The meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin occurred on July 16, 2018 and the reaction from the Anglo-American press (I have yet to become familiar with the press of other countries in this matter) was immediate, vociferous, and uniformly hostile. Many called Trump’s acts treasonous. The term “traitor” was bandied about frequently. If we look at the chart of the US with transits of the time of the summit, we can shed a little light on why the reaction of the political classes were the way they were.
Here is a chart for 6:20 in the morning eastern time, which means it was 1:20 pm Helsinki time, the start of the summit. Since the aspects we will be looking at are not terribly dependent on the exact time, timing is not important. Three aspects stand out.
Saturn is opposite both natal Venus and Jupiter, and in fact Saturn is almost exactly (one minute of orb) opposite the Venus/Jupiter midpoint — black arrow. Jupiter and Venus are conjunct, and both conjoin the Sun of the US in the natal chart; this triple conjunction is very important in determining the basic self image of the United States. I’ve discussed this at length in an early post about the Virtuous Nation. It is difficult to imagine a “nicer” conjunction than that of Jupiter (the “greater benefic”) and Venus the (“lesser benefic”) and since that conjunction is conjunct the Sun of the United States, the country’s sense of self and vital energy, and all the other characteristics of the Sun, are modified by Venus and Jupiter. The United States has a self image as a beneficent noble country that started with the shining city on the hill, as John Winthrop (Massachusetts 1630) said of the United States, long before the country actually existed. That line is from the Sermon on the Mount and has been used by many others, such as Ronald Reagan. So we see that this Jupiter Venus conjunction is extremely important to the US self-image, and the county’s leaders are always shocked when other people do not believe or accept that self image.
But on the day of the summit Saturn was opposite those two planets, and exactly opposite the midpoint of the two planets. Saturn and Venus/Jupiter are not exactly good buddies. The placement of Saturn there casts a shadow on Venus/Jupiter, on that self image that America holds so closely to. Saturn indicates a threat to the image that America is an exceptionally good country. American does not like that! That aspect suggests why the reaction was so rabid; deep down, the wonderful self image of the United States was threatened, and that is not good.
Notice that both an aspect and a midpoint are involved in this configuration, suggesting that it is stronger than if only aspects or only midpoints were involved. We will see in a future post how this applies in other areas.
This next planetary configuration of importance also involves aspects and midpoints: Transiting Mars is sesquiquadrate natal Mars and natal Neptune (red, green arrow), and is exactly on the Mars/Neptune midpoint. In the US natal chart, Mars and Neptune are square, with an orb of one degree. This square is also very important to the behavior of the US. Mars and Neptune are difficult planets together, and the square is probably the hardest of major aspects between the two planets. Mars – Neptune suggests deceptive uses of energy, or more to the point for a country, the US is under a delusion that its use of energy, war — the most clear manifestation of Mars for a country — is always good, for obviously the US is the shining city on the hill which only has the best interests in mind when it goes to war. There are many other things that could be said about this aspect, but that is a discussion for another time. While the country believes that its action are of the highest moral purpose (Neptune), there is much delusion or incorrect belief about the real purpose of those wars. If one delves truly into the motives and outcomes of various US wars, such as the Vietnam War or any war in Iraq, that is quite obvious.
With transiting Mars involved with the two planets and that aspect, much anger (another Mars term) is brought out. Everything represented by that Mars-Neptune square is energized. How dare anyone try to claim that the new Cold War between the United States and Russia (which of course is only due to the bad actions of Russia and the demonic Putin) is not fully warranted, journalists howl. This is very threatening. As former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray titles it on his blog, detente bad, cold war good is a current American mindset.
A third aspect of note is that the transiting Sun — representing the day of the event — is conjoined the natal Mercury, representing the press in all its many forms (blue arrow). There was a Twitter explosion over this summit, and mostly invective. The major mainstream media fell over themselves in condemning Donald Trump for his treasonous behavior.
A lot of this is the manifestation of Russiagate, the scandal that has engulfed Washington over the last two years. At first I thought it would eventually die out, but it seems to be sticking around and is gathering even more energy.
Since Watergate, the scandal that brought down President Nixon, occurred during the closing semisquare between Uranus and Neptune, I had long though that the opening semisquare of those same two planets which we see now would see another Presidential scandal. And I’m beginning to think that this extremely large scandal, perhaps the largest in American history will, when it resolves, be the basis of the Pluto Return of the United States.
As far as I know, no country with any type of constitution has survived long enough for a Pluto Return — the return to the natal position — at about 250 years. Look at how often even England, not to speak of France or Italy, have formed a new birth chart because of a new government or Constitution. But the United States keeps ticking along with the same old Constitution. (For examples of how the Constitution, which is revered by many as almost the Ten Commandments, has been the cause of many of the problems that bedevil this country, see The Frozen Republic and The Velvet Coup both by Daniel Lazare.) If you are over thirty, you realize how important the Saturn Return — when transiting Saturn returns to the place it occupies at birth — is to our own growth as an adult. And the effects of the Saturn Return are noticed several years before the event. I’ve known of marriages, divorces, and major moves that have happened in the run up to the Saturn Return. The Pluto Return is even more powerful. And we will soon get to see one of the World’s first examples!
Here is a graphical ephemeris of the three and a half year period for the Pluto Return. We see Pluto first comes close to its natal position in early 2021 (black arrow); the first exact conjunction is at the beginning of 2022; the last pass is a the end of 2023 (red arrow); and the last near conjunction is at the end of 2024, though of course that period could be extended. I believe what we are seeing now will result in a major shakeup in the government, more powerful than what occurred after Watergate.
There are two basic theories of what we are seeing that is called Russiagate. Either one is unprecedented in the history of the county. And of course the people that are supporting either narrative differ from the standard Democratic-Republican or even left-right dichotomy that we usually see. One side is backed by “Establishment” Democrats and Republicans, along with (of course) the intelligence services and all the media outlets, newspapers and television news channels. The other side is backed by the “extreme” left and right along with corresponding blogs, since there are no mainstream outlets for such divergent voices. Also, several prominent experts in Russian history support this position, but of course they are never heard from in mainstream sources.
The official narrative goes something like this: The Russians conspired to fix our election of 2016 (along with many other elections and movements around the Western World) so that their chosen candidate would be elected, and that candidate likely colluded with them to do so. Thus we have the President of the United States working for a foreign power. When in the Fifties the John Birch Society, a conservative anti-communist organization, charged President Eisenhower with being an agent of the Soviet Union, most people laughed it off. But this time all the press (Mercury), or at least the “prestige press”, are uniformly in agreement and in fact broadcasting the scenario. To have an actual traitor running the government who is in thrall to a foreign leader is something no one believed would occur in this country. Many are calling this the new Pearl Harbor or bigger than 9/11. When the proof of this is final and that traitorous candidate is eliminated, a major shakeup in the government and in election procedures will occur.
The counter narrative has it that the Deep State (what I called the National Security State in a previous entry) conspired to put its chosen representative, Hillary Clinton, into the White House, and when the unimaginable happened and the candidate they were sure would lose became President, they conspired to prevent the current president from doing much and hopefully driving him from office, either through impeachment or other less sanguine means. The whole Russiagate narrative is like a snipe hunt for America. The Deep State has much practice in regime change for other countries, and now it is applying those techniques here at home. This too is unprecedented and when it comes out that this is happening a major shake up of the United States government will occur.
So there you have it, two mutually exclusive scenarios, both of which are beyond what has happened to the American Republic since its birth and both of which will require major changes in the laws of the land and perhaps even the Constitution to prevent such a thing from happening again. In either case we have a major shakeup coming, fitting exactly with the meaning of a Pluto Return.