The New Year – Part 1 (Jan­u­ary 2017)

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As our civ­il cal­en­dar turns the page to a New Year, it seems most fit­ting to look back upon the year just past so that we might bet­ter under­stand from whence we have come; to con­sid­er where we are now; and to look out ahead and see if we might dis­cern more clear­ly whith­er we are going.

Regard­less what the plan­ets and stars may pro­vide, we must always remem­ber that although they are the Avatars of the ener­gies that inform and guide our lives, it remains for us to deter­mine what use we will make of these “Gifts of the Spir­it”. As the great bard, Shake­speare wrote in his play Julius Cae­sar:

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars,
But in our­selves, that we are underlings.”

It is upon each of us to do our part, to lis­ten for our “voice of the silence”, our high­er self, our spir­i­tu­al com­pass, and choose how we shall strive to make our­selves bet­ter and so cre­ate a bet­ter world for those who come after us. How these ener­gies play out, as they sur­round, inform and hold us as one to one anoth­er, depend upon the devel­op­ment of our spir­i­tu­al tri­ad, our Wis­dom-Love-Will. It is by our self-unfold­ment or spir­i­tu­al growth that we may more grace­ful­ly embody these ener­gies, and find our way to their best appli­ca­tion and most benef­i­cent manifestation. 

The most con­se­quen­tial Astro­log­i­cal align­ment for 2016 was the square between the plan­ets Sat­urn and Nep­tune. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, is about 36 years in dura­tion and they will form their most chal­leng­ing aspects, (con­junc­tion, wax­ing square, oppo­si­tion and wan­ing square), rough­ly 9 years apart. Their most recent cycle began at the con­junc­tion of 1989, lead­ing to their wax­ing square of 1998 and to their oppo­si­tion of 2006-07, and final­ly to their wan­ing square this past year, (they will start a new cycle at their con­junc­tion in 2026).

Their ser­i­al rev­o­lu­tions artic­u­late the rela­tion­ship between Order (Sat­urn) and Dreams (Nep­tune), or Real­i­ty and Fan­ta­sy, or Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Sac­ri­fice. In the realm of Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, of Polit­i­cal-Eco­nom­ic-Cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na, it is inter­est­ing to note that the three most recent con­junc­tions of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, per­fect­ly align with the birth of the USSR (1917), the Cold War (1952–3) and the col­lapse of the Com­mu­nist order (1989).

For Per­son-Cen­tered Astrol­o­gy, for you and I, when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these align­ments of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, we should see it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine how close­ly we are hold­ing togeth­er, in a mean­ing­ful and respon­si­ble man­ner, the del­i­cate and inte­gral bal­ance between our dreams and our real­i­ty. There are pre­cious moments in any one life, or in the lives of a peo­ple, when their dream becomes real­i­ty. But there are those despair-filled times too, when the chasm between real­i­ty and the dream is (seem­ing­ly) unbridgeable.

There are those pre­cious moments in time and space when what we believe and what we expe­ri­ence are in greater res­o­nance, so that what we imag­ine our world should be like is what we indeed encounter. And there are times, such as this past year, when what is “real­ly real”, what is unde­ni­ably a “fact” and what is fic­tion­al (or false) become hope­less­ly confused.

What are we, (or what were we sup­posed), to do when faced with such con­fu­sion and mis­un­der­stand­ing? The square aspect between two plan­ets quite lit­er­al­ly calls upon us to face this these two Avatars, in this case Sat­urn and Nep­tune, not with fear or appre­hen­sion, but with a renewed and Rea­son­able Faith com­bined with a Com­pas­sion­ate Real­ism. We need to bring the two Ener­gy-Forms togeth­er, for that is the path of Spir­it, the Inte­gral Path, for it is by this that you will find and forge a new or bet­ter way. We should embrace this and every such turn­ing as a nec­es­sary chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for growth.

If all the Great Teach­ings are true, then the entire­ty of Cre­ation is Spir­it. If so, then the one con­stant of this Uni­verse is Growth. Then it fol­lows that the oth­er con­stant of this Uni­verse of Spir­it is Change too. We need to con­sid­er how we can find a Path­way that helps us to con­tin­u­al­ly clar­i­fy our Dreams and to fold them into an ever more mean­ing-filled Real­i­ty. We need to find a way through both our inter­nal divi­sions and the divi­sions between one anoth­er, so that we might heal the divide between our present Real­i­ty and our Hopes and Dreams for a bet­ter world.

Since Nep­tune is the dom­i­nant influ­ence, (being the out­er­most plan­et), the challenge/opportunity was for each of us to allow Nep­tune to help us to slip beyond our assumptions/certainties about the nature of our real­i­ty and at least imag­ine (if not come to under­stand and believe) that there were oth­er dreams and real­i­ties that are co-present and co-exist­ing. That all of these sub-real­i­ties, from the small­est to the largest “Dream-Real­i­ties”, are part of the One, the Greater Real­i­ty in which we tru­ly abide.

Part of Neptune’s way is to dis­solve or eat away at the fab­ric of our per­cep­tion of real­i­ty so that it can be re-formed, re-shaped and trans­formed into a more encom­pass­ing expe­ri­ence of what we tru­ly abide in, that Greater Real­i­ty. Typ­i­cal­ly, we move from a peri­od of cer­tain­ty about our assump­tions about our world into a peri­od of doubt and mis­un­der­stand­ing. These will begin to grow and cre­ate greater dis­so­nance lead­ing to greater doubts, claims and counter-claims as to what is true or false. Final­ly, many if not most will find them­selves in a state of great con­fu­sion and mis­trust, doubt­ing them­selves and one anoth­er, as a com­mon­ly accept­ed dream-real­i­ty gives way because the bonds of affin­i­ty between indi­vid­u­als and groups dissolve.

With­out a shared under­stand­ing, with­out an agree­ment as to what are the dreams we share and what is the real­i­ty we face, with­out this wide­ly shared Dream-Real­i­ty, the shad­ows of fear and blame are unleashed. This break­down in a shared Dream-Real­i­ty erodes our trust in one anoth­er, and under­mines our shared sense of com­mit­ment to, and will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice for, the good of one another.

But do not “blame” the Plan­et Nep­tune. This Nep­tun­ian fog of dis­so­lu­tion is not here to bring about harm to you or your world. It is mere­ly there to reveal what was and is becom­ing more and more appar­ent. That for­ev­er and always you and your world were chang­ing, and you had reached a time which required a let­ting go of your lim­it­ed assump­tions so that you might find a way to cre­ate a more encom­pass­ing Dream-Real­i­ty for your­self and your world.

These Illu­mi­na­tions of Nep­tune are stronger now than they have been for a very long time, and that is because Nep­tune is cur­rent­ly mov­ing through its own sign of Pisces from 2011 until 2026. The last time Nep­tune was in Pisces was from 1848–1862, and it was a time of great Spir­i­tu­al, Artis­tic and Social transformation…and it will be so in our own time too.

Then as now the par­a­digm of beliefs shift­ed, and for a time the mean­ing and pur­pose of what should be the foun­da­tion of Dream-Real­i­ty was con­test­ed by indi­vid­u­als and groups. Cer­tain­ly, it was no acci­dent that here in Amer­i­ca, it was when the awful crime against Spir­it at the found­ing of our nation, the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery, was con­front­ed and ulti­mate­ly abolished.

May you find a sim­i­lar courage to face your shad­ows and fears today.

You can find your way for­ward by remem­ber­ing to hon­or and to hold to the fun­da­men­tal teach­ings that have guid­ed you through the best and the worst of times.

May you find com­fort and guid­ance in the great teach­ings, sto­ries and lives of those who have walked these same paths that you must fol­low too. Their exam­ple of Wis­dom, Love and Cen­tered Will is there for you:

Be guid­ed by the Wise Ones, who know there is no reli­gion high­er than Truth.
Walk the path of the Great-Souls, who prac­tice the Wis­dom of Love.
Find inspi­ra­tion in the Lone­ly Ones, their Will­ing-Sac­ri­fice hon­ored by
the Angels and Devas above.
Lis­ten for the Voice of the Silence, attend the gen­tle whis­pers in your Heart,
And you will find “The Way”.

 

The New Year – Part 2 (Jan­u­ary 2017)

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 2 – Where

A New Year is upon us, and you need to know what do the signs in the heav­ens por­tend? You can per­ceive the facts or real­i­ty of your world as they appear to you. But what is behind that appear­ance or phe­nom­e­na of real­i­ty. What are the “Noume­na” behind the appear­ances? What are the deep­er forces cours­ing through your world that can inform and guide your jour­ney today? What you need to know is “Where” am I now?

As 2017 begins two major align­ments are in place: Jupiter is Oppo­site to Uranus from Decem­ber 2016 until Sep­tem­ber 2017; and, Jupiter is Squar­ing Plu­to from Novem­ber 2016 through August 2017. What this means is that you are going through some­thing this year that is some­what like what you encoun­tered in 2013. That was when Jupiter was squar­ing Uranus; and Jupiter was Oppo­site Pluto.

This also serves as a reminder that the major aspect from 2012, of Uranus Squar­ing Plu­to, is still here in 2017. The Uranus/Pluto aspect is the major theme of this decade. Their rela­tion­ship, along with Plu­to mov­ing through the sign of Capri­corn, forms the fun­da­men­tal Ener­gy-Form, the deep­est melody of spir­it, con­sti­tut­ing our chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty to find a bet­ter inte­gral bal­ance of Free­dom and Order. This ongo­ing chal­lenge is still thrum­ming through your world this year, (just as it did dur­ing their con­junc­tion in the 1960’s, or their pre­vi­ous square in the 1930’s…and yes, many peo­ple have not­ed how sim­i­lar “our” time now is to those two periods…and they are cor­rect to do so).

But for our peri­od there is an added over-tone, the march of Plu­to through Capri­corn, (from 2008 to 2024), also car­ries the echoes of its pre­vi­ous pas­sages through this sign, (1516–1532 and 1762–1778). The ear­li­er peri­od accom­pa­nied the breakup of the Feu­dal Order, the rise of Absolute Monar­chies, and the split­ting of the Catholic Faith; the lat­ter peri­od accom­pa­nied the Fall of Monar­chies and the Rise of Par­lia­men­tary Democ­ra­cies. Each time an old world was super­seded by the emer­gence of a new Spir­i­tu­al-Polit­i­cal-Cul­tur­al-Eco­nom­ic order. Each also wit­nessed the emer­gence of a new kind of “human”, as New Thought-Forms and New Forms of Self-Real­iza­tion co-cre­at­ed a new kind of human, a new human-kind.

The peo­ples of those peri­ods, as we in our time, found them­selves in a “world turned upside down”, with social bonds break­ing, insti­tu­tions col­laps­ing, and the with­er­ing of old sources of influ­ence or pow­er and the emer­gence of new ones. For us, as it was for them, we also find our very way of life, and the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to embody, pre­serve and pro­tect our soci­ety and cul­ture, seem­ing­ly falling apart around us.

The good news? Our fore­bears sur­vived, and prospered…and so should we. We have been here in some way many times before, and we will find our way through this trou­ble-filled time too. For this year, (and always), you can rely upon the Wis­dom of the Stars, as con­veyed to you espe­cial­ly now by the twin mes­sag­ing of Jupiter Oppo­site Uranus, and Jupiter Square Pluto.

Jupiter is the Avatar of Phi­los­o­phy, Sci­ence and Reli­gion. It forms and informs how you relate to your world, as it rep­re­sents the beliefs that shape and guide your actions. Dur­ing its three pass­es over Uranus and Plu­to it will be shin­ing this light of under­stand­ing from the Sign of Libra as it is mod­u­lat­ed by Uranus’ posi­tion in Aries, and Pluto’s in Capricorn.

Uranus/Jupiter:
The mes­sage of Uranus/Jupiter address­es the del­i­cate bal­ance (or the neces­si­ty of main­tain­ing an ever-present and dynam­ic equi­lib­ri­um), between, 1) Being more tru­ly one­self as an indi­vid­ual, (Uranus in Aries), while at the same time, 2) Evolv­ing greater social intel­li­gence so that in any rela­tion­ship you can bring about a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial expe­ri­ence of self-ful­fill­ment in your rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er, (Jupiter in Libra).

Uranus in Aries argues for Free­dom for the Self above all; Jupiter in Libra coun­ters with the real­i­ty that “Real­i­ty is Rela­tion­ship”, that the Uni­verse is a web of inter-con­nec­tiv­i­ty and with­out this noth­ing (and no one), could exist. Tak­en to extremes, which oppos­ing plan­ets can often do, you have Absolute Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty opposed by Absolute Com­mu­ni­ty. What are you to do?

As always, the path of truth is found “in-between”, upon that noble mid­dle path of inte­gra­tion. Each of these truths, Indi­vid­u­al­ism vs. Com­mu­nal­ism, each of them depends upon the oth­er, are tru­ly part of one anoth­er. Each tak­en to an extreme is anti-spir­it, anti-truth. Only by hold­ing and bal­anc­ing them, one with one anoth­er, only there can you find the weav­ing-way of your true spir­i­tu­al nature.

Each of us is a unique spark of the Divine; yet each of us is also the very col­lec­tive-cre­ation made from all our interactions/interrelationships with one anoth­er too…We are each a unique “one of a kind”; but we are all of some “kind”, insep­a­ra­bly made by one anoth­er and of one anoth­er, and so out of the many we are also One.

Pluto/Jupiter:
The mes­sage of Pluto/Jupiter address­es the equal­ly del­i­cate bal­ance between, 1) Exer­cis­ing your Will/Power as artic­u­lat­ed by the var­i­ous hier­ar­chi­cal roles in your cul­ture (Plu­to in Capri­corn), while at the same time, 2) Guid­ing that Will’s appli­ca­tion by the social con­tracts (implic­it and explic­it) whose basis is formed by the Beliefs-Truths of your cul­ture that become enshrined/enforced into Laws, and that these Ideals are what shape and deter­mine what is the right­ful exer­cise and lim­its of your will (Jupiter in Libra).

Plu­to in Capri­corn has been exert­ing tremen­dous pres­sures since 2008, and these cathar­tic waves have erod­ed the nor­mal insti­tu­tion­al foun­da­tions as well as con­straints for Will and Pow­er in your world. These trans­for­ma­tion­al forces of Plu­to are dis­rupt­ing the insti­tu­tion­al struc­tures of pow­er, cre­at­ing a loss of con­fi­dence in insti­tu­tions as well encour­ag­ing the emer­gence of new, con­tend­ing sources of Will and Authority.

Reac­tionary forces, seek­ing to pre­serve pow­er and priv­i­lege, by seek­ing to hold onto their pre­rog­a­tives, become ever more abu­sive of their pow­er. Mean­while, the emer­gence of new sources of pow­er and will puts them in con­tention with the old ways, and fur­ther erodes the con­fi­dence in the real­i­ty struc­tures of your world. Both the legit­i­mate and abu­sive attempts to pre­serve the old, and the cre­ative and destruc­tive attempts to replace the old order, lead to ever greater crises in your insti­tu­tions and culture.

Plu­to in Capri­corn is doing what it is sup­posed to do, tear­ing down the old ways so that a New World can come into being. Jupiter in Libra can pro­vide a bea­con of light as you seek to find your way in a world careen­ing through frac­tured realms of reality/myth, fact/falsehood, truth/lies. The prin­ci­ple ques­tions are: from where does any wield­er of pow­er derive their Author­i­ty; and what guides and lim­its their exer­cise of their Will and Power?

In our time, as in those pre­vi­ous peri­ods of trans­for­ma­tion, the answers will not be found in the lat­est iter­a­tions of Right vs. Might. Rather, when­ev­er this cathar­sis and re-birth of soci­ety shakes the foun­da­tions of a world, it shat­ters the appear­ances of things to reveal once again the greater truths upon which your Jour­ney in Spir­it will for­ev­er remain cen­tered and secured.

You are here now to remem­ber…
You are here now because you are to stand in the Light of Uni­ver­sal Spir­i­tu­al Truths.

A world must pass for a new world to emerge, but the core ele­ments that bind togeth­er all the worlds that were, are and are yet to be remain. Look to the Great Ones, the teach­ers who seri­al­ly come forth to re-state the Ancient Wis­dom. More than their thoughts, look at their way of being, how their embod­i­ment of Uni­ver­sal Truths in their lives shine a light for us to fol­low. The teach­ers do not require or need your wor­ship; they have come to inspire you to life a spir­i­tu­al­ly inte­gral life.

With regards to “human” laws, look to the sacred his­to­ry of the great law­givers, the Laws of Manu in India, to Baby­lon and the Codex Ham­mura­bi, to the Laws of Rome, our own Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, to the Dec­la­ra­tion of the Rights of Man and to the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights. All these human laws find their Foun­tain-Source of ever­last­ing Truth in the Fun­da­men­tal Teach­ings of all Ages, The Ancient Wisdom.

A core prin­ci­ple, a fun­da­men­tal Law of that Ancient Wis­dom is this:

Every speck and mote of this Cre­ation, every being, world and Galac­tic Sys­tem has at its core a spark of the one Divine Flame. This core of Light and Love anchors the Sacred Space with­in which that being abides. It is by and through this Sacred Cen­ter of Love-Light that every Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it finds their own cen­ter, their own space of Will-Pow­er, and yet this truth equal­ly affirms our essen­tial con­nec­tion to one anoth­er too. For what abides in that cen­ter of one and all is a Divine Spark of the One Divine Light. Tru­ly we are insep­a­ra­ble, because of our ori­gin in the One, and through all our many Lives and Loves we are held togeth­er, all our lit­tle Wills held in lov­ing under­stand­ing by the Love and the Will of the One.

There­fore, whomev­er you encounter is anoth­er just like you. In fact, in their heart of hearts they are already of you and you are of them. This law, found­ed by your ori­gin in and of the One, and bound togeth­er by your sacred cen­ter that is a spark of this One, means that before me is anoth­er self-lumi­nous dew-drop of the one Divine Light. To bring about or cause harm to this or any oth­er is to irrev­o­ca­bly do equal harm to myself.

This is The Law of Kar­ma: That what­ev­er you cre­ate, what­ev­er action, feel­ing or thought you make will return to you. This is the source of the Great Teach­ing regard­ing rela­tion­ship found in all sacred teachings:

“Do unto oth­ers as you would have them do unto you.
For you are all relat­ed, and what you do to the least of these,
You do unto me, The One.”

This is Sacred Law…

This is the Source of Right and Truth…Love.

Fol­low the Ancient Wis­dom, fol­low your heart.

Love one­self,

Love one another,

Just Love.

The New Year – Part 3 (Jan­u­ary 2017)

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 3 – Whither

Hav­ing con­sid­ered where we have come from, and where we are now, it remains for us to attempt to be “seers”, to lift our hearts and minds to con­sid­er the dawn­ing of our tomorrows.

As I have men­tioned in many inter­views and post­ings, the changes you and your world are wit­ness­ing only come upon us every 250 years or so. This end of an age is also the birth of a New World…and it is this tran­si­tion, this pre­car­i­ous-pre­cious moment is your Respon­si­bil­i­ty. That you are here now is no acci­dent, what­ev­er you may think your life is for…this, this is your True Purpose:

You are here to wise­ly pass on the best of what was, and to lov­ing­ly pro­tect and nur­ture the birth of this New Earth. You are here for those who come after, your chil­dren, and your children’s children.

As you attempt to see around the next cor­ner of time, what might you find wait­ing for you on your path of Des­tiny in the years to come?

Plu­to:
We will be under the influ­ence of Plu­to in Capri­corn until 2024. The cathar­sis-meta­mor­pho­sis it has brought into the Hier­ar­chies of Real­i­ty is hard­ly com­plete, in fact we are only half-way through this cycle of re-birth. The tests of Will and Pow­er in the hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures of your world will con­tin­ue to rever­ber­ate through all realms, per­son­al, social, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal. When it moves into Aquar­ius, you will more clear­ly begin to see your hard-won conservation/preservation/renewal efforts reveal the New World that is dawning.

Nep­tune:
Like­wise the mys­te­ri­ous, mag­i­cal and Illu­mi­na­tive pas­sage of Nep­tune will con­tin­ue until 2026. The bound­aries between cor­po­re­al and incor­po­re­al realms will con­tin­ue to become ever more porous. True Spir­i­tu­al inti­ma­tions will be counter-point­ed with the Illu­sion­ary, (the con­fus­ing and dis­si­pat­ing forms of the low­er astral planes), and it will take great wis­dom to dis­cern from what realm your inspi­ra­tions or night­mares come.

Do not “force” spir­i­tu­al intu­ition or per­cep­tions, let them grow nat­u­ral­ly, so that you may find your “clear-see­ing” through a bal­anced accord and inte­gra­tion with your spir­i­tu­al matu­ri­ty and wis­dom. Inspi­ra­tion and Cre­ativ­i­ty in the Arts will soar, and the whis­pers of new tomor­rows will exert ever stronger pulls on both dream­ers and fear-mon­gers alike. Stand in your truth, hew to the Ancient Wis­dom and find your Faith in the renew­al of your pow­er as a Creator.

Uranus:
2017 will be the last full year for Uranus in Aries. Dur­ing 2018 it will begin to enter Tau­rus, only to retreat into Aries in Novem­ber 2018, and return to Tau­rus for 7 years in March 2019. Uranus, the Awak­en­er, will turn his atten­tion from the realm of Ide­al­is­tic Pas­sions and Dri­ves (Aries), to the realm of Val­ues and Sub­stance. The shock and awe of the “New Thought-Forms” from 2010–2018 will give way to the neces­si­ty of Inno­v­a­tive Appli­ca­tions. The ques­tion will be: which of these new ways of think­ing will work in fact?

Equal­ly, the Hier­ar­chy of Val­ue, of what is desired or more trea­sured in our soci­ety will go through great change. Some val­ues that were the most prized of trea­sures will fade away, (for exam­ple: coal, oil), and a range of val­ues will be chal­lenged and reassessed. There will be a resur­gence and renew­al of spir­i­tu­al val­ues, which will lead to the heal­ing of the mate­r­i­al imbal­ances and dev­as­ta­tions that imper­il life on our Earth.

Sat­urn:
At the very end of 2017, Sat­urn will move from Sagit­tar­ius into Capri­corn. What­ev­er Sign Sat­urn is mov­ing through, that is the “space” where you and your world will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow and learn. By con­fronting error and choos­ing to do bet­ter, through your hard-won efforts at self-improve­ment, this will be exact­ly the place where you will reveal your tru­ly spir­i­tu­al nature. You need to always remem­ber, that you are here for one thing, you are here quite sim­ply to grow.

Since 2015 your spir­i­tu­al tests and oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth were focused in the sign of Sagit­tar­ius, your tests have been “Tests of Truth”. When Sat­urn enters Capri­corn, (its “own” sign) in Decem­ber 2017, your tests will move from the realm of Ideals, Prin­ci­ples and Laws to the realm of Sub­stan­ti­a­tion. Your test will be to align your Ideals and your Reality.

While Sat­urn is in Capri­corn, you will face your chal­lenges in the realm of Respon­si­bil­i­ties, Duties and how well you under­stand your own true Pur­pose. The spir­i­tu­al ques­tions will not be about “Suc­cess” or “Pow­er”, the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion will be how do you under­stand what it means to be tru­ly Ful­filled? Capri­corn is about your Des­tiny, and the answer is found in your Ori­gin. Do you know and remem­ber what you tru­ly are? Do you under­stand that you are part of an Inte­gral Hier­ar­chy of Spir­it, and that all of Life is Sacred? You are here to Ful­fill your Respon­si­bil­i­ties, to your­self, to your fam­i­ly, to your community…to Life itself.

Jupiter:
From Sep­tem­ber 2016 until Octo­ber 2017, Jupiter will be mov­ing through Libra. Then from Octo­ber 2017 until Novem­ber 2018, Jupiter will be in Scor­pio. As I not­ed in Part 2 of this three-part series, the dom­i­nant role of Jupiter in 2017 will be expe­ri­enced in the inter­play between it and the plan­ets Uranus and Plu­to. The strug­gle to bal­ance Freedom/Individuality (Uranus) and Power/Authority (Plu­to) will be informed by Jupiter’s pas­sage through Libra, which is mod­u­lat­ing the Uranus/Pluto square with the Prin­ci­ples embod­ied in Right Rela­tion­ships. The key is to relate to your­self and to one anoth­er with­in a Dynam­ic Equi­lib­ri­um, where an Inte­gral bal­ance of Self-Sac­ri­fice and Self-Real­iza­tion will fos­ter and pre­serve right relationships.

In Decem­ber 2017 and through­out most of 2018, Jupiter in Scor­pio will move into a Beau­ti­ful­ly Har­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with the plan­et Nep­tune in Pisces. The Wis­dom and Guid­ance of Jupiter in Scor­pio is focused upon the process­es and chal­lenges you encounter in forg­ing, main­tain­ing and dis­solv­ing the Unions of your life. The prin­ci­pal chal­lenge you face in this sphere con­cerns the neces­si­ty of Sacrifice.

Through­out your jour­ney, whether join­ing with one oth­er in an inti­mate rela­tion­ship, or join­ing with many in a joint ven­ture, you will be required to give up something(s) to be or work with them. The prob­lem is that you may sur­ren­der some­thing of you that makes you “you”, (this is known as a “false-sac­ri­fice”), and if you do so your attempt to forge or main­tain a union ends up being harm­ful to your­self (and often to oth­ers), and the union will and must inevitably fail.

The Intu­itive Inspi­ra­tions of Nep­tune this year will pro­vide a deep­er under­stand­ing of the nature of the Union you are in or are try­ing to form. Your clear­er-see­ing (clair­voy­ance) will per­mit you to more adept­ly per­ceive what is and what is not nego­tiable with­in you, and it will shine a greater light of under­stand­ing upon the other(s) as to whether there is enough com­mon val­ue to hold you to one anoth­er in a union in the first place.

More gen­er­al­ly, the Trine of Jupiter and Nep­tune will fos­ter larg­er ranges of Spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ences, and there will be a greater need for and more mov­ing expe­ri­ences of Lov­ing Com­pas­sion and Empa­thy. There will be a sig­nif­i­cant ele­va­tion in and appre­ci­a­tion for Cre­ativ­i­ty and the Arts. Both the Spir­i­tu­al and Artis­tic realms in your world will ful­fill their High­est func­tions, to bring ever greater mean­ing and benef­ic influ­ences into your life and World.

 

The New Year – Part 4 – The USA (Jan­u­ary 2017)

The USA

In the pre­vi­ous three essays, I have exam­ined the recent past, present and near future of Uni­ver­sal Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions, (what are termed “tran­sits to tran­sits”), that form the over­all Ener­gy-Forms pre­vail­ing dur­ing any par­tic­u­lar peri­od of time. In this essay, I will pro­vide some analy­sis of the more impor­tant tran­sits and sig­nif­i­cant fea­tures of the Charts of the USA. In the fol­low­ing essay I will exam­ine the chart and tran­sits for Don­ald Trump.

The repeat­ed align­ments of a par­tic­u­lar plan­et to a fea­ture in any chart will always exhib­it a spe­cif­ic qual­i­ty. But the exact nature of the expe­ri­ence will change depend­ing upon what oth­er astro­log­i­cal aspects are in effect for that chart, com­bined with the influ­ences formed by the gen­er­al astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions that are also in effect.

The most impor­tant tran­sit in the chart of the USA for 2016 was the Square of Uranus to the USA Mer­cury. The cir­cuit of Uranus around the zodi­ac takes approx­i­mate­ly 84 years, so that Uranus will form a “hard” aspect to Mer­cury in any chart every 21 years or so. More­over, the inter­pre­ta­tion of these effects will vary with the exact type of con­tact (Con­junc­tion, Wax­ing Square, Oppo­si­tion or Wan­ing Square).

The cur­rent cycle of Uranus to the USA Mer­cury began with the con­junc­tion of 1954–55, lead­ing to the wax­ing square of 1973–74, arriv­ing at the oppo­si­tion of 1994, and final­ly to the wan­ing square of 2016–17. Every time this con­tact occurs, the thought-forms and the forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the USA are shook up and trans­formed. But in terms of the same moment in this cycle, (the wan­ing square), the last occur­rences were in 1933–34 and 1849–50.

The pre­vi­ous sim­i­lar tran­sit of 1933–34 accom­pa­nied the many trans­for­ma­tion­al efforts and reac­tionary push­backs to FDR’s “New Deal”, with many gov­ern­men­tal pro­grams invented/instituted to deal with the cri­sis of the Great Depres­sion accom­pa­nied by stri­dent oppo­si­tion from those opposed to gov­ern­ment expansion.

The 1849–50 tran­sit, saw the tumul­tuous strug­gle to “solve” the prob­lem of slav­ery with the “Com­pro­mise of 1850”, regard­ing the admis­sion of the ter­ri­to­ries secured in the Mex­i­can War as to whether they would be a free or slave state. Part of this com­pro­mise also wit­nessed the enact­ment of the “Fugi­tive Slave Law” requir­ing free states to return escaped slaves, and the Supreme Court made slav­ery a pro­tect­ed insti­tu­tion. This “com­pro­mise” only served to delay the inevitable show­down between two incom­pat­i­ble and dis­parate ways of life, between a soci­ety found­ed upon free­dom for all or bondage for many.

Real­ly, in both cas­es, the thought-forms of the time were put to the test with regards as to whether the peo­ple of the USA accept, under­stand and share with one anoth­er enough com­mon­ly held beliefs, which are the spir­i­tu­al-intel­lec­tu­al-emo­tion­al bonds to hold them to one anoth­er in mutu­al under­stand­ing. Each peri­od brought into sharp relief, the dif­fer­ences between groups and regions of the coun­try. Old forms of think­ing were chal­lenged by new ones, and attempts to return to the “old ways” ver­sus leap­ing into new ones caused fric­tions and frac­tures in the society.

Uranus is known as the “Awak­en­er”, whose thun­der­bolts of “new ways of think­ing and of new ideas”, serve to shake you and your world. Mer­cury rules the Mind and com­mu­ni­ca­tions gen­er­al­ly, and so their com­bi­na­tion is very apro­pos. In a mun­dane chart (like a cor­po­ra­tion or in this case a nation), the natal plan­ets will denote spe­cif­ic qual­i­ties of that enti­ty. Mer­cury rules the Thought-Forms of the peo­ple in gen­er­al, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Trans­porta­tions of a coun­try, the Lit­er­ary world and the Intel­li­gentsia, the Press, Edu­ca­tors and Edu­ca­tion­al Institutions.

Mer­cury indi­cates for a nation, the over­all capac­i­ty to form a con­sen­sus for under­stand­ing Real­i­ty, the means for acquir­ing infor­ma­tion, and the abil­i­ty to dis­cern fact from fiction.

Cer­tain­ly, the US expe­ri­ence of 2016 is one that shook up the ordi­nary in what we “heard, thought and shared” with one anoth­er. The nor­mal bound­aries of speech, the agree­ments of com­mon­ly shared assump­tions and truths, the con­sid­er­a­tions of social dis­course that depend upon our tol­er­ance for one anoth­er ground­ed in mutu­al respect, these “norms” were bro­ken down or even shattered.

Lit­er­al­ly, the ner­vous sys­tem of many, and the men­tal­i­ty of the times, was rocked back and forth lead­ing to a grow­ing con­di­tion of spir­i­tu­al dis-ease, with men­tal, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal exhaus­tion becom­ing the norm and bane for many.

In the chart of the USA, the most impor­tant aspect of Mer­cury is the oppo­si­tion to the plan­et Plu­to, the ruler of Will-Pow­er. The com­bi­na­tion of Mer­cury with Plu­to cre­ates a “men­tal­i­ty” with great pow­ers of obser­va­tion and con­cen­tra­tion, unique­ly endowed with a capac­i­ty for research, with the abil­i­ty to delve into greater depths of under­stand­ing and equal­ly extend the range of comprehension. 

But equal­ly, when mis­ap­plied, as is often the case with an oppo­si­tion, this com­bi­na­tion of the Will and Mind can lead to obses­sion­al think­ing, a will-full­ness and deter­mi­na­tion that can lead to the attempt to bend oth­ers to a cer­tain belief or thought. When Might makes Right, then rea­son, con­sid­er­a­tion, under­stand­ing and our tol­er­ance for one anoth­er will fail.

Our democ­ra­cy depends upon the free exchange of ideas, where there is a mutu­al respect and tol­er­ance for one anoth­er to under­pin and pre­serve our free exchange of thoughts, so that our ideas may com­pete with one anoth­er, and from this we may find the best and bright­est ideas to bring about the most benef­i­cent effects for one and all. It is this very cru­cible of forg­ing bet­ter under­stand­ing with and between one anoth­er that will face an even greater chal­lenge in 2017.

For as much as 2016 was char­ac­ter­ized by the surg­ing dis­qui­et and dis­rup­tion in thought-forms for the USA with Uranus over Mer­cury, it was already eliciting/activating the plan­et in oppo­si­tion to Mer­cury, Plu­to. In 2017 Uranus, will be exact­ly squar­ing Plu­to (while still influ­enc­ing Mer­cury). Uranus is the Avatar of Free­dom and Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, and Plu­to is the Avatar of Will and of Pow­er. Much as the world in gen­er­al has been under­go­ing the strug­gle of Uranus Squar­ing Plu­to for sev­er­al years now, it will now take cen­ter stage in our very own nation­al chart in 2017.

There has been much dis­cus­sion of late, and obser­va­tions here and around the world, of the rise (and seem­ing) appeal of Author­i­tar­i­an­ism. Cer­tain­ly, the con­tin­u­ing align­ments of Uranus and Plu­to, (much as their sim­i­lar square her­ald­ed in the 1930’s, and many observers have not­ed how our time mir­rors that one), and the unease and uncer­tain­ties brought about the “end of an age” with Plu­to swing­ing through Capri­corn, have led some to seek a sim­pler answer to their trou­bles, they look for their sal­va­tion in a “strong” leader.

But through­out his­to­ry, and as our founders who wrote the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence and our Con­sti­tu­tion knew all too well, (hav­ing them­selves thrown off a monar­chi­cal or absolute despo­tism), the end result of invest­ing one or a few with too much pow­er is Tyranny.

That is pre­cise­ly why our sys­tem is built and based upon a series of “checks and bal­ances”, so that pow­er is dis­trib­uted and not con­cen­trat­ed. The heart and cor­ner­stone of our self-gov­ern­ment is the prin­ci­ple of “Free Speech”. It is no acci­dent that this sacred prin­ci­ple is enshrined in the 1^st Amendment:

“Con­gress shall make no law respect­ing an estab­lish­ment of reli­gion, or pro­hibit­ing the free exer­cise there­of; or abridg­ing the free­dom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the peo­ple peace­ably to assem­ble, and to peti­tion the Gov­ern­ment for a redress of grievances.”

Uranus squar­ing Plu­to is the inte­gral strug­gle to bal­ance Free­dom and Will. It is a reminder to you that the true and Spir­i­tu­al use of your Will is so that you can become Self-Mas­ter­ful, and that you are here to learn to Respect one anoth­er and to exer­cise Self-Con­trol. It is a Spir­i­tu­al crime to abuse this pow­er, and the use of the Will to dom­i­nate or sub­ju­gate oth­ers is known as (Spir­i­tu­al) Tres­pass­ing. (Again, it is no acci­dent that it is one of the “Ten Commandments”).

There will be times, such as what you now encounter, where some will attempt to force their Ideas upon you, to “box” you in, to dimin­ish and dam­age the sacred Hier­ar­chy of Respon­si­bil­i­ty and attempt to divide you from one anoth­er. But as much as Plu­to and the Will may be used ille­git­i­mate­ly as the pow­er to bring unjust force upon anoth­er, know that it is equal­ly your Pow­er to Resist this too.

Do not let your­self be “boxed in” or divid­ed from one anoth­er. Do not accept the efforts by some to fos­ter a “False Real­i­ty”, as they seek to weak­en oth­er sources of Rea­son and Author­i­ty, and by so doing seek to break down the com­mon bonds which hold us to one anoth­er in Faith and Love.

Author­i­tar­i­ans seek to hold all pow­er, which depends upon their efforts to divide you from your lov­ing Spir­i­tu­al nature. They will attempt to cre­ate a “sim­ple real­i­ty” of “Us and Them”, of “Light and Dark”. They will whis­per (and shout) that only they have the answer…but your high­er self will remind you, that these are the shad­ow-forms of dam­aged minds and spir­its, these are the lies of lost and bro­ken souls.

Remem­ber who you are, and why you are here: Always main­tain the integri­ty of your own space of spir­it, which can only be achieved when you equal­ly respect, pre­serve and defend the sacred space of one and all.

Keep your mind Strong, yet equal­ly Sup­ple and Nuanced, by hold­ing to the high­est prin­ci­ples of Spir­it, the fore­most being this:

“You are all relat­ed, and what you do to the least of these you do to the One”.

Above all, do not be divid­ed from one another.

Remem­ber who you are, you are seek­ers and sto­ry­tellers, and from shar­ing your thoughts and wis­dom with one anoth­er you will pre­vail. Tell your sto­ries to one anoth­er, so that you may Strength­en your com­mon bonds and understanding.

By this you will pre­serve, pro­tect and defend your­self, your world and one another.

All this you will do if you hold in your heart the Pri­ma­ry Spir­i­tu­al Triad:

May you Speak with Wisdom…

May you Live by Love…

May you Be all for one, and one for All.

 

The New Year – Part 5 – Don­ald Trump  (Jan­u­ary 2017)

Don­ald Trump

When we con­sid­er the Astrol­o­gy chart of an indi­vid­ual, there are so many fac­tors to con­sid­er, (plan­ets, signs, hous­es, aspects and aspect pat­terns), that it can seem quite over­whelm­ing as to how to pro­ceed. I have found it most use­ful to start from an overview of the entire chart and then pro­ceed to slow­ly dis­cern the var­i­ous inter­laced ener­gy-forms that the chart contains. 

First, we should step back and take the whole chart in. After all, an astro­log­i­cal chart is a Sky Map, a pic­ture of the plan­e­tary posi­tions, as seen from a spe­cif­ic place on the Earth, on a cer­tain day and time. We are look­ing at the heav­ens above, so let’s step back and take it all in to dis­cern the over­all mes­sage of the chart. What we will find is that astro­log­i­cal charts fall into cer­tain types of pat­terns, which pro­vides this first sense of mean­ing for the chart.

The pat­tern of Don­ald Trump’s chart is called a Bowl or Hemi­spher­ic pat­tern, with all plan­ets lined up on one side of the chart, and the oth­er half remain­ing open or emp­ty. This bowl pat­tern implies a great degree of self-con­tain­ment. Here is a soul that is moved or affect­ed more by exter­nal cir­cum­stances than by inter­nal fac­tors. He has a strong sense of mis­sion, a sense that he pos­sess­es some­thing (the filled bowl), and that he lacks or needs some­thing, (the emp­ty space). He will be dri­ven, pur­pose­ful and feel he has a des­tiny to fulfill.

The crit­i­cal or high focus part of the Bowl pat­tern is formed by the lead­ing plan­et or edge of the bowl. In Trump’s chart, the lead­ing plan­et is Uranus in his 10^th house of career, pub­lic life and pur­pose. Uranus is the “Awak­en­er”, and brings about change through shocks and upsets. Not only is it his lead­ing plan­et, but it is also the upper­most plan­et in his chart, and, most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, it is next to his Sun and oppo­site to his Moon. A very, very great deal about Trump is summed up by this com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors: Sun in Gem­i­ni, Moon in Sagit­tar­ius, with Uranus con­junct the Sun and Oppo­site to the Moon.

Gem­i­ni is an Air Sign, known for its intel­li­gence, curios­i­ty, adapt­abil­i­ty and rest­less­ness. Gem­i­ni rules the mind in its capac­i­ty to con­sid­er things from more than one point of view or per­spec­tive, to per­ceive the world through mul­ti­ple “lens­es”, to assume mul­ti­ple posi­tions in order to con­sid­er which view or views seems most mean­ing­ful, reveal­ing or excep­tion­al. When applied in right ways, Gem­i­ni is our fac­ul­ty of Intelligence.

Gem­in­is love to “stir things up”. They can hold one posi­tion and then swing to the oppo­site posi­tion with­out skip­ping a beat. Gem­in­is are often “high-strung, ner­vous types” with a con­stant need to take in and push out infor­ma­tion. Their avid­i­ty and thirst for infor­ma­tion, and their insis­tent need to share these mul­ti­ple thoughts can push the enve­lope of rea­son to that razor’s edge that lies between genius and insan­i­ty. Keep­ing up with, and fol­low­ing the stream of con­scious­ness of some Gem­in­is can be fas­ci­nat­ing, but some­times frus­trat­ing and fruitless.

Being born at the Full Moon, Trump has his Moon in the oppo­site Sign of Sagit­tar­ius. The Moon rules the emo­tion­al life, the emo­tion­al needs, the ingrained and uncon­scious habit pat­terns of reactions/interactions, and will reveal how a per­son will act or react with­out think­ing. (And though we humans like to think of our­selves as mind­ful and intel­li­gent, we live a great deal of our lives on “autopi­lot”, some­thing hap­pens and we will often react with­out much thought at all).

The Moon in Sagit­tar­ius is very free-wheel­ing, open and out­spo­ken, so that it leads to a per­son who will feel and speak with lit­tle or no restraint. There is basi­cal­ly no fil­ter at all, what­ev­er is in their feel­ing-think­ing in the moment is what you are going to get.

The oppo­si­tion of the Sun and Moon, (the two prin­ci­ple indi­ca­tors of our Male and Female natures), will cre­ate a crit­i­cal con­flict and imbal­ance between the Thoughts and Feel­ings for Trump. The result will be a pulling and push­ing with­in him­self, often lead­ing to wider (and wilder) swings between cold intel­lect and emo­tion­al­i­ty. If the spir­i­tu­al-psy­cho­log­i­cal work of accept­ing and inte­grat­ing his male/female halves is not achieved, he will be sub­ject to extreme rest­less­ness, impul­sive­ness and impatience.

This com­bi­na­tion of Gem­i­ni and Sagit­tar­ius could be har­nessed and bal­anced if oth­er fac­tors in his chart were to bring in some restraint and ground­ing. There are some fac­tors in his chart that could help. How­ev­er, the prin­ci­ple plan­et affect­ing both his Sun and Moon is the plan­et that rules the “earth­quakes of life”, Uranus.

The con­junc­tion of the Sun with Uranus means that Trump will stand out, and nev­er blend in. His life will be unusu­al, full of excep­tion­al moments that break through bound­aries. Born to rebel, he would have been inde­pen­dent and defi­ant as a child, and he would have devel­oped a view of him­self as not sub­ject to nor­mal rules or expec­ta­tions. He can exhib­it bril­liance and flash­es of great insight, but he will at times be equal­ly unable to restrain him­self from dis­trac­tions and errat­ic behaviors.

Again, even this chal­leng­ing set of fac­tors could have been com­bined with sta­bi­liz­ing ele­ments to mod­u­late and mit­i­gate his nature. But in Trump’s chart the ener­gies of insta­bil­i­ty (and chaos) are dou­bled-down by Uranus also being in oppo­si­tion to his Moon. Trump will look upon feel­ings (and women) with great dis­trust because they are for him so unpre­dictable and unknow­able. By being dis­mis­sive of and not in touch with his feel­ing nature, he will swing wild­ly between his peri­patet­ic intel­lect and chaot­ic emo­tions. His thoughts will lack true empa­thy and com­pas­sion; his emo­tions unin­formed by his rea­son. He will be capa­ble of bril­liance yet lack empa­thy, he will be sen­ti­men­tal but not car­ing. Trump may remain divid­ed with­in him­self; he would be unset­tled and unstable.

Many com­men­ta­tors have assumed that Trump’s way of act­ing (and react­ing) is pure­ly an act, and that he employs the “prin­ci­ples of chaos” as a mas­ter manip­u­la­tor to upend his adver­saries and achieve his ends. What his chart reveals is that this is no act. Trump is unsta­ble by nature. He is sim­ply unpre­dictable because he prob­a­bly can­not con­trol himself. 

The plan­e­tary ruler for Gem­i­ni is Mer­cury, which for Trump is in the sign of Can­cer. Though he will con­sid­er him­self to be a man of rea­son, pos­sess­ing a great range of ideas and knowl­edge, and that he comes to his facts and opin­ions via his supe­ri­or intel­lect, much of his think­ing and deci­sion-mak­ing is uncon­scious­ly influ­enced by his emo­tions. He will believe that he is being “rea­son­able”, when he in fact he is often being blind­ed by his emo­tion­al biases.

But much more trou­bling is that he also has his Mer­cury squar­ing his Nep­tune, the plan­et of Dreams and Imag­i­na­tion. Nep­tune is also, when mis­ap­plied or mis­un­der­stood, the plan­et that rules Fan­tasies, Delu­sions and Decep­tions. Mer­cury squar­ing Nep­tune, if you can mas­ter your­self, can be won­der­ful and make you a great sto­ry-teller, it is gift for painters and poets, allow­ing one to slip beyond the bound­aries of real­i­ty for inspiration.

But when com­bined with the inher­ent insta­bil­i­ty of his chart, Mer­cury square Nep­tune means that Trump will say any­thing, and mean noth­ing. He will make some­thing up, and turn around and say the opposite…and prob­a­bly turn around again and say some third thing. He will employ “smoke and mir­rors”; he will claim to speak plain­ly, and accuse oth­ers of being untruth­ful. He will sow doubt and con­fu­sion, he will often promise and not deliv­er. He is prob­a­bly not to be believed or trust­ed much of the time.

One of the more chal­leng­ing aspects a per­son may have in their chart is a hard con­tact between Venus and Sat­urn. Trump has his Sat­urn con­junct Venus, which means he expe­ri­enced con­di­tion­al forms of love as a child. Rather than being loved tru­ly, he was exposed to “love” that was giv­en or with­held as a tool for reward or pun­ish­ment. This is not love, this is the abu­sive pow­er wield­ed by an author­i­tar­i­an par­ent, most like­ly the father.

With­out sig­nif­i­cant help to heal this wound, Trump would have no true expe­ri­ence of healthy “self-love”, nor would he be capa­ble of tru­ly lov­ing anoth­er. He would need oth­ers to love and admire him to fill the aching hole in his soul. But he would be unable to show real love to anoth­er, for he has none to offer. He would be ungen­er­ous, unchar­i­ta­ble and treat oth­ers as “objects”, as he can be the only “sub­ject” in any relationship.

This aspect in a chart may indi­cate and form the con­di­tions for devel­op­ing “nar­cis­sis­tic per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der”. It has been not­ed, that many of the actions and over-reac­tions that Trump has dis­played in his pub­lic life seem to con­form to the clas­sic behav­iors asso­ci­at­ed with nar­cis­sis­tic per­son­al­i­ty disorder.

In short, these delin­eations from Trump’s chart point to an indi­vid­ual who appears fun­da­men­tal­ly unsta­ble, often untruth­ful, and with a heart that is broken.

 

The New Year – Part 6 – Don­ald Trump’s Tran­sits  (Jan­u­ary 2017)

Trump’s Tran­sits

In the pre­vi­ous essay, I delin­eat­ed some of the sig­nif­i­cant natal fea­tures in Don­ald Trump’s chart. Today I will exam­ine some of the major tran­sits in Trump’s chart for 2016–17. Then I will exam­ine the con­nec­tions between his chart and the chart of the USA in the fol­low­ing essay.

The tim­ing for plan­e­tary tran­sits will often cross over from one cal­en­dar year to the next. Dur­ing 2016, there were two very sig­nif­i­cant tran­sits to Trump’s chart, Uranus squar­ing his Sat­urn from spring 2016 until ear­ly April 2017, and Plu­to squar­ing his Jupiter, which is in effect from spring 2016 and will last until the late fall of 2017.

Uranus/Saturn

Uranus align­ing with Sat­urn in a “strong” man­ner such as this will occur about every 21–22 years or so. When­ev­er this tran­sit occurs, Real­i­ty is shak­en and can in fact be shat­tered; it is a call to reform/remake that real­i­ty (or your under­stand­ing and inter­fac­ing with Real­i­ty), to deal with the neces­si­ty for change. It can appear as a great loss; but it is equal­ly the call to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a new way of being. For Don­ald, the two pre­vi­ous pass­es were 1994 and 1973–74.

The more recent date coin­cid­ed with his suc­cess­ful escape from his fail­ing casi­no ven­tures by “going pub­lic”; he end­ed up sell­ing shares in his pri­vate­ly owned and deeply indebt­ed enter­pris­es. He trans­formed his “real­i­ty” from a fail­ure to suc­cess. He “social­ized” his debt and came out a win­ner. In the ear­li­er peri­od, the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion, his father and he, were charged with a con­sis­tent and very long prac­tice of racial bias with regards to their rental prop­er­ty empire, in Brook­lyn and Queens. They were found to have used var­i­ous tac­tics to deny leas­es to “peo­ple of col­or”. Uranus forced them to change their ille­gal prac­tices and con­form to Real­i­ty, to abide by the let­ter and spir­it of the law.

Giv­en the promi­nence and impor­tance of Uranus in Trump’s chart, he will respond/react even more notice­ably than most to this influ­ence. As I not­ed in the pre­vi­ous essay, Trump is very much a “Uran­ian man”, with both his Sun/Uranus and Moon/Uranus align­ments. His self-char­ac­ter­i­za­tion fol­lows this theme of Uranus, in his often-stat­ed asser­tion of being an excep­tion­al man, a genius to whom the nor­mal rules and norms will not apply. He believes in his spe­cial­ness. He will blaze “new trails”, he will smash the “icons” and break the “bound­aries” of nor­mal­cy. Trump will most cer­tain­ly be the car­ri­er for and instru­ment of change; he will be dis­rup­tive and destabilizing.

Sat­urn is the Avatar of Real­i­ty, the struc­tures of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, but it also indi­cates where you will encounter the “shad­ow” in this life. It is where you have old wounds and fears. But it will be also, by your efforts to deal with your shad­ow and fear, it is where you may end of wield­ing your Author­i­ty, where you may find your “Role”.

For Trump, with Sat­urn in the sign of Can­cer and in his 11^th house, his fears would be cen­tered upon his expe­ri­ence of nur­tur­ing and care-giv­ing, the ques­tion would be whether he felt secure and hap­py in his child­hood, or did he expe­ri­ence nurturing/security as some­thing that was lost or was nev­er tru­ly there. It is the chal­lenge of Spir­it, to real­ize that each of us must find our way to our own true self, and so become tru­ly cen­tered and sta­ble indi­vid­u­als. Then we are to use that expe­ri­ence to help oth­ers find their way to their cen­ter and secu­ri­ty too.

And, with Sat­urn in the 11^th house, he would long for true friend­ship, and would feel his des­tiny is to become a leader of a group or groups. But, he would like­ly suf­fer from the expe­ri­ence of var­i­ous forms of alien­ation, of not fit­ting in or belong­ing, of being “dif­fer­ent”. Trump, if not healed of this Sat­urn test, could end up lead­ing in a group or a cause that was not tru­ly of him.

In 2016–17, Uranus squar­ing Sat­urn has elicit­ed once again Trump’s promethean abil­i­ty to con­found the “sta­tus quo”, by rebelling against the main­stream in both polit­i­cal par­ties. He finds him­self as the fig­ure­head rid­ing a wave of pop­ulist anger direct­ed towards elites and the sta­tus quo. More than a few observers have not­ed the irony of a bil­lion­aire, who has pushed the enve­lope of bend­ing finan­cial reg­u­la­tions, norms and bound­aries for his per­son­al gain, hav­ing become the leader of a move­ment born out of the out­rage erupt­ing from these very abus­es of privilege.

Pluto/Jupiter

But it is the sec­ond major tran­sit, of Plu­to over Trump’s Jupiter, that reveals a more com­plex sto­ry with his present rise and exer­cise of pow­er. Plu­to is the Avatar of Will and Pow­er; Jupiter is the Avatar of Truth, Sci­ence, Reli­gion and Law. When Plu­to is mov­ing over Jupiter in a chal­leng­ing man­ner, per­haps twice in a life­time, the com­bi­na­tion of the plan­et of Pow­er and the plan­et of Expan­sion and Growth may lead to tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties. But, if this pow­er is mis­han­dled or mis­di­rect­ed it will lead to great dif­fi­cul­ties with Jus­tice and the Law.

The pre­vi­ous pas­sage of Plu­to to Trump’s Jupiter, a con­junc­tion or plant­i­ng of a seed, was in 1978–79. This was exact­ly when he became known as a pre­mier devel­op­er. By tak­ing advan­tage of the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in the US econ­o­my in gen­er­al and in NYC, Trump was able to arrange a “sweet­heart deal” of a 40-year tax abate­ment in con­struct­ing the Grand Hyatt hotel at Grand Cen­tral. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, this was also when Trump leased a site on Fifth Avenue, just down from Tiffany, and built his sig­na­ture build­ing and cur­rent home, known as Trump Tow­er. This was when Don­ald Trump became a nation­al name and brand.

In 2016–17, almost 40 years lat­er, Trump has Plu­to pass­ing over his Jupiter once more, but this time it is the square aspect which means there will be a much greater chal­lenge and choice in how these ener­gy-forms will com­bine. The plant­i­ng of the seed of Pluto/Jupiter in the late 70’s has brought him to this major cross­road and fork in his life. The ques­tion will be put to him regard­ing the exer­cise of Pow­er as informed, guid­ed and so direct­ed by his Beliefs.

The Plu­ton­ian “Test of Pow­er” is an awe­some yet chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence. Fun­da­men­tal­ly, the ques­tion for any indi­vid­ual, in exer­cis­ing their will in any realm, whether that be con­fined to just the first cir­cle of the fam­i­ly, or in one’s imme­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty, in a busi­ness or oth­er large enter­pris­es, on up to the lead­er­ship of a major world insti­tu­tion, (like the USA), the ques­tion will be for that individual:

“Do you under­stand how you are to be prop­er­ly guid­ed and direct­ed to wield this pow­er. Do you under­stand where this pow­er comes from, do you under­stand whom and what you serve? Will you then fol­low the path of wis­dom so that you are guid­ed to faith­ful­ly wield this pow­er and ful­fill your purpose?”

The “Test of Pow­er” will come to all of us in many forms. It will always con­cern this spir­i­tu­al truth:

We are all vehi­cles for chan­nel­ing and focus­ing the power(s) that we have devel­oped or have had con­ferred upon us. If we serve “the Source of this pow­er”, under­stand­ing what is to be used for, then we will remain cen­tered and ground­ed in the right exer­cise of our duty.

If we mis­tak­en­ly believe that some­how “we are the pow­er”, if we become “inflat­ed” or infat­u­at­ed with self-ref­er­en­tial absolutes and unques­tion­ing cer­tain­ties, then like in all the great sto­ries, whether in Greek mytholo­gies or the Polit­i­cal dra­mas in Shake­speare, in the his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of lead­ers such as Napoleon or Richard Nixon, for those who come to believe they are “it”, it is inevitable and nec­es­sary that they must fall. What we will always see is that when a human com­mits the clas­si­cal error of “hubris”, then it will not be very long before their mis­use of pow­er is fol­lowed by this reac­tion, a con­se­quence that they have brought upon them­selves through the agency of kar­ma known as “neme­sis”.

Real­ly, it is all about Kar­ma, of action and reac­tion. And the test of pow­er is one of the most pro­found. That is why we look to those who assume greater author­i­ty, to equal­ly be exem­plars of humil­i­ty and grace. This not only pro­tects them but also reas­sures those over whom they rule that there is a right­ful order­ing to the world based upon trust and mutu­al respect.

Trump is fac­ing his great­est test of pow­er, of how well he will faith­ful­ly fol­low the rules gov­ern­ing the exer­cise of Pres­i­den­tial Pow­er. When Plu­to reach­es his Sat­urn in 2020, we will per­haps see the next or final chap­ter in how well or poor­ly he under­stands his test of pow­er and humility.