THE WAY

The hard­est and most impor­tant thing to do…is to end some­thing well.

It is often quite easy to make a beginning.

To sal­ly forth on some small (or great) enter­prise or adventure.

And then you fill in the chap­ters of the expe­ri­ence with var­i­ous chal­lenges and lessons, rid­ing the waves of stum­bles and achieve­ments, of set­backs and break­throughs that lead you onwards to your bet­ter days.

But in the end, at the end of each day, each month and every year, it all comes down to this…Did you under­stand? Were you able encom­pass the whole arc of this expe­ri­ence, and fold this pre­cious fruit into the mean­ing­ful pur­pos­es of your life? Did you reap the har­vest of your well-won desserts, or did you become weighed down by bit­ter mem­o­ries and regrets? Will you begin once more at a high­er lev­el of poten­tial­i­ty, or will you have to regroup and start over and try once again?

The Twelve Astro­log­i­cal Signs are the fun­da­men­tal Ener­gy-Forms that Shape and Inform the Uni­verse. This Twelve-Fold Dimen­sion­al-Divi­sion of Spir­it per­me­ates the small­est speck and mote on up to the grand­est and great­est embod­i­ments of Spir­it that you see sweep­ing before you in those Cos­mic Beings you know as Stars and Galaxies.

The essen­tial prin­ci­ple of your Cos­mic Order, found in the Ancient Teach­ings and the Eso­teric heart of all reli­gions, affirms that every sin­gle part of Cre­ation is “Con­scious”. The entire­ty of Cre­ation is com­posed of a vast array of ever more evolved lev­els of con­scious­ness, who in their total­i­ty form the Mind of the Cos­mos, the Mind of the One.

The whole point of your spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing is for you to become ever more Self-Aware and there­by Self-Mas­ter­ful; it is your Des­tiny to be ever more con­scious­ly con­tribut­ing to the Jour­ney of Spir­it. You do this by under­stand­ing and weav­ing togeth­er all Twelve of these Ener­gy-Forms into the unique being you are in this one life, as well as all your many forms and lives you lived and will live too.

Even­tu­al­ly, you will achieve your full­ness as “human”, you will become an “Awak­ened One”, and be no longer (uncon­scious­ly) bound to the Karmic Cycles of Death and Rebirth. You will be “free” to choose, to move on in your own spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion beyond the human, or turn and lend a help­ing hand to those who trail behind you.

Yes, even in your moment of lib­er­a­tion, you are giv­en a choice. Even when you are a tru­ly radi­ant being, a “Deva”, an “Angel” or a “Shin­ing One”, even here you can still be “self­ish”. It is here, (more than oth­er time before), that you will reveal your true spir­i­tu­al nature, as you choose between the paths of Sep­a­ra­tion and Dark­ness, or the Path of Love and Light.

This is the heart of the mes­sage of Pisces. That here in the final sign of the Zodi­ac, hav­ing come through each of the pre­vi­ous Eleven Sacred Signs in this year, (and in life after life too), it is here that you will encom­pass your jour­ney, and tru­ly know and under­stand the nature of your Love for your­self and for one anoth­er too. You will under­stand that this love of self and for one anoth­er is the same Love, because true Love is uncon­di­tion­al, insep­a­ra­ble and indivisible.

You have been through every sign when you reach Pisces, and so you have moved into a much greater real­i­ty, filled with true empa­thy and heart-felt com­pas­sion for all of human­i­ty, and tru­ly for all of life. You have come that much clos­er to break­ing the fun­da­men­tal illu­sion of your sep­a­ra­tion from one anoth­er, the sep­a­ra­tion which brought about your self-cast shad­ows formed by your anx­i­eties, doubts and fears.

In Pisces, you see the full­ness of the arc of your sto­ry. You under­stand that it is through fear that you stum­bled into error and met your “fate” as some­thing that befell you. You learn to accept your part in why this hap­pened. You learn to choose wise­ly; you have faith that you will do bet­ter. But to do this you must for­give your­self, as you must equal­ly for­give one anoth­er too.

Your first step is to know your­self; your first step is found in love. Your first cir­cle of com­pas­sion is from your Self to your­self, for you can­not grow with­out for­give­ness. You turn to your “high­er self”, to that qui­et, steady lov­ing voice of the eter­nal with­in you. You feel the love there that is Uncon­di­tion­al, and you are hum­bled and exalt­ed. Then you turn in for­give­ness and love, help­ing to lift the shad­ow of fear for those with whom you jour­ney, there­by lift­ing your­self and them into a bet­ter world too.

By this turn­ing inwards, to the lamp of love with­in you, you find your Liv­ing Faith in the knowl­edge that it is you who is the mak­er-cre­ator, it is you that made yourself…and this Truth is the source of your boun­ti­ful faith. Your essen­tial nature, that you are a spark of the Divine, endows you with the awe­some pow­er to Cre­ate. That what you dream, will become your thoughts; and, what you think will become who you are.

You under­stand and accept, that you cre­at­ed this “fact” of what you meet in the today. Your “today” was made long, long ago by you, (and many oth­ers). You can­not change the past, and you can­not per­fect­ly know the future…but you can be here in this present moment. By act­ing with Wis­dom and Love here and now you will redeem your past and cre­ate a more per­fect tomorrow.

It is only here in the “Now”, in the ever-renew­ing “Present”, it is here that you will ride the razor’s edge between oppor­tu­ni­ty and dan­ger. Always you will face the great choice: Will you rise up in faith or fall back in fear? If you remain true to the steady, lov­ing spir­it with­in you, you will always find your way to a bet­ter you and a brighter tomorrow.

It is from such Spir­i­tu­al Prax­is, that you become more awak­ened, more ful­ly human. You embody a “Liv­ing Faith” from the spir­it with­in you now joined to the wis­dom that you have earned. You are your great­est cre­ation. You have made you more “you” again and again. Your Divine Spark is the ker­nel of Light that holds your unique­ness, your Quin­tes­sence. You will always find your way upon the Dhar­ma-Kar­ma path by remain­ing true to and by abid­ing in the lov­ing pres­ence of your High­er Self.

You can and will, with oth­er Faith-Filled com­pan­ions, meet what comes upon your path today and build from it your “shin­ing city on a hill”, an ever-expand­ing present of bet­ter tomor­rows. First you must for­give your­self; then you must equal­ly love and for­give them too. Then, togeth­er, you will release your “gifts of the spir­it” to heal one anoth­er and your world.

Pisces is the “end”, it is the har­vest of the fruits of your spir­i­tu­al jour­ney. It is equal­ly the Foun­tain-Source for all your begin­nings. For your path is not a line or an arc. You are part of a vast spi­ral­ing hier­ar­chy of Spir­it that is trav­el­ling through Space-Time, ascend­ing from less­er forms of con­scious­ness to the greater and even greater beyond that.

There is but one injunc­tion for your journey.

Every day…Every month…Every year…

Fol­low the Path of Compassion.

Live a Life of Uncon­di­tion­al Love,

Lis­ten to the Voice of the Silence,

The Wis­dom of your Heart.

Gath­er your har­vest of well-earned rewards,

And, plant your resplen­dent seeds of bet­ter days.

For now, and for­ev­er and ever,

Smile,

Extend your lov­ing hand,

Have Faith,

Love one Another.

And when trou­bled or in doubt, remem­ber the Great Invocation:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

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.

Your jour­ney for these past 30 days has been in the final Earth and Car­di­nal sign of Capri­corn. You have pon­dered well and long your spi­ral jour­ney. You found your­self look­ing back into the dis­tant mists of your past; as you also turned your gaze ahead to espy the mys­te­ri­ous paths not yet tak­en. You have felt the hum­bling and awe-inspir­ing gift of what your many lives, and all the steps in this life, have been all about.

You are here for one spir­i­tu­al pur­pose, you are to grow, you are here to be Ful­filled. You achieve self-mas­tery as you become ever more self-aware. This is how you become ful­ly human, this is how you are able to con­scious­ly forge your Des­tiny. You have drawn clos­er to assum­ing your right­ful place as a self-con­scious, co-cre­ator in the Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy that is the jour­ney of Life-Conscious-Spirit.

Under­stand­ing how you got here, and know­ing in your heart what your sacred duty is, you have extend­ed your hand to those ahead, seek­ing their lov­ing guid­ance and wis­dom to light your way; and, you have equal­ly turned to those who fol­low you, extend­ing your­self in love and con­sid­er­a­tion for those who yearn to lift them­selves to where you now stand.

This is how you ful­fill your des­tiny; this is the way you are Respon­si­ble. You have looked up and you have looked down…and now it is time to look around.

Today you move into the next realm in the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, what you know as the Zodi­ac. Today begins your heart-warm­ing return to the space-time known as Aquar­ius. Your respon­si­bil­i­ties, duties and ful­fill­ments met in Capri­corn will always be present. How could they not? They form the sub­stan­tial core of your life, and for the lives of all with whom you jour­ney. But now you must con­sid­er what is my larg­er pur­pose? And as you look around you smile to your­self and laugh once again:

“Oh yes, I see it so clear­ly now, we are here for one anoth­er. We are here to ful­fill our dreams which are made of one anoth­er, we are here again amongst our dear ones, our sacred band of fel­low-seek­ers. Here I am once again where I belong, here I am myself with my very dear­est friends”.

Yes, in the end you see your jour­ney would nev­er have meant any­thing at all, it could not even have come true, if it were not for all the ones with whom you jour­ney. Aquar­ius is about your dreams; it is about your fond­est hopes ful­filled, fill­ing your heart with the know­ing that bet­ter days are just ahead. And when you real­ly con­sid­er what your dreams are all about, you smile again and laugh.

You know, because you are human, because you are alive, that all these things you wish for, dream of and long for, that all these things are just the reflect­ed shad­ows of your true heart’s desire. Your dreams, your abid­ing hope, is to share your lives with one anoth­er. When your time is done, and you tell your tales, you real­ize that this is what life is for, to sim­ply be with those who ask for noth­ing more, wish for noth­ing more, than for you to just be yourself.

And you equal­ly know and under­stand, that all you want for these dear­est ones, is that they are free to be them­selves too. Because you get it now, you see it so clear­ly. That all your times with one anoth­er have made you part of one anoth­er. They are in you for­ev­er and always; and you are in them. You are tru­ly now, and for life after life, free yet tru­ly insep­a­ra­ble too. You cry tears of joy, for these are the shin­ing ones of your hap­py days, these are your stal­wart and steady friends for­ev­er and ever.

And to be the best of who you are, and for them to be the best of who they are, to have your dreams come true, and for their dreams to come true too, what you must sim­ply but pro­found­ly do for one anoth­er is just let your­selves be. To be your­self, for them to be them­selves too, this is what it means to see your heart’s desire liv­ing true. You are the lumi­nous spir­its of the eter­nal dance of Light and Love. You are one of a kind, but you are of a kind. You find your­self through one anoth­er because this is equal­ly the foun­tain-source of your free­dom to be your­self. This is how you shine…

Today, tonight and in all your days to come.

Gath­er with your friends and companions.

See in one anoth­er the dreams of your future.

Be for one anoth­er exact­ly who you are.

Smile, laugh and remember.

Why you came, why you have met again.

You are here again because of Love.

You are here quite sim­ply to Love one another.

To be for one anoth­er true and free.

You are you because of true Love.

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.

Next, The Tran­sits in Trump’s chart

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.

Next, Don­ald Trump