er as one. That is because, at least for me, they hold and form the hier­ar­chy of ener­gy-forms of what I call the Tri­ad of Spir­it; the out­er plan­ets hold as one the Prin­ci­ple behind the pow­er of Spir­it, which is the Pow­er of Becom­ing, (“The Self that is Becom­ing”), of the mys­tery and majesty of the whole of Cre­ation, and for us in our solar sys­tem, Plu­to, Nep­tune, and Uranus hold as the avatars of the “Three as One”, which are the Will, and the Love and the Mind of the One.

Plu­to is the Avatar and vehi­cle of the Will for us, the Alchem­i­cal agent or Ener­gy-Form that brings togeth­er any enti­ty or being as “a one” in their sacred space. Each par­ti­cle of Cre­ation, and each and every being, is formed from the spark of the Divine, by its Mon­ad, and by the will is sep­a­rat­ed from any oth­er par­ti­cle or being by the sacred space in which it exists and over which it pre­sides. The emer­gence of the many ones from the One, pro­ceeds as a series of inter­sec­tions and com­bi­na­tions of these many fields of the ones to form greater or larg­er ones, (atoms, mol­e­cules, organ­isms, plan­ets, stars, and galax­ies). The lit­tle wills of these ones, form the phe­nom­e­na of attrac­tion and repul­sion on the phys­i­cal plane for the mate­r­i­al real­i­ty of objects and organ­isms (as in grav­i­ty); and this prin­ci­ple of sacred spaces unfolds hier­ar­chi­cal­ly pro­ceed­ing down­ward from the One to all the realms, as we can see the more sub­lime exer­cis­es of the will form­ing the push­es and pulls on the astral, emo­tion­al, men­tal, and spir­i­tu­al planes too. As beings become ever more self-aware, like we in our human king­dom of life, the expe­ri­ence of the will leads us to our spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing, which is that we are to learn to use this gift of the spir­it for ever greater self-con­trol or self-mas­tery, so that it is turned back upon one­self rather than used to tres­pass, or to dom­i­nate and con­trol or vio­late the space of another.

Nep­tune is the Avatar and vehi­cle of Divine Love for us, the Alchem­i­cal agent or Ener­gy-Form that is the pri­mal or Root Form of Spir­it, which is this, the Uncon­di­tion­al Love of the One. The whole of Cre­ation is formed of the One, the body of the One is Cre­ation, and rang­ing from the most mate­r­i­al of sub­stances to the most sub­lime and ethe­re­al of Ener­gy-Forms, every­thing and every­one is formed by Divine Love. By Nep­tune, Cre­ation is held togeth­er by our mutu­al attrac­tions with and for one anoth­er. For at the root of the Truth of Nep­tune is this, that there is but One Life and there is but One Spir­it, and every­thing is ulti­mate­ly the Divine Love as the Root Ener­gy-Form of Cre­ation. The great illu­sion that all forms of Cre­ation are seek­ing to move beyond is our sep­a­ra­tion from one anoth­er, and that in truth we are one with the One (“as we were in the begin­ning, so shall we be in the end”). This is why Nep­tune holds for us the gifts of Com­pas­sion and Empa­thy, of Divine Love and Sac­ri­fice, as it cease­less­ly seeks to move us beyond any lim­it­ed form of our expe­ri­ence and real­i­ty so that we might embrace and expe­ri­ence a more com­plete expe­ri­ence of the One. The gifts of Dream­ing and Imag­i­na­tion, of mov­ing beyond a more lim­it­ed real­i­ty-form into a more encom­pass­ing one, this is the Nep­tune jour­ney of Spir­it. The dan­ger lies in become ensnared by fan­tasies and illu­sions that sep­a­rate one­self from the greater truth of the One, which will lead to false forms of love, as in nar­cis­sism, obses­sions, and pro­jec­tions of fear upon anoth­er or others.

Uranus is the Avatar and vehi­cle of Mind or Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty for us, the Alchem­i­cal agent or Ener­gy-Form that holds the oth­er essen­tial Root Form or Qual­i­ty of Spir­it, which is that every­thing and every­one is part of the Mind of the One, which means that every sin­gle part of Cre­ation is Con­scious. From the dimmest forms of aware­ness to the most sub­lime con­tem­pla­tions of the hier­ar­chies of the “shin­ing ones”, the qual­i­ty of Mind is the foun­da­tion for that oth­er spe­cial essence of Spir­it, Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. As much as each mon­ad of Spir­it has the Ener­gy-Form of Will and is also made by the Ener­gy-Form of Love, each Mon­ad is also endowed with the Spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ty of Self-Becom­ing, of what we call Swab­hā­va. This essen­tial nature of Cre­ation means that each and every part of Cre­ation is an indi­vid­ual mon­ad, with its own spe­cial­ness or Quin­tes­sence, and that every mon­ad is on a jour­ney of becom­ing a com­plete and freed Mon­ad, a Divine­ly Aware spark of the Divine, anoth­er shin­ing one in the body of the One.

Three-in-One
The dynam­ic of spir­i­tu­al growth and evo­lu­tion, held with­in the Space of the Will by Plu­to is pro­pelled by the inter­play and dynam­ic bal­anc­ing of these sec­ond and third qual­i­ties in every mon­ad, by Nep­tune and Uranus, with one being the dri­ve to One­ness by Love for Com­mu­nal­i­ty, ver­sus the dri­ve to Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty by Mind for Inde­pen­dence. In all the realms of Cre­ation, and cer­tain­ly in our human-made worlds of fam­i­ly, tribe, com­mu­ni­ty, and nation states, the bal­ance between the com­mu­nal­iz­ing and indi­vid­u­al­iz­ing forces with­in our monadic natures ever con­tin­ues to forge the path of spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing for human­i­ty on this Earth.

So let us now turn and con­sid­er the influ­ences that were brought to bear by the birth of the Unit­ed States and the mean­ings that are held by Plu­to and by Nep­tune, and the impor­tance of their align­ments in the past and now.

Plu­to USA
The USA was “born” with the plan­et Plu­to as the ris­ing plan­et, (the first plan­et to cross the ascen­dant or hori­zon line after birth), placed in the Sign of Capri­corn and in the Sec­ond House of the chart. I have com­ment­ed upon the sig­nif­i­cance of this Natal place­ment in many pre­vi­ous blog posts and radio shows, but it will cer­tain­ly help our under­stand­ing if we restate it again.

Tra­di­tion­al Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy would list the sec­ond house as rul­ing a nation’s wealth, as in tax­es, stock shares, bonds, exports, and insti­tu­tions that deal with monies like banks, trad­ing hous­es and the like. This is what many observers who hold to the pre­vail­ing mate­ri­al­is­tic view of real­i­ty would call the “wealth of a nation”.

And though it is true that this is the con­ven­tion­al mea­sure of the wealth of a nation, I and many oth­ers believe we should approach the ques­tion with a more mean­ing­ful mea­sure, the eter­nal Val­ue of the Liv­ing Spir­it, from Love, where the hap­pi­ness and well­be­ing of all life-forms is the stan­dard of mea­sure for val­ue. If we exclude, though we can­not and should not, all oth­er life-forms that abide in a country’s realm, the val­ue of a nation is tru­ly to be found in the well­be­ing of the peo­ple of that land.

Spir­i­tu­al­ly, the val­ue of each per­son or of a peo­ple is found­ed upon their spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment, their intel­lec­tu­al rig­or, their emo­tion­al integri­ty, and their phys­i­cal well­be­ing, and it is this which cre­ates the true wealth of any com­mu­ni­ty, which is the val­ue they have in one anoth­er and deter­mines the val­ue they will make togeth­er or with one anoth­er. The val­ue of a per­son, or a peo­ple is not fixed; and cer­tain­ly, with Plu­to in the sec­ond house of val­ue for the US, it would be by the pow­er of rebirth, renew­al, and trans­for­ma­tion that the USA would cre­ate the wealth of the nation; that this pro­tean expe­ri­ence in the growth of human poten­tial would form the con­tent of US his­to­ry. To form any tru­ly spir­i­tu­al union, we make sac­ri­fices for one anoth­er, and this is the very means by which we change and grow; we are asked to sac­ri­fice our less­er qual­i­ties, our egos, in order to com­bine with anoth­er through our deep­er val­ues, and it is by this that we release the pow­er of trans­for­ma­tions and renew­al for one anoth­er. This is essen­tial nature of spir­it at the heart of Plu­to and Alchemy.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Sign of Capri­corn is rul­ing the USA’s Sec­ond House, (and is the Sign that Plu­to is in), which indi­cates that the val­ues of the USA would be root­ed in Truths that have “stood the test of time”, what we would call more or less ever­last­ing spir­i­tu­al truths. That these truths would form the bedrock of val­ue or foun­da­tion for the nation, embod­ied into the Insti­tu­tions of the nation and enshrined into the laws that pro­tect all sacred unions and the Union of the nation itself.

With Plu­to the Avatar of the Will and hold­er of the Pow­er of Alche­my being in the Unit­ed States’ Sec­ond House, we would expect that the USA would be a Cre­ator of Val­ues by being a trans­former of val­ues through the pow­er of Alche­my. At the very incep­tion of the USA, as indi­cat­ed by this place­ment, the nation was found­ed upon a union, a join­ing by agree­ment among its mem­bers to pledge their lives and sacred hon­or to one another.

The USA was the first nation to be found­ed not on race, or reli­gion, or eth­nic­i­ty or any pri­or des­ig­na­tion; the USA was found­ed upon a Prin­ci­ple, it was to be a Covenant Nation, a join­ing, a fusion or Alchem­i­cal Nation of Trans­for­ma­tion. As it is declared on the seal of the Unit­ed States, it would be “A new order for the Cen­turies”. Found­ed upon a covenant com­pact, where all were to be equal before and pro­tect­ed by Laws that we agreed to, we would enshrine and pro­tect the Sacred Spaces of our unions and Union.

But that promise of equal­i­ty and jus­tice was trag­i­cal­ly bro­ken from the very out­set, and this calami­tous his­to­ry of wrongs forms the great bur­den of Kar­ma that the Unit­ed States has yet to address. Rather than a foun­da­tion in Spir­it and Free­dom, the Unit­ed States was made by the expro­pri­a­tion of lands and geno­cide of native peo­ples, and by the enslave­ment of peo­ples tak­en from their home­lands and held by ter­ror against their will as the prop­er­ty of others.

For much of US His­to­ry, the mea­sure of wealth, and the exer­cise of pow­er which flows from it, has often been nar­row­ly defined so as to exclude the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple from being as val­ued as they should; the exer­cise of pow­er was cir­cum­scribed and lim­it­ed to the few who held pow­er by land­ed or finan­cial wealth, so that far too many had lit­tle con­se­quen­tial pow­er, and were thwart­ed in their abil­i­ty to achieve their hopes and dreams.

Progress was made, and then reversed, time and time again. The lib­er­a­tion of the slave pop­u­la­tion after the Civ­il War, pro­duced a very brief peri­od of greater self-deter­mi­na­tion dur­ing Recon­struc­tion. That progress was bro­ken by a deal between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in 1877 that end­ed the Fed­er­al over­sight of the for­mer slave states, who then quick­ly estab­lished a sys­tem of law (and ter­ror) that pre­vent­ed any mean­ing­ful progress for almost anoth­er 100 years.

So let us look at the three pre­vi­ous align­ments of Plu­to to itself in the USA chart and see how that may help us under­stand the present return of Plu­to. Though the inter­ven­ing minor align­ments can prove illu­mi­nat­ing as well, these major turn­ings will be most help­ful. Again, our focus will remain upon the ques­tion of val­ue, prin­ci­pal­ly the essen­tial val­ue of the peo­ple and their pow­er to help one anoth­er to ful­fill their dreams.

Plu­to Square Plu­to 1848–50
The first major align­ment of Plu­to to Plu­to in the USA chart was the wax­ing square of 1848 to 1850. Cer­tain­ly, bring­ing its influ­ence to bear upon, but only exact after the Mex­i­can War of 1846–1848, the first major align­ment of Plu­to to itself can be seen as set­ting in motion the final, fate­ful steps that led to the Civ­il War. The grow­ing strug­gle to lim­it or extend slav­ery, was actu­al­ly the prin­ci­pal rea­son for which the Mex­i­can War was fought. The real “cause” of the Mex­i­can War were Amer­i­can slave­hold­ers and their polit­i­cal allies, who need­ed fresh lands to pur­sue their mono-crop cul­ture, (a sys­tem which con­tin­u­ous­ly exhausts the land, requir­ing new lands). The push by south­ern states to extend slav­ery through­out all the new­ly seized lands of Cal­i­for­nia, Ari­zona, New Mex­i­co, Neva­da, and Utah led to a com­pro­mise which includ­ed a much tougher Fugi­tive Slave Law.

From this moment of choice, “the die was cast”, and just like when Cae­sar crossed the Rubi­con, the ele­ments were set that would lead to the Civ­il War after Abra­ham Lincoln’s elec­tion in 1860. A strug­gle between two very dif­fer­ent ways of under­stand­ing what it means to be human, two very dif­fer­ent val­ue sys­tems, most espe­cial­ly in how we val­ue each and every human life, forced the USA to face its first great “cri­sis of val­ue”. That is what a square aspect presents, it is a turn­ing point, a fork in the road, and the deci­sion requires com­mit­ment to one way and a turn­ing away from the oth­er. It was an exis­ten­tial cri­sis between two whol­ly incom­pat­i­ble val­ue sys­tems, and only force would decide the issue.

Plu­to Oppo­site Plu­to 1936–37
The Oppo­si­tion is said to be the cli­max of a cycle of rela­tion­ship, when a rev­e­la­tion is at hand and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reap­ing the reward of good efforts since the wax­ing square or fac­ing the con­se­quences if inten­tions and actions were inad­e­quate. In the mid 1930’s, the USA (and the world) were in the great­est eco­nom­ic cri­sis called the Great Depres­sion. Now that was a cri­sis in val­ue! The entire­ty of the eco­nom­ic order for the world came crash­ing down.

To con­front the fail­ure of the “free from reg­u­la­tion” mar­kets of the world, some coun­tries turned to fas­cism, some to com­mu­nism, but in the Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Franklin Roo­sevelt chose the path of reform and renew­al. With pro­grams like the New Deal, like Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, and new eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­tions and poli­cies, a trans­for­ma­tion and renew­al of US Val­ue, of the essen­tial worth and val­ue of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple of the US led to an eco­nom­ic growth path that was more equi­table and just, and it last­ed for over 40 years. From the most con­cen­trat­ed income dis­tri­b­u­tion in 1929, the USA had its most equi­table growth in incomes across all per­centiles from the late 1940’s until the ear­ly 1980’s. The fun­da­men­tal idea behind all of this was that the essen­tial val­ue of the nation was its peo­ple, and they should be giv­en every oppor­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter them­selves, and that we should “invest” in one anoth­er, and by this spir­i­tu­al approach to our val­ue we would all benefit.

But begin­ning with the strug­gles to make the US soci­ety tru­ly more equi­table, with the Civ­il Rights move­ments and leg­is­la­tion in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, this push for true equal­i­ty fos­tered a counter-rev­o­lu­tion to what had been the New Deal Lib­er­al par­a­digm, which is known as Neo-lib­er­al­ism. The pro­po­nents of this the­o­ry sought to return the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment to the more unfet­tered cap­i­tal­ism of the late 1800’s. The claim was made that by slash­ing tax­es and reduc­ing reg­u­la­tions, and by return­ing the vast major­i­ty of wealth to the top per­centiles, the Unit­ed States could great­ly increase growth for the gen­er­al econ­o­my, and this would lead to a so-called “ris­ing tide that would lift all boats”. And it would be these poli­cies and their pro­po­nents who would come to pow­er in the next great turn­ing of Pluto.

Plu­to Square Plu­to 1982–1983
Just as the Plu­to square of 1848 to 1850 was a turn­ing point, so too was the square of 1982/83. But the dif­fer­ence is the 1840’s was a wax­ing square, which con­cerns a def­i­nite choice about the form or con­tent of what would emerge, it was a cri­sis of Action. For the 1980’s, the wan­ing square was a response to what was revealed at the oppo­si­tion of the 1930’s and required that a def­i­nite choice must be made the realm of mind, it was a Cri­sis in Consciousness.

Ronald Reagan’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of 1980 pro­mot­ed the fic­tion that the trou­bles fac­ing Amer­i­ca stemmed from one source, and he ran on the slo­gan that “the gov­ern­ment is the prob­lem”. The Repub­li­can pro­gram to dis­man­tle the New Deal sought to reduce or elim­i­nate the gen­er­al sup­port for wel­fare and val­ue of all Amer­i­cans, which had been cre­at­ed by Social Secu­ri­ty, Medicare, and by eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­tions, and reforms, and also envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions and oth­er social pro­grams. Over­time, most repub­li­cans and many democ­rats fer­vent­ly believed in or con­sent­ed to this “faith”, that by reduc­ing gov­ern­ment tax­a­tion and reg­u­la­tion, and return­ing wealth to the few, that this would lead to an eco­nom­ic miracle.

What it has cre­at­ed instead is what we see around us today. The USA has dis­in­vest­ed in its peo­ple and phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture for over 40 years now. In 2022, we have the great­est inequal­i­ty in wealth that we have ever had, sur­pass­ing the pre­vi­ous gap of 1929. We are back at the next great turn­ing of val­ue, but this time it is a begin­ning, like a New Moon, because this year we are expe­ri­enc­ing the Plu­to return.

The Plu­to Return 2022
At each turn­ing of Plu­to for the past 246 years, the USA has faced the task of address­ing the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion, “what is the essen­tial val­ue of the nation?” As it was in at the found­ing moment, so it has been at every turn­ing, in the Civ­il War, in Roosevelt’s New Deal, and in Reagan’s Neo-Lib­er­al Rev­o­lu­tion, the response to Plu­to has been to rede­fine and reval­ue the val­ue of Amer­i­cans them­selves, of how they see them­selves and how they treat one anoth­er, and to answer the ques­tion, “what is the real Wealth of the Nation?”

But those pre­vi­ous turn­ings were reac­tions and respons­es to what was laid down at the found­ing of the USA, of the first full cycle of promis­es kept and those that were not. What we are faced with now is the very real oppor­tu­ni­ty (and per­il) of a new begin­ning. At a New Moon, or here at a plan­e­tary return, the ener­gy-form and what it rep­re­sents releas­es a flow of new poten­tial from the root-source. That means, if we can hold in our hearts and mind the true nature as to the source of val­ue of our Covenant Nation, then we may be able to build a more spir­i­tu­al ver­sion of the USA.

For me, I see our present day strug­gles over “who” is an Amer­i­can, over who gets to decide how we will gov­ern our­selves, all the many con­fu­sions, dis­cords and even threats of vio­lence, as con­firm­ing that we are exact­ly in this moment of the new begin­ning. It is not yet formed; it is emerg­ing and the sto­ry of how great or small will be our con­tri­bu­tion to the promise of Amer­i­ca is yet to be known.

What we can­not know is what is going to hap­pen with Pluto’s return, for we are too close to it, but it is hap­pen­ing through each and every one of us. But if we want to be builders of that bet­ter vision and ver­sion of Amer­i­ca, we must be guid­ed by what is spir­i­tu­al­ly and unde­ni­ably right.

Giv­en what was promised, and what has hap­pened, the return of Plu­to for me means we must pledge our­selves once again to this very long jour­ney towards equal­i­ty and self-ful­fill­ment for one and for all. If we are to restore the promise, but make it bet­ter than before, we must acknowl­edge that our great­est trea­sure is our peo­ple, and that we should endeav­or to help each per­son and every group real­ize their fullest poten­tial. We must remem­ber that what made every one of us, and in fact dri­ves the entire­ty of Cre­ation, is that “we are what we are” through the pow­er of com­bi­na­tion, forged by the mys­tery of Alchemy.

To do this work, we must sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er to build a bet­ter tomor­row. We must let go of our fears and cre­ate a space of for­give­ness for growth. We can take a small leap of faith, that starts with the under­stand­ing of the essen­tial good­ness of one anoth­er, and that each of us is not just capa­ble of but in fact must change if we are to grow.

We are the wealth of this Nation. And the source and mea­sure of this wealth is our love for one another.

We must remem­ber that we were made from love, and we are sim­ply here to love one another.