The Virtuous Nation — Part III

July 18, 2014 By fishercatKJR

Venus conjunct Sun

The United States also has Venus conjunct its Sun. This clearly manifests itself in two ways, illustrating two keywords for Venus and the Sun.

In the decades before the Civil War, the United States exported about 80% of the cotton in the world, and tobacco was also a major export from this country. These crops, grown largely by slave labor, were extremely popular around the world, and led to the growth of the American economy. At one time, cotton exporters were in general the second wealthiest people in the world, the wealthiest being the owners in England whose factories made clothing from the Southern cotton.

American movies, television programs, music, and celebrities, are extremely popular around the world. All these things are ruled by Venus. People may know nothing else about America, and in fact they may hate America, as many citizens of Arab countries do now, but they still love American culture. Action movies are especially popular overseas, because no translation is needed for a car chase or a gun fight. This causes a tendency in Hollywood to make movies that will be popular overseas, despite what an American market might want.

During the Cold War, blue jeans were neither manufactured nor imported by the Soviet Union, but nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, they were very popular in the Soviet Union. While some were brought in by diplomats, blue jeans were long considered a valuable commodity that could be traded for much by visitors to the Soviet Union.

America has always been popular to immigrants and attempted immigrants. Currently in the United States there is much debate about immigration, since millions of people from south of the Rio Grande River have come to this country illegally. The country is so attractive to them that they would risk their life to enter. And hundreds die a year attempting to come to this country.

And America has always been attractive to immigrants from foreign lands. It has, after all, been considered the land of opportunity, where the “streets are paved in gold.” As we’ve seen above, there were reasons for this belief. The only native people here were the Indians, and they had merely immigrated a much longer time before the rest of the settlers. And America has always gone through periodic attempts to curb immigration.

Comfort-Loving

Americans also love their comfort. Americans are notorious for their lifestyle, which is more expensive and excessive than what almost everyone else in the world would consider. Americans are famous for their lack of physical exercise, and stories are often told of an American driving a block or less to go to a store. Interestingly enough, when skinny families from other countries move to America, they or their children find themselves adopting this love of comfort and putting on weight. But of course, as other countries get wealthier, they also adopt the American lifestyle which they see as the hallmark of a civilized people. Notice how China, as it gets a bigger middle class, replaces the bicycles on its streets with automobiles, and American automobiles are most popular because they suggest that the owner has “arrived”.

Another way of observing the excessive lifestyle of Americans, or the dream that such a lifestyle has on those Americans – the vast majority – who don’t have lives of such excess, is to note the popularity of the television series “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. The show is gone, but we still pay extraordinary attention to the lives of celebrities, who almost by definition are wealthier that we are, as picking up an issue of People magazine or a brief scan of the cable news shows at almost any time will reveal. But of course the people that make up these video encounters aren’t the really wealthy: those people, in the top one-half of one percent of the population, prefer not to be well known, and usually live behind gated walls. They are the people whose wealth is really beyond sight, but they still serve as an inspiration to those who aren’t nearly as rich. Thus the American Dream survives [This is discussed in great detail in Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, Robert Frank, Crown 2007].

Consider the ratio of pay for the CEOs of companies to the pay of the workers of those companies. The figures increases from year to year, but what is most interesting is that this ratio has increased drastically in recent years. A current study shows that executive pay is more than 400 times as high as that of the average worker, nationwide; this ratio was only 42 as recently as 1980. Obviously, excess has gotten more excessive over the last few decades.

But this is not the first time that such excess has been prominent in the United States. In the decade of the Twenties, the rich were famously wealthy. The Twenties were notorious for the great spread between the income of the extremely wealthy – such as Henry Ford, the second richest man at the time – and the average worker. Partly this great imbalance of wealth was due to the monetary policies of Andrew Mellon – the third richest man – who was Secretary of the Treasury between 1921 and 1933, under three presidents [Or as the contemporary joke had it, those three president served under Andrew Mellon]. By present day standards, Henry Ford was earning $345 million a year. These extremities of wealth of the Twenties are often compared to the situation today.

But the Twenties was not the only time in American where the wealthy were so extreme. Another period was the Gilded Age – -whose name betokens tawdry excess – in the last third of the Nineteenth Century.[Jack Beatty, Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, Knopf, 2007. The subtitle says it all.] At one time during this era, the extremely wealthy J.P. Morgan had to loan money to the United States for it to survive during what was called the Panic of 1893. This was the era of the Robber Barons, whose great wealth was legendary.

But excess and love of comfort is not reserved just for those in the upper incomes. The incidence of type 2 diabetes has increased greatly in this country recently, and some are even calling this a diabetes epidemic. Diabetes was previously a disease of middle age, but is now being seen more and more in young people. Diabetes is a disease ruled by Venus, and one of the main causes of diabetes is excess weight, the Jupiter principle. The diabetes rate in the United States is 6.3%, and the country has the third largest number of diabetics in the world, only surpassed by India and China. The rate is only surpassed by Russia, at 6.8%, and that country has seen its standard of living and health care plunge drastically in the last 15 years. The number of diabetics is expected to increase worldwide as American diets and automobiles become increasingly popular overseas.

There is one more example of the excess of America that needs to be told. Recently it was reported [New York Times, p A1 4/24/2007] that the income of the top 25 hedge fund managers totalled $14 billion, with the top three earning an annual compensation of over one billion dollars each, and the top earner getting $1.7 billion. These incomes dwarfs Henry Ford’s adjusted annual income of $345 million. This is certainly Venus excess carried to a high level.

The Virtuous Nation — Part I

June 27, 2014 By fishercatKJR

Since we are almost at the birthday of the United States, I thought it appropriate to write about one of the most important configurations in the chart of the United States, the triple conjunction of the Sun, Jupiter, and Venus. This triple conjunction influences the behaviour and beliefs of the United States, including the ever-important American Exceptionalism, which every politician must swear allegiance to. This article was originally written for the magazine The Mountain Astrologer before the Great Recession of 2008, so some of the figures may be slightly out of date, for example China is now clearly the number one emitter of carbon dioxide, but the figures stand quite well. Endnotes in the original are now put in brackets.

National character is an idea often used by writers, but never given any definition. Various concepts are suggested as to what the national character of the United States is, but with the tool of astrology one can clearly see the national character of the country through exploring its natal chart.

Venus is conjunct Jupiter, and both are conjunct the Sun of the United States on July 4, 1776. I am looking at the Sibly chart, but obviously that configuration occurs for any time on July 4, which is traditionally celebrated as the birthday of the United States, and has been since 1777. This triple conjunction can be seen as Venus conjunct Jupiter (the closest conjunction), Sun conjunct Jupiter, Sun conjunct Venus, and finally Sun conjunct Jupiter conjunct Venus. These four aspects will be discussed in turn. The nature of a conjunction is such that the separate traits of each planet are so entwined that they cease of have distinct meanings. Since both Venus and Jupiter are somewhat similar, drawing distinctions between the conjunctions is problematic, so while one could argue that a characteristic should occur under that aspect rather than this aspect, nevertheless the distinctions can be made. This triple conjunction, especially considering that the Sun is one of the planets involved, strongly affects how the United States is seen by others, how it sees itself, and how it behaves.

Once you understand the chart of the United States, you will begin to see how the meanings of the planets play out in history and in everyday life. The symbols of the planets cease to be abstractions but rather can be seen all around you. The daily headlines reflect the astrology of the United States: you only need to open your eyes to see astrology at play all the time. We are fortunate that the birth date of the United States is recent, and well established. Everyone who has participated in that summer birthday celebration knows when the country was born.

Venus conjunct Jupiter

Blessed

In astrology, Jupiter is called the “Greater Benefic”, and Venus is called the “Lesser Benefic”. Here we have both of them together, which connotes fortune. America is the Blessed Nation, as Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States during World War I, called it in a speech in 1915[Eric Rauchway, Blessed Among Nations, Hill and Wang 2006 p. 147]. Blessed seems an apt description for this conjunction, and I think it is safe to state that Wilson was at least fairly unfamiliar with astrology or with the chart of the United States. This conjunction could also be described, as George Orwell might have put it in NewSpeak, as double-plus good, the ne plus ultra of goodness.

America has always been a blessed, lucky, and fortunate nation, at least since its birth. Consider the luck of defeating the greatest military power in the world at that time, Great Britain. After what is called in the Colonies the French and Indian War (1756-63), a war that Winston Churchill considered the first world war, and one that gave an up-and-coming soldier by the name of George Washington his first real experience at war, an experience that was to come in handy later, England emerged as the leading military power in the world, one with large debts that required squeezing the Colonies for more money. All of the best firepower – rifles and muskets — were made in England, whereas America had little industry of this kind[Michael Bellesiles, Arming America, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, especially chapters 5 and 6]. Nevertheless, America, with help from some European nations, was able to triumph over Great Britain.

After the defeat of Britain, and America was on its own as a new nation, another very fortunate happening occurred. The third President, Thomas Jefferson, sent two ambassador to Napoleon’s France to see if they could secure right of passage on the Mississippi River and landing rights in New Orleans for America, which were strongly needed as Americans were expanding into the Ohio Valley, and used the Mississippi River to market their goods. Instead of just offering them rights to the river, Napoleon was willing to sell America the entire territory of Louisiana, thus doubling the size of the country at one time.

America has also been blessed with a large variety and quantity of natural resources. Oil was first discovered in Pennsylvania, and the country is still the third largest producer of oil. If one drives around parts of Southern California, they can still see oil derricks. And the State of Texas is synonymous with oil; in fact, there are many Texas multimillionaires that started in the oil drilling game, including several that are in the White House.

America has always been called the “Melting Pot”, but many other countries in the New World acted as melting pots also, attracting immigrants from many other nations of the world. But for the United States, this attraction operated somewhat differently than in other New World countries. In most other countries, certain nations would predominately send their immigrants. However, the United States attracted immigrants from almost all countries of the world. America has been called “The Melting Pot of Melting Pots”[Michael Bellesiles, Arming America, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, especially chapters 5 and 6]. To Americans, this mixture of new culture added to their vitality, and to employers the mixture of languages made unionization more difficult.

Because America has drawn immigrants from so many lands it has become the world’s first truly multicultural nation. This is a real blessing to the United States, and a source of strength that many have either not recognized or actively shunned. This experiment in multiculturalism, while not always successful, has been one of the positive facets of America, and will prove more so in years to come, as it gives America a preview of the future of the planet.

But there is one reflection of this Venus-Jupiter conjunction that has caused America to be different from other modern democracies in a less positive manner. America’s welfare program is much skimpier than in other industrial countries.[Rauchway p 68 has a graph illustrating this] Just consider that other democracies have a universal health plan, and most have had such for many years, while America has still not attempted such a thing, even though it is the richest of all those countries. This may be hard to understand until you examine the astrology of America. America is the blessed country; America is naturally lucky; America is fortunate. If the country is so lucky, people who are unlucky, who are unfortunate, are simply at fault. Since this is a naturally blessed country, if you personally have not gotten your share of blessings then it is your own fault. This seems to be the unconscious (and sometimes not so unconscious) belief in America. Since we are such a fortunate country, there is no need to give any benefits to those who are unfortunate. Good luck will eventually come their way. America is seen as the land of opportunity, and this was thought to make government intervention unnecessary, and in fact it was thought that government intervention would stifle economic freedom.

Another result of this conjunction is that Americans in general feel special, that their country is special. And as we can see in this article, this is true. This gives rise to a condition of America that has long been noted by commentators, a facet of American life called American Exceptionalism. This concept, that Americans are somehow special or exceptional, has a long history, and the meaning is somewhat fluid. The idea is that because of America’s unique geography, history, political and economic origins, this country is different than the other countries of the world. But different somehow morphs into better. It was first used by the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville when he visited America in the 1830s, but the concept dates back even longer, to Puritan preacher John Winthrop in 1630 and his speech about America being “a city upon the hill”. Madeline Albright, the Secretary of State under Bill Clinton’s second term, called America the “indispensable nation…[W]e see further into the future.” Richard Holbrooke, a diplomat who also served under Clinton, said “the United Nations works best when the US leads.” The city on the hill idea was used in speeches by such varied men as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. The concept of American Exceptionalism really got a boost by the rise of the Whig party in the 1830s[Rauchway p 66 ff], who also believed that what was bad for the wealthy was bad for those who could become wealthy.

Thoughts on Astrology as a Revolutionary Science

April 4, 2014 By fishercatKJR

In the summer of 1984 I attended a NCGR (National Council for Geocosmic Research) conference at Mills College in Oakland. One of the speakers was astrologer Rob Hand. After one dinner he gave a speech about the differences and similarities of science, religion, and astrology. It was one of the most important speeches given about astrology in the modern world. He later extended his arguments into an article called “Astrology as a Revolutionary Science” and it was finally published in a book very few ever saw. It is a very important paper, and it is available here. After reading this article, I was inspired to write down the following ideas. The data in this entry were drawn from Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer and the newer American Nations by Colin Woodard.

In this article Rob Hand compares what he calls Type I religions and the newer Type II religions. Science, he says, is a Type II religion. But the distinction of Type I and Type II religions can be extended further, and applies to the origins of the United States.

American society is widely thought to be divided into two main factions. In contemporary parlance, these are the red states and the blue states. But this dichotomy goes back much further than our current political divisions.

A major split within the United States, seen throughout its history, has been between the Yankees and the Confederates. While there are other factions within the United States, such as the Scotch-Irish people who settled in Appalachia and the Dutch based colony that formed in New York, these other groupings would join one or the other with the Yankees or the Confederates. In general, those states considered blue were settled by Yankees and those states considered red were settled by Confederates or their allies, such as the Scotch Irish.

The Yankees of New England arrived in this country from England starting about 1630 and came from the Southeastern part of England. These were the Roundheads or Puritans – supporters of the Parliament — side of the English Civil War, and they came to American to start a colony based on their beliefs, since they wanted more freedom for their religion than they felt they got in England. In England, the Roundheads were against the absolute monarchy of the King.

The Confederates came over from the South and West of England starting about 1649. These were the Cavaliers, the other faction of the English Civil War. In 1649 their King, Charles I, was executed by the Roundheads, and it was seen as an inhospitable time to be a Cavalier in England, so they decided to emigrate. In the chart of the United States, which was part of England at the time, 1649 shows Pluto conjunct Saturn near the Descendant of the United States (Sibly chart), showing that a powerful event had taken place external to the incipient United States; it was certainly lese majeste when the King was executed. This conjunction was opposite Uranus-Neptune conjunction on the Ascendant. (I have found that the natal chart of the United States responds to transits before its birth, as well as after birth. While I hypothesize that this also applies to humans, it is difficult to find much evidence to support this.)

But these two factions of the English Civil War — the Roundheads and the Cavaliers — go back even further. The Cavaliers – the upper classes of English society, close to the aristocracy and even the king – gave royal names to colonies in America, such as New York which was initially a gift to the Duke of York from his brother King Charles II, son of the executed King, after it was liberated from the Dutch; Maryland was named after the wife of Charles I; and Virgina was named after Queen Elizabeth. The Cavilers are descended from the Normans who invaded England in 1066 from France. These were Christians – Catholics – a religion that came from Rome.

The Roundheads are descended from a different group, however. They are the descendants of the Angles, Saxons, and others that were in England before the Normans invaded. Theses people practiced a nature religion that was common in the British Isles before the Normans invaded, and was also practiced by many people as an underground religion thereafter, as witnessed by the witch burning of the Sixteenth Century and later.

The Normans go back to Rome and the original Christianity; In the Fourth Century Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, solidifying for all time the impact of the Roman politics on the new religion. Rome was interested in the republic, and many of the founders of the United States were deeply interested in the Republic as a form of government and with a House and Senate they were drawing ideas from the Roman Republic. Even a statement on the Great Seal of the United States is drawn from an epic poem of Rome. To this group what was important was liberty, something that was given to you.

The Anglo-Saxon and earlier English were however using a different form, a democracy that is still practiced in New England with the town meetings. This sprang from the belief that all individuals were born free, that this is not something that could be given to you, and so the concept of freedom was important to these people and their descendants.

Thus we have the conflict in the United States between freedom and democracy, which many of the founders were afraid of and tried to prevent, and liberty and a republic, which was seen as protection from having too many people with a say in the running of government. But we see that these two forms go back native people of England, many who came from Europe, who were pagans, and to the Normans from France and Christians which ultimately came from Rome. So the two are extensions of Type I religion, the paganism of the settlers of the British Isles, and Type II religion, the Christianity of the Normans who invaded England.

Remember 9/11!

February 27, 2014 By fishercatKJR

The collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City was an event that is memorable and has an exact time, if it did not “Change Everything.” It was such an important event for the United States that it must surely show up in the chart of the U.S if astrology has any validity whatsoever. And the transits should be appropriate for an event of this magnitude and nature. A Jupiter or Neptune transit would not cut it. As you can see from the chart below, there is no need to worry. Not only is the transit appropriate to the nature of the situation, but in fact these are the most appropriate transits possible. In fact, this one event caused me to accept the Sibly chart. Further work with it only increased my certainty.

Let’s look at the most obvious first: Transiting Pluto on the Ascendant. Pluto is 17′ from exactly on the Ascendant. But if you look at the graphical ephemeris you will see Pluto went stationary direct right on the Ascendant, and had been there for over a month. Pluto is big events, explosions even – remember it was discovered in the Thirties – transformation, things from the underworld that we would rather not think of. And it took place here, in the Homeland, hence the Ascendant.

But wait, there’s more. Notice the Pluto-Saturn opposition across the Ascendant-Descendant axis. Fourth harmonic aspects of Saturn and Pluto are notorious. These were involved at the start of the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War and now the War on Terror. Also notice that at the time Saturn was slowing down and turned retrograde in two weeks, as can be seen from the graphical ephemeris.

One other minor point: Notice Neptune opposite the North Node of the Moon and thus conjunct the South Node. The Nodes, among other things, represents the connections among people. But the North and South nodes also have opposite meanings. Neptune on the North Node suggests a lack of community-sense (Ebertin). I hypothesize that on the South node it means the opposite, since immediately after 9/11 there was an increased sense of people being together.

But notice also Uranus slowly conjoining the Moon – the people will be excited. Uranus got closer and went exactly over it while the people were being prepared for the War in Afghanistan. The previous time – 84 years before – when Uranus was in the same position the people were getting prepared for our entry into World War I. Americans were against an entry into World War I, and Wilson was reelected in 1916 on the pledge that He Kept Us Out of War. But that changed quickly as a propaganda campaign took place to get us to hate the Germans – the Huns. Hamburger was called Salisbury Steak and saurkraut was called Liberty Cabbage. This time around French Fries were renamed Freedom Fries because the French (who were responsible for our victory in the Revolutionary War, even though it caused them to lose theirs) did not support our War on Terror.

Notice transiting Neptune sesquiquadrate natal Mars (almost exact) and also sesquiquadrate natal Neptune. This highlights the natal Mars square Neptune for the United States. This square is problematic, and I will write in detail about it later, but let me just say now that it indicates that this country’s use of violence is somewhat hinky. Mars and Neptune are not compatible planets, and the square can be a difficult aspect. With transiting Neptune’s accentuation of that square and adding its own delusional nature to the mix, one can well understand why our reaction to the event was so misdirected.

If we look at the fourth harmonic chart, we see a close opposition of natal Pluto and transiting Pluto, reflecting the semisquare of natal Pluto to the Ascendant in the chart of the United States. I will write more about that aspect later, but for now I will quote the words of a famous agitator about that Pluto-Pluto aspect: Those who live by the sword (natal Pluto) will die by the sword (transiting Pluto).

I consider this event, along with the Pluto ingress seven years later (Pluto ingresses to Cardinal Signs have to do with the rise and fall of nations, among other things) a bookend of the American Empire. This will become more clear when I talk about the other bookend and compare it to this one.

The Beatles

February 20, 2014 By fishercatKJR

A couple of weeks ago we were treated to a boomer nostalgia-fest on the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. This followed on the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and we will see many more fiftieth anniversaries over the next few years. How about the fiftieth anniversary of the Trips Festival on January 21, 2016? Of course, this summer we will have the centennial of the start of World War I. I’m guessing that more people are alive and in positions of power who remember the Beatles than remember World War I, and why shouldn’t they be nostalgic since in many ways this period is so unlike 50 years ago, even though we now have the first President born in the Sixties. Much attention has been paid to of late to how the minimum wage, in adjusted dollars, is worth so much less than it was in the Sixties, and, perhaps correspondingly, the spread of incomes is much greater than in the Sixties. People alive at that time remember how hopeful it all seemed, and now only those who are really wealthy can imagine that this is a hopeful time.

So I figured that I should do my part. Above is the chart for the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show 8PM Sunday evening February 9, 1964. I didn’t expect to see much since this is not, despite what some think, a very critical moment. But I was wrong. We see the defining signature of the Sixties, Uranus conjunct Pluto, near the top of the chart. We notice Saturn conjoining the Moon of the United States, which it had been for a few months and would remain, getting even tighter, for the rest of 1964. The country had recently witnessed the assassination of the young and seemingly vibrant President, and so of course the people were depressed. But I want to point out aspects that were the most tight. Since I have added Harmonic Charts to the Definitions section I can discuss this event using one of my favorite techniques. These two aspects were transiting Uranus square the United States Uranus and the transiting Pluto sextile the U.S. Sun. Note that the two planets that define the Sixties, Uranus and Pluto, are the ones making the strongest aspects to the U.S. chart. The closeness is most obvious when we look at the harmonic charts. In the fourth, which shows squares as conjunctions, we see that transiting Uranus is almost on top of natal Uranus. Likewise in the sixth, which shows sextiles (as well as trines and conjunctions) as conjunctions, transiting Pluto is almost exactly on top of the U.S. Sun. In this chart transiting Uranus is opposite natal Uranus, because a square is a sextile and a half. Thus we can see that the “Sixties” planets were closely involved with the U.S. on the Beatles’ first appearance.

So this period is more important than I thought. In the 84 year Uranus cycle, which has to do with among other things Change and Revolution, this moment was at one quarter of the way through this Uranus cycle that started at then end of World War II. This period was sort of a coming out party for those who were born around the time of the initial conjunction. That statement is almost a cliche but I find it interesting that it is shown so obviously in the transits at the time. The conjunction of Pluto with the Sun took place in the Twenties, which was a transformative time in its way. Forty years later we have the sextile between the two planets. With the sextile the transformation of the country is a much lower key affair, something that you wouldn’t notice except in hindsight. At the time people thought that this was just some crazy teenagers over-reacting to some long-haired youth from across the Ocean. With a perspective of fifty years, things look different.

THE UNITED STATES

February 14, 2014 By fishercatKJR

Ah, the chart of the United States. I could say that this is the chart of the United States that I use, but I have studied it enough to say this is the chart of the United States. I’m introducing it here since it will be used in many upcoming discussions.

First the date. Anybody (in the United States especially) who has been to a Fourth of July celebration, fireworks, or parade will know when the United States was born. The Fourth of July has been celebrated as the birthday of the country since 1777 – the first birthday. As for the time, we are fortunate that a contemporary astrologer Ebenezer Sibly (or Sibley – died 1799) constructed a birth chart for the country, but set it in London. Also, according to the Bulletin of the Philadelphia Historical Society the first signature was placed on the Declaration of Independence at 5 PM on July 4. More details about this chart are found in The Astrology of America’s Destiny by Dane Rudhyar.

For a long time, if I ever thought about it at all, I used the Gemini rising chart of the United States, which at the time seemed to be the most popular. As I said, I never really used this but when asked I would provide it. The birth time of this chart is 2 in the morning, which now that I think of it is a strange time to be signing a document. Then an event occurred over a decade ago, like the Tarot major arcana card the Tower, that validated the use of the Sibly chart for me. I have since used this chart a lot and been amazed by the results.

We will discuss the chart in great detail later, but first a few words in general. Notice Jupiter – the Greater Benefic – conjunct Venus – the Lesser Benefic – conjunct the Sun. While no one has suggested that the chart of the United States was planned (or elected) even though knowledge of esoteric subjects was widespread at the time among all the Masons founding the country, one could not imagine a more fortunate chart than one with such a triple conjunction. It would promise growth, wealth, and popularity to the maximum.

Note that at that time the three outer planets – Uranus, Neptune, Pluto – were unknown, with the first one being discovered in 1781. With those three planets removed, the chart would look like the second illustration. The Moon – the people of the country – is the only planet below the horizon, meaning hidden or not visible to the wider world. This was to be desired by the founders of the country who were very afraid of democracy. They were quite knowledgeable of the Roman Republic – and they wanted to keep the people subservient to the wiser beings – themselves. As John Jay, a Founding Father and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said “Those who own the country ought to govern it”. Alexander Hamilton, another founder, surrogate son to George Washington, and first Secretary of the Treasury (look at a ten dollar bill) thought that the Senate and President should be elected for life. On the other hand the Sun – the government – is clearly above the horizon, much more “important” and visible to the outside world.

The other thing to notice is that the Midheaven-IC axis, representing the spine of the chart, is aligned with the 0 Aries-0 Libra Cardinal axis. Anything connected to the Cardinal axis will be known to the world, will have an influence on the wider world, and the fact that Midheaven – our public face – is on the Cardinal axis shows that this country will strongly influence the rest of the world. One thinks of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calling the United States the “indispensable nation”. Barack Obama said much the same thing , and in fact most leaders have to pay obeisance to that belief.

Popular

Comfort-Loving

Venus conjunct Jupiter

Blessed