Astro­log­i­cal Obser­va­tions March 2017

I will be start­ing a new forum for my Astro­log­i­cal prac­tice next Thurs­day, March 30^th at 2 pm EDT. In addi­tion to the blog I will be host­ing live radio shows. The shows will com­pli­ment and extend the writ­ings in my blog. I will announce each show about a week before in the blog(s), as well as on Face­book, Twit­ter, etc.

My inten­tion is to start with an hour-long month­ly spot with var­i­ous Astro­log­i­cal obser­va­tions. Lis­ten­ers can go to the web address for the show and lis­ten in. But you are also wel­come to call in if you wish to ask a ques­tion about the top­ic, or you may cer­tain­ly ask a per­son­al astro­log­i­cal ques­tion. If you do wish to ask some­thing about your own chart, please be ready to pro­vide your birth infor­ma­tion, (Date, Time and Place).

If you are not able to lis­ten live, all shows will be avail­able on demand. I will also be adding to the library by cre­at­ing short­er clips of commentary.

In addi­tion to the hour-long broad­casts, I will host short­er live shows for some top­ic or event.

I you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email or call me as I would be hap­py to hear from you.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio: Astrologer Bill Attride Radio Show

And here is the link to the show on March 30, 2017 @ 2 pm EDT: Astro­log­i­cal Obser­va­tions March 2017

The phone num­ber to call to ask a ques­tion is: (516) 531‑9638.

I very much look for­ward to being “live” with you next Thursday!

Warm regards,

Bill

Hap­py Astro­log­i­cal New Year!

The Les­son of Pres­ence — Mov­ing through the Eter­nal Now

What are you going to do now; how do you begin; where do you begin? How should you start the day, the week, the year? Because this is most impor­tant, it is fate­ful­ly impor­tant to you.

The first thoughts you think, the first feel­ings you feel, the first actions you take, they flow forth from you, and they will both mold you and give form to what you cre­ate. By these first steps, “you make what you make of you”.

Each and every step you take will set in motion a chain of cau­sa­tion that echoes down through time and space. Though every sin­gle step mat­ters, it is the first one that sets the pat­tern for what is to fol­low. So, con­sid­er wise­ly what are you going to do; who are you going to become?

Today you begin the Astro­log­i­cal New Year in the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, the fun­da­men­tal Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of Life you know as the Zodi­ac. Today you start the next jour­ney of you in Aries.

In your life, as in all things, first things come first…This is the Les­son of Aries, this is your les­son of “Pres­ence”. It is here, right now in Aries, it is always here that your past and your future are brought togeth­er in the only place you are free to be the cre­ator, here in the Eter­nal Now.

You must remem­ber this, that you are in fact a unique com­bi­na­tion of all twelve ener­gy-forms of the Zodi­ac. Some part of you is Aries, some oth­er part Tau­rus and even Gem­i­ni is part of you too. This is because these Sacred Twelve form the Spir­it-Sub­stance of Cre­ation. From the small­est infin­i­tes­i­mal on up to the grand­est stel­lar won­ders of Galax­ies and beyond, each part and par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is at its core a radi­ant par­ti­cle of the One Spir­it whose “Cen­ter is Every­where and whose Cir­cum­fer­ence is Nowhere”.

In life after life and through all the moments in any life, you move through Space-Time in this “vehi­cle” of you: your body, feel­ings, thoughts and spir­it. In each moment, you bring your­self into some “space”, and that space changes, and so do you. You turn a cor­ner and encounter something/someone; you enter a room and are faced with the Ener­gy-Forms that were already present. And in the very next instant, you must deter­mine how you will be, what you will be, and who you will become.

Aries is the begin­ning, it is you aware of you. It is by Aries that you take the first step. It is by Aries that you are self-aware and new­ly awak­ened to and so inspired by the pow­er and joy of new begin­nings. But before you leap into the next moment or the new day, before you move out you must under­stand you…before you go “out” you must look within.

How you meet the moment before you is formed by your lev­el of self-aware­ness, which is most cer­tain­ly revealed by what informs your “Pres­ence”, your Moti­va­tions and Inten­tions. What is in your head and heart, what do you “Desire”? Because if you wish to know “where” and “how” you might be going, you must look with­in to under­stand the “why” you are com­ing from.

As you move through space-time, as you enter a “new-space”, you must imme­di­ate­ly ascer­tain what you should bring to bear to meet this moment well. If the sit­u­a­tion is already too ener­gized, then you need to bring your calm­ing self. And if the sit­u­a­tion is lack­ing in ener­gy, then you must bring more live­li­ness to bear.

If you lean in too much, you will be over­whelm­ing; and if you hold back over­much you will be under­whelm­ing. But it you can bring to bear in each moment that per­fect bal­ance of you that fits, then you will be wel­com­ing and wel­comed, and you will be well-met indeed.

For each encounter with the Now, there is a hier­ar­chy of con­sid­er­a­tions that should be formed into your pres­ence. It will often mat­ter how you are attired. It will very much mat­ter how you hold your­self, as your demeanor or dis­po­si­tion will be crit­i­cal to your recep­tion. It will mat­ter how well you speak, and how well you listen.

But all of this and more will flow from your aware­ness; all of this comes from your inte­gral com­bi­na­tion of Right-Inten­tion, Right-Think­ing, and Right-Feel­ing. It is by this that you are tru­ly you in Right-Action. Your spir­i­tu­al aware­ness, your lev­el of inten­tion, will deter­mine how you will be and what you will next become.

If you under­stand the “Why” of you, then you will know that you are one of many ones whose jour­ney is the Song of Spir­it. If you can tru­ly under­stand that each of you is pre­cious, then you will know that you are equal­ly pre­cious for one anoth­er too. Then you will under­stand this “Why”; you will know that the truth of you is Love. Then you will stand in the Eter­nal Now, the place of Free­dom and Truth, and when you do this you will tru­ly shine.

You are here to be who and what you are, and only you will make it so. If you have lis­tened to your soul’s true nature, you will bring ever increas­ing Light and Love into every moment met in the Eter­nal Now. You will take your next step in your self-becom­ing as you:

Lead with Kindness
Act with Courage
And love one anoth­er as you love yourself.

Because this is who you are; this is who we are.
You are one of the ones of the One.
You are here because of Love,
You are you to be this Love.

Fol­low the Wis­dom of the Ages,
It is writ­ten there in your heart.
Know Thy­self; Love One Another,
And you will be you as you,
Live by Love in the Eter­nal Now.

The Sto­ry of Love

Your Avatar of Val­ue is turn­ing around; your plan­et of love is going ret­ro­grade once again.

Of course, what is real­ly hap­pen­ing is that, like on a cir­cu­lar race track, Venus is pass­ing Earth on its “inside track”. Where­as Mer­cury will turn ret­ro­grade every 3.8 months for about 21 days, Venus turns ret­ro­grade every 19.2 months for about 40 days. (The last two times it turned were July 2015 and Decem­ber 2013, and the next time will be in Octo­ber 2018).

The gift of Venus ret­ro­grade is to take you on a jour­ney with­in your­self so that you may recon­sid­er your expe­ri­ence of val­ue. You are offered a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to refresh-renew-restore your rela­tion­ship to beau­ty in the world, and to lov­ing­ly reaf­firm your affec­tions for one anoth­er. But this is all because the prin­ci­ple gift of Venus ret­ro­grade is to bring you back to the fun­da­men­tal truth that that the true foun­da­tion-source of val­ue is to be found in Spir­it, in that spark of the divine shin­ing there in all that sur­rounds you and equal­ly with­in you. It is this, this divine love, that is source of the immea­sur­able val­ue with­in your­self and your world too.

Venus retrograde’s gift will be mod­u­lat­ed by what­ev­er Sign Venus is mov­ing through. In this turn­ing, Venus moves from Aries back into Pisces, and so there will real­ly be two dis­tinct offer­ings of Venus for you this time.

While Venus loops back through Aries you are offered an oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-con­sid­er how well you have formed your nature or val­ue into your “per­sona”, into your “pres­ence”. Aries rules the way in which you meet and greet your world, it is your bear­ing, your demeanor and your atti­tude. All these ways you are you, all of it is ulti­mate­ly formed by what lies beneath, there in your heart of hearts, all made by your love. How you love (and what you love) flows out­ward to be revealed in the ways in which you move through time and space.

The fun­da­men­tal ques­tion of Venus in Aries is this: Do you under­stand that first you must love your­self. Or more exact­ly, do you under­stand that you are loved, and that you are always loved by your own high­er self, who is your ever-present beloved in life after life?

If you can move a lit­tle clos­er to this, then this will be reflect­ed in how you hold and con­duct your­self as you move through your world and how you treat one anoth­er. And how will you know?

Do you move with grace and ease? Do you encounter oth­ers with a lov­ing warmth and gra­cious­ness? Do you shine with what is with­in you, a lov­ing char­ac­ter and kind­ly pres­ence? Or, does your coun­te­nance reveal a soul that is more trou­bled, more inse­cure, in lack­ing true healthy self-love?

For you should know this by now, it is how you meet the world, and how you treat one anoth­er, it is by this that you sow the seeds of kar­ma, and of what will come back to you one day. The real­i­ty you encounter tomor­row you made today, by how you held your­self and by how you treat­ed one anoth­er. You and only you can make a bet­ter you.

Then on April 2^nd, Venus will ret­ro­grade back into Pisces for her sec­ond gift of spir­it. Here again the par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence of Venus-val­ue will be focused through the prin­ci­pal sen­si­bil­i­ty that Pisces encom­pass­es. As much as the expe­ri­ence of Aries is about your­self, about know­ing that the source of love must first to be found and held with­in your­self, and that it comes from your High­er Self lov­ing you…the expe­ri­ence of Pisces is the per­fect com­ple­ment to this.

For it is here in Pisces that you under­stand that the entire­ty of Cre­ation, from the small­est forms up to the grand­est stel­lar expans­es, you expe­ri­ence the feel­ing-know­ing that all of this is because of Love. You see that this Cre­ation is Love, and that it is resplen­dent with the Light of Love.

You feel exalt­ed and hum­bled by a Liv­ing Faith, know­ing that in the end there is but One Spir­it hold­ing one and all togeth­er, and that behind and through­out every part of Cre­ation, there is the One from whom all came, and whose true Nature is Pure Love.

And from this you under­stand that as much as you are here to love your­self, you are here to love one anoth­er too…for there is no dif­fer­ence. If you tru­ly under­stand, and know why and how you love your­self, then you will inevitably turn around and feel and live this uncon­di­tion­al love towards one anoth­er, and for all of Cre­ation too.

True Self-Love begets Self­less Love; the many return to the One.

The First Sign and the Last Sign of the Zodi­ac are tru­ly the Alpha and Omega of Life. You begin your jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery, of being a one among many oth­er ones.

And you end your jour­ney being one of many who are held togeth­er by the One.

But through it all, from Sign to Sign and from Life to Life, you are a pre­cious spark in this Lumi­nous Jour­ney of Spirit.

You are in this great­est sto­ry ever told, the sto­ry of Love.

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.