Unit­ed States — Which chart?
The analy­sis of the Unit­ed States requires that we stip­u­late first which chart we are using. I have found that Dane Rud­h­yar’s ver­sion of the Sib­ley chart works well for me. It is set for July 4, 1776 at 5:14 pm in Philadel­phia, PA and has 13° of Sagit­tar­ius ris­ing. I will not endeav­or here to give a “read­ing” on the char­ac­ter and chal­lenges of the Unit­ed States as revealed in this chart, per­haps I will do some­thing like that in a post­ing lat­er this year. Here I want to focus upon the rel­e­vant tran­sits that explain what the US is faced with in the com­ing year (and beyond). Often, to help illus­trate that, we will look back at oth­er sim­i­lar times and align­ments to give us some rel­e­vant frames of reference.

Unit­ed States — 2011 a look back first
An analy­sis of what lies before the US in this year imme­di­ate­ly rais­es the ques­tion as to what have we just come through. After all, the expe­ri­ence of any enti­ty can­not be neat­ly divid­ed up by our notion of when a year begins and ends. More­over, as many of you know, the align­ments in a chart may be in effect for much longer than one year as well. So, before we begin to look ahead we must look back. What have we just come through? What were we being asked as a nation to address? And, yes, what can we expect in the year ahead?

(2009–2010) Plu­to Oppos­ing Venus
Sev­er­al major tran­sits were in effect for the Unit­ed States in 2010. One of these, Plu­to in Oppo­si­tion to Venus actu­al­ly hap­pened in 2009 and 2010. Plu­to rules death and rebirth; it smash­es apart what has out­lived its time so that the rebuild­ing can take place. Venus rules val­ue, the notion of what is wor­thy whether that be in terms of self-worth (or nation-worth) as well as out­ward phys­i­cal val­ues like in tan­gi­ble assets. So, this align­ment of Plu­to to Venus brought about a fun­da­men­tal tear­ing down of the old assump­tions about US val­ue and our real val­ues as embod­ied in our prop­er­ties and busi­ness­es. More­over, Plu­to rules the will and pow­er­ful forces arrayed for and against one anoth­er. Plu­to oppos­ing Venus indi­cat­ed a great strug­gle over ques­tions about, and the nature of, what are the val­ues of Amer­i­ca. Well this sounds famil­iar does­n’t it? We cer­tain­ly went through a re-eval­u­a­tion or our phys­i­cal assets, (land, stocks, bonds, com­pa­nies), as well as strug­gled over the def­i­n­i­tion of exact­ly what is to be most val­ued about America.

The last time Plu­to went over Amer­i­ca’s Venus was 1972–73. The term “Stagfla­tion” was coined to describe a coun­try bur­dened by debts from the Viet­nam War, while at the same time the Arab Oil embar­go stoked the fires of unimag­ined infla­tion. Mean­while, in the polit­i­cal are­na, there was an inci­dent called “Water­gate” that shook the foun­da­tions of and threat­ened the bal­ance of pow­er between the Exec­u­tive, Leg­isla­tive and Judi­cial branches.

And, so too in this time, there have been major eco­nom­ic shocks, as well as calls for a fun­da­men­tal rearrange­ment of the bal­ance of pow­er between the states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Cycles repeat, but the sub­stance of what our chal­lenge is and the char­ac­ters that play across the stage of his­to­ry change.

(2009–2010) Sat­urn Square Venus
While Plu­to was oppos­ing Venus, Sat­urn was at the same time Squar­ing Venus, (This was one of the Tran­sits to Tran­sits we looked at ear­li­er, of Sat­urn Squar­ing Plu­to, so that means what­ev­er Plu­to was affect­ing in any chart, so too would Sat­urn). Sat­urn last made this same square to Venus in 1980–81, a time of a severe down­turn in the US econ­o­my. With Venus rul­ing val­ue, beau­ty and love, the Unit­ed States was just not feel­ing very “lov­able” in 2009-10! Our sense of our worth, of our val­ue was dimin­ished. Real­ly, it was a time to reassess the whole ques­tion of where does our val­ue as a nation come from, what do we have, what do we cre­ate, and how do we con­sume val­ue? Cer­tain­ly many, if not all of us, indi­vid­u­al­ly and as a whole, have had to reassess our val­ues at this time.

2011
Uranus Squares Venus (Apr. 18, Oct. 7, Feb. 28, 2012)
Well this is a whole New Year indeed! Excite­ment and stim­u­la­tion is acti­vat­ing the plan­et of val­ue this year. It is frothy, dare we say bub­bly, and the last time Uranus made this pass, 1927–28, it was a heady time.…but we were head­ing for a fall that few could imag­ine then. Will his­to­ry repeat itself, no… Nev­er! But we have to watch out; we must look back to see what chal­lenges were encoun­tered and oppor­tu­ni­ties missed, and real­ize we will face new chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that are appro­pri­ate to our moment in time.

Last time
The late 20’s were a time of inven­tive­ness and social exper­i­men­ta­tion. Bound­aries were being bro­ken, records were being set. Our imag­i­na­tive bound­aries were blown out­ward by the courage dis­played, (and tech­nol­o­gy used), in “The Spir­it of St. Louis”, as Lind­bergh con­nect­ed the new and old worlds. There was an influ­ence that was ener­giz­ing new rela­tion­ships both between one anoth­er, and in our nation’s rela­tion­ships with oth­er nations. Amer­i­ca was seen as the most “pros­per­ous” of nations, we were the ris­ing star in the world and the way ahead looked glo­ri­ous. What we failed to see, what we failed to con­front, was that the very nature of what we con­sid­ered to be valu­able, how we made and mea­sured val­ue, was in des­per­ate need of trans­for­ma­tion. The oppor­tu­ni­ty was there and was missed and so we fell back…

2011 The US and Venus/Uranus, Our val­ue and pur­pose.
In 2011 we face a sim­i­lar chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty. The chal­lenge with Venus and Uranus is met when we raise to a new lev­el our expe­ri­ence of val­ue in our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er, and with the world. The US has its Venus, (and Jupiter and Sun), in the 7th house, the house of rela­tion­ship. Our val­ues and self-worth (Venus), our prin­ci­ples, gen­eros­i­ty and good for­tune (Jupiter) and our very being and pur­pose (Sun), is revealed, real­ized and shared by the nature and qual­i­ty of our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and with the world.

A New Order
The found­ing fathers hint­ed at this, (and much more), when they put forth as the mot­to of our coun­try, and which is inscribed on the Great Seal of The Unit­ed States, “Novus Ordo Seclo­rum” which means “A New Order for the Cen­turies”. They under­stood that what they were cre­at­ing was some­thing new, some­thing hereto­fore unfa­mil­iar because it rep­re­sent­ed a break with the past. Here, in this nation, we would come togeth­er and freely deter­mine our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er. We would sur­ren­der all title and priv­i­leges, and stand as equals to one anoth­er and be sub­ject to no King, or Prince, or Clan or Class, but to what we had all agreed upon as our com­pact with one anoth­er. This sacred com­pact is sealed and pro­tect­ed by the one and only true ruler in Amer­i­ca, the Rule of Law, (which is why the US has Sat­urn (order), in Libra (scales of jus­tice) in our 10th house (author­i­ty). In the Unit­ed States, the law is King, no one is above the law.

Embod­ied in our “Law” are the val­ues that we have so far evolved to in our con­duct with one anoth­er. Those val­ues are made into rules which we have agreed upon, so that we know how we are expect­ed to con­duct our­selves with regard to one anoth­er. In oth­er words, we have estab­lished these laws as the crys­tal­lized form of val­ues with and between one another.

But unlike some, who believe that those orig­i­nal laws, our first rules, the Con­sti­tu­tion, to be a fin­ished piece and not to be altered, most of us find that the sto­ry of human ful­fill­ment is an unfold­ing one that is far from over. And, so, we must keep improv­ing upon and adding to our val­ues and our rules. The Found­ing Fathers knew this work was not fin­ished or done with them. They sought to go beyond what had been, yet they could not reach or agree beyond a cer­tain under­stand­ing. They strug­gled over issues and did not over­come some of their own chal­lenges, and so left it to oth­er gen­er­a­tions to face the glar­ing injus­tices embod­ied in our first set of “rules”. How could it be otherwise?

Our Chal­lenge, Our Oppor­tu­ni­ty
In 2011 the chal­lenge we face is to exam­ine to what extent we are ready, will­ing and able to ful­fill and incor­po­rate the mes­sage of Uranus into Venus. Uranus in Aries is shap­ing our Venus in Can­cer by chal­leng­ing us to con­duct our­selves at the next nec­es­sary lev­el of indi­vid­ual ful­fill­ment and social inte­gra­tion. There are always forces, (and dis­trac­tions), pulling us apart and draw­ing us together.

Venus in Can­cer speaks from the Truth that we must hon­or where we have come from; we must remain and find val­ue in our com­mon her­itage and so secure and bind our­selves one to anoth­er. Uranus in Aries is chal­leng­ing Venus as to exact­ly what con­sti­tutes “roots” or “her­itage” or “secu­ri­ty”.

There is a con­stant ten­sion between our nation’s desire to return to a sim­pler time, to our root val­ues (Venus), and the inces­sant force of spir­i­tu­al (and tech­ni­cal) advance­ment dri­ving us for­ward into new expres­sions of val­ue (Uranus). The answer is to be found in hon­or­ing the spir­i­tu­al essence of our roots, our com­mon her­itage and val­ue that binds us one to anoth­er, (but not being bound to the mere let­ter or the law or form of that val­ue), while at the same time inte­grat­ing into those val­ues a new under­stand­ing of the mes­sage of Uranus in Aries which hon­ors, affirms and asserts the essen­tial dig­ni­ty of the indi­vid­ual with­in the group order, (with­out going so far in assert­ing “indi­vid­u­al­ism” that we break our social con­tract with one another).

Of course, to many who have seen the abus­es of pow­er, and the manip­u­la­tion of the law to serve the pow­er­ful and not defend the weak­est of us, to many the hope that we can restore let alone move for­ward the dream of Amer­i­ca and its essen­tial val­ue or worth seems dis­tant at best. Just as in the late 1920’s, we too now find our­selves at a moment in his­to­ry where the great­est inequities exist in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the wealth in Amer­i­ca, a val­ue that we all have cre­at­ed with and through one another.

Nature, (and Spir­it), move what­ev­er ordered sys­tem from a state of imbal­ance to bal­ance. It seems most sys­tems have “mech­a­nisms” inte­gral to their nature that bring about a re-bal­anc­ing even­tu­al­ly. In our social order we must find our way back to “nor­mal” by being coura­geous enough to face what we have wrought and bring us back and for­ward to a bet­ter world, before the forces in and around us bring about a more painful, because “forced”, adjustment.

Time to Act
We have a choice.…but not for long. For there are more align­ments hap­pen­ing in the world gen­er­al­ly, (those Tran­sits to Tran­sits) and to our coun­try specif­i­cal­ly (Tran­sits to Natal), that are to meet us this year and in the next many years to come. We have a des­tiny, but we must under­stand, decide and act as those brave men (and women) act­ed in their hour of deci­sion in 1776.

First, we must face what is here before us now; there is more that we must under­stand about the forces bring­ing about the changes we will grow through in 2011. So let us turn our atten­tion to the great­est of these in the next post­ing, the align­ment of Plu­to with Jupiter. Then we will look at some oth­er less­er, though no less impor­tant, align­ments for 2011.

Part Five

INTRODUCTION:
The analy­sis of a Natal or Birth Chart is famil­iar to many of us. An astrologer will delin­eate the char­ac­ter, oppor­tu­ni­ties, chal­lenges and life poten­tials of their client. The astrologer will also use the tech­nique we are about to use, Tran­sits to Tran­sits, as one major way of explain­ing to their client, what they have expe­ri­enced, what is before them now, and what is like­ly to be encoun­tered in the future.

What Chart?
With an indi­vid­ual the deter­mi­na­tion of what con­sti­tutes the chart is fair­ly sim­ple; the chart is cal­cu­lat­ed for the moment the indi­vid­ual achieved “inde­pen­dent” exis­tence, the first breath. But what are we to do with a nation? Or when does a com­pa­ny begin? And what hap­pens when there are changes such as major shake­up in gov­ern­ment or ruler­ship? Or when a com­pa­ny merges or breaks apart? What is a mun­dane astrologer to do? Well, it is not easy, and there are no easy answers. 

Take for instance the Unit­ed States. Most of us would assume that the chart must be July 4, 1776. Okay, but what time of day, morn­ing, mid­day, after­noon or evening? Well there are many dif­fer­ent times that have been put forth and ana­lyzed by astrologers. But some his­to­ri­ans, and astrologers, argue for July 2 when the vote for inde­pen­dence was made by the Con­ti­nen­tal Con­gress. Some argue for the so-called Dec­la­ra­tion of War that was passed in a res­o­lu­tion on July 6, 1775. Or some would date it from when “hos­til­i­ties” broke out at the Bat­tle of Lex­ing­ton on April 19, 1775. Some will look back to the land­ing of the pil­grims in Decem­ber 1620!

How­ev­er the accept­ed and cel­e­brat­ed “birth­day” for the US is July 4, 1776. What time did it hap­pen? There is evi­dence in writ­ten records, mem­oirs and oral tra­di­tions for ear­ly morn­ing, mid-morn­ing, ear­ly after­noon, late after­noon and evening too…So what is an astrologer to do?

Well, we take a chart and then com­pare what has hap­pened in his­to­ry with what the chart would indi­cate for those events. We try and find what seems like a good or best match and work with that. Over time a chart seems to work and feel right…but it is far from a set­tled issue.

Charts and Charts…
Once we have a birth chart for a nation we ana­lyze it and oth­er charts to see how it and these oth­er charts pre­dict the devel­op­ments and chal­lenges of that soci­ety. What oth­er kinds of charts? We look at the charts of lead­ers such as pres­i­dents or prime min­is­ters, kings or queens, to see what the indi­ca­tions are for their lead­er­ship for that soci­ety in that peri­od. Not only do we look at the indi­vid­u­al’s chart, but we also cast a chart for when they assume or take their oath of office. So, in the case of the US now, we not only look at the chart for the US, we also look at Barack Oba­ma’s chart as well as a chart for when he was sworn in. We exam­ine Har­ry Rei­d’s chart, and we looked at Nan­cy Pelosi, to see how the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives might fair, but now turn our atten­tion to John Boehn­er, all in order to see how the dynam­ics play out in our polit­i­cal system.

We also look at oth­er insti­tu­tion­al charts. Again, with the US as an exam­ple, we will look at the chart let’s say of the Fed­er­al Reserve. Well, how do we know what is its birth date? Well, we do, the Fed­er­al Reserve came into exis­tence at a spe­cif­ic moment by law, and that becomes its birth chart.

Then there are oth­er charts that become sig­nif­i­cant in under­stand­ing the larg­er world such as in the charts of busi­ness­es or cor­po­ra­tions. Well, when do they begin? Again, it depends. Some­times we use a chart for when an enter­prise first opened for busi­ness. Often­times there are dates (some­times with state seals and times!) of incor­po­ra­tion. Many astrologers will use, if avail­able, the chart of when a com­pa­ny first began trad­ing on a stock exchange. Any and all of these can prove use­ful and accurate. 

And, just as in the polit­i­cal world, astrologers will exam­ine the birth charts of eco­nom­ic and busi­ness lead­ers to see what else we might dis­cern about the var­i­ous enter­pris­es they are entrust­ed with.

We will look at oth­er indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions too, such as notable per­sons in the arts, sci­ence, edu­ca­tion, med­i­cine, or to impor­tant orga­ni­za­tions like the UN or World Bank, or maybe the Euro­pean Union or the Euro, these and many oth­ers are exam­ined by Mun­dane Astrologers.

But what hap­pens when a nation changes sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from one form of gov­ern­ment to anoth­er? Or a com­pa­ny merges or splits up. Well, we try and make use of what­ev­er doc­u­men­ta­tion there is and cre­ate a new chart for that enti­ty. For exam­ple, though there has been a chart for Tunisia that we have employed to under­stand what is hap­pen­ing there now, that chart may cer­tain­ly be super­seded by a new form of gov­ern­ment and con­sti­tu­tion, and a new chart.

Often­times we might have sev­er­al dif­fer­ent charts we are look­ing at for the same nation or orga­ni­za­tion. The mea­sure of a chart is tak­en by the accu­ra­cy with which it explains the past and present cir­cum­stances. Then there is some degree of con­fi­dence of what we can expect in the future.

The March of His­to­ry
But events, indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions are in a con­stant state of change, so we must be alert and mind­ful of that and not become com­pla­cent. Astrol­o­gy is first and fore­most a study of cycles. Each birth chart rep­re­sents a moment in time, and time is march­ing on. And so must we.…So let’s begin to take a look at what we might dis­cov­er from the analy­sis of Tran­sits to Natal, the tran­sits to the birth charts of some notable nations and indi­vid­u­als in the com­ing year. And dur­ing the year, we will take a look again at these and oth­er actors on the stage of his­to­ry. First up, let us exam­ine the Unit­ed States of America.

Part 4

Full Speed Ahead! Jupiter rep­re­sents growth and expan­sion, and Aries rep­re­sents the pow­er of new begin­nings. Put them togeth­er and every­one is jump­ing to start projects or push old ones into high gear.

As I point­ed out in the gen­er­al fore­cast for 2011,  Jupiter has already been in and out of Aries in 2010. Now it moves quick­ly through the first sign until it moves into Tau­rus on June 4, 2011.

Let a thou­sand projects bloom! But look out, the heady com­bi­na­tion of Aries and Jupiter has tripped up many would-be pio­neers who for­got to ask, “What comes after this first step?” Opti­mism is in the air, but be judi­cious with your resources and clear about your purpose.

Aries (the Ram) jumps ahead, so now is the time for leaps of faith, a time to dis­play reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al lead­er­ship. Enthu­si­asm, bold moves and the pow­er of new begin­nings infuse the Jupiter urge to grow and grow. Expe­ri­ence the joy of new beginnings!

Yet Jupiter can embold­en many with the con­fi­dence that their truth is… the Truth. And since that is so, there can be no dis­cus­sion, no debate…it has already been decid­ed. Instead, be enthu­si­as­tic, believe in new begin­nings… but do not be head­strong or impatient.

Have faith in your­self and set an exam­ple of opti­mism about the future. After all, you are cre­at­ing your future, so why not start in the right spir­it? The most impor­tant step is how you should begin; begin with right inten­tion and atti­tude. Your right atti­tude cre­ates the right result.

So, let it begin. Be the future you imag­ine. Remem­ber, you are an answer to a cos­mic ques­tion. Your life is the answer. Now is the time to refresh, renew and cre­ate your life.

This is the month for cel­e­brat­ing friend­ship, com­pan­ion­ship and our social ideals. It’s time to dis­play your inven­tive­ness and orig­i­nal­i­ty. Who says those col­ors don’t go togeth­er? Chal­lenge con­ven­tion, break out of those boxes.…yes, you should even take the path less taken…you nev­er know what you might find, or who you might encounter.

From now until Feb­ru­ary 18th the Sun will be in Aquar­ius whose sym­bol is the “Water Bear­er”. Now many peo­ple at first assume that that means that Aquar­ius is a “Water” sign, but it is not. Aquar­ius is the last of the “Air” signs. Air is about the intel­lect, about thoughts and ideas; it’s about reflect­ing, con­nect­ing and communicating.

There are 3 Air Signs: In Gem­i­ni the focus is on devel­op­ing intel­li­gence and per­son­al con­scious­ness. Then, in Libra the focus is on devel­op­ing social intel­li­gence and inter-per­son­al con­scious­ness. Final­ly, in Aquar­ius the focus is on devel­op­ing group intel­li­gence and col­lec­tive consciousness.

Remem­ber, one per­son alone can stand for the truth of being excep­tion­al. And two peo­ple, togeth­er, can stand for the truth of under­stand­ing anoth­er. But when many gath­er togeth­er, unit­ed in com­mon ide­al and pur­pose, then Truth, Love and Spir­it will lead us into our future.… 

The Moon in Can­cer oppos­es the Sun in Capri­corn today.…it’s a Full Moon! Yes, yes I know we have all heard the sto­ries that dur­ing Full Moons ener­gies seem to “ramp up” and mat­ters can spin out of con­trol. Yes, that can hap­pen. And cer­tain­ly, with the Moon in its own sign of Can­cer feel­ings and emo­tions can tend to be strong…but that can and should be a beau­ti­ful experience.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty of each Full Moon should be cel­e­brat­ed, inte­grat­ed and act­ed upon. Each Full Moon is a time of rev­e­la­tion, a time to pause and won­der at the beau­ty of the “lights” above us. It should be a time to hon­or the mes­sage they illus­trate about our expe­ri­ence. We should reflect upon the last 2 weeks, just as the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, and look at what we have done since the New Moon of Jan­u­ary 4. Now, in the light of the Full Moon, we should look for the mes­sage our heav­en­ly com­pan­ions offer up to us.

Here we are expe­ri­enc­ing the truths and ten­sion in the rela­tion­ship between Can­cer and Capri­corn; it is between our Roots in our fam­i­ly, eth­nic­i­ty and cul­ture, and our Des­tinies in our pro­fes­sion­al, social and spir­i­tu­al responsibilities.

Can­cer acts from the truth of feel­ings and the meet­ing of needs through intu­itive spon­tane­ity. Capri­corn acts from the truth of tra­di­tions and struc­tures as it seeks to pre­serve the hard won achieve­ments of civ­i­liza­tion. Can­cer pro­vides secu­ri­ty; Capri­corn pro­vides order. Can­cer says “fol­low your feel­ings, be spon­ta­neous”; Capri­corn says “fol­low your tra­di­tions, be responsible”.

So, which is right? .…well of course they both are! You can­not have one with­out the oth­er. If we were just to go with our feel­ings, with­out being guid­ed by the wis­dom embod­ied in our insti­tu­tions, well then mat­ters could swing from one extreme to anoth­er. But if we just become order­ly, if we become just automa­tons, then that could well lead to a life with no heart in it whatsoever.

Okay, okay…but what are we sup­posed to do now? Well, this is Capri­corn’s time. The Sun in Capri­corn shines with its bril­liant mes­sage and points to the sub­stan­tial proof of what we have achieved, of what we have built up, and what we will pass on to those that fol­low. Capri­corn shines with the light of achievement.

But the Can­cer Moon is remind­ing Capri­corn of where it all start­ed, and what it is for. The Full Moon of Can­cer says that we built it all up because we felt a need; we were respond­ing to the needs of our fam­i­ly, of our neigh­bor­hood, of our cul­ture, of one and all. We answered the call to meet our needs for one anoth­er and so cre­at­ed this soci­ety to meet those needs.

The Can­cer Full Moon reflects the light of the Capri­corn Sun and shows that the word of Capri­corn, “Respon­si­bil­i­ty” tru­ly means the “Abil­i­ty to Respond”; and what we have always respond­ed to and what we will always be respon­si­ble for is one anoth­er’s needs.

So, in the light of this Full Moon turn to one anoth­er, feel for one anoth­er, and take care of one another…because it feels right…and it has always been so.