Pluto Return

June 29, 2019 By Doug K

Since America has a unique Pluto return coming up in two years I thought it would be useful to look at the previous hard aspects — multiples of 45 degrees — of Pluto to its natal position over the course of US history. As we go through these seven periods, one notices that events do not necessarily happen on the exact date of the return, but rather the hard aspect signals a shift in the future direction of the country that can be appreciated by looking backwards. Sometimes these important changes had already started before the exact Pluto aspect, but the changes set in motion will be amplified in the years following the exact aspect. And these shifts, as can be suggested by the involvement of Pluto, can be seen as a “transformation” in America. Note that in the following Pluto makes either three or five exact aspects over the course of a year and I have chosen for illustration the one in the middle, with Pluto retrograde if there are only three. The first aspect discussed is the opening semisquare with its natal position.

Astrology chart of Pluto return — Opening Semisquare

This period saw the first wave of Americans who had been born after the Revolutionary War come to maturity. It also saw three important changes which all bear the name “Revolution” and which were to change the face of the new country of the United States. Since these were long lasting trends, it is impossible to give exact dates for them, even though a couple do occur. These “revolutions” continued until the Civil War.

The Transportation Revolution was to change the way people moved about the country, most important to farmers — and most people were farmers then — who needed to get their crops to market in a timely manner. The transportation revolution saw roads built to allow horse drawn vehicles to move swiftly to new regions, canals built, the most famous one being the Erie Canal in New York State, and most importantly the development of the steamboat which allowed quick transportation in both directions along that major waterway in the center of the country, the Mississippi River. One landmark event in this transportation revolution was the first commercial steamboat trip at about 1pm 8-17-1807 by Robert Fulton, who had been developing the steamboat in previous years. The trip went along the Hudson River from New York City to Albany and back.

There was also the building of roads, which was important if the people who lived in the West (that is to say west of the Alleghenies) were able to get their products to market and to get products from the East Coast so they did not have to be totally self sufficient. The most famous of these roads was initially called the National Road and later the Cumberland Road (and it finally became Highway 40 — the Main Street of America that ran from Atlantic City, New Jersey to San Francisco, California). The National Road was created by an Act of Congress in 1806 but it took a few years before construction actually started.

The Communication Revolution changed the way people thought about daily happenings. There were produced an increasing number of newspapers in the early years of the Nineteenth Century. Steam powered presses were initially developed in England; those presses allowed many more copies of a newspaper to be printed in a given period of time, and so many more people could read that newspaper. Photography was developed in a few years after the date shown, and that changed the way people saw their world. Telegraphy was developed in a couple of decades, allowing near-instantaneous communication, a development as far reaching as the Internet is in the present day.

Perhaps most far-reaching was the Market Revolution, which turned the United States into a full-blown capitalist country, and to use historian Richard Hofstadter’s phrase, changed the country from a democracy of fraternity into a democracy of cupidity. Laissez-faire capitalism was a relatively recent phenomenon at that time, since Adam Smith’s groundbreaking book The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776.

While the Industrial Revolution first started under the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the early Eighteenth Century, it was jealously guarded by England. The Industrial Revolution first came to America in the 1790s in Rhode Island with pirated technology. The technology had been brought to America by Samuel Slater, who was called by President Andrew Jackson the father of the American Industrial Revolution. His design was copied and spread in the following years as America (and the world) joined the Industrial Revolution.

Another, totally unrelated, change to America at this time was the ending of the Atlantic slave trade. In the years following the Revolutionary War Northern States had abolished slavery. Then in 1808 slaves could no longer be imported. But slavery was still a thriving business in the South, and as the nation expanded, it was expected that many of the new states would allow slavery, so the question became where would the slaves come from. Thus in the Southern states a going business arose of breeding slaves to produce more that could be sold for a profit. For more details of this horrific practice see The American Slave Coast by Ned and Constance Sublette.

Astrological Pluto return chart 1849 — Opening Square

The Mexican-American War took place in 1846-48, and expanded the continental United States to essentially the size it is today. This was a big increase in the size of the country. Then gold was discovered in California (before the war was over and California was part of the United States) on January 24, 1848 which soon started a huge rush of gold-seekers into California. Oregon Territory was also added, after settling a dispute with Great Britain that had also claimed the Pacific Northwest, at roughly the same time. Thus the next few years after 1849 would see a major expansion of the United States, after Texas, California, and the Pacific Northwest were brought in. This expansion would bring the issue of slavery to the fore, since questions arose whether the new states would be slave or free, and the attempts to deal with that would lead to the Civil War in another dozen years and the birth of a new political party.

Pluto return, astro chart for 1896 — Opening Sesquiquadrate

This was a period a long enough after the Civil War that many of America’s leaders were thinking of expanding the country beyond its bounds, to have colonies in foreign lands just like many European countries. A war of independence broke out in Cuba in 1895 (the third in the thirty years) and soon America got involved fighting Spain over its colony in Cuba, and as a result of the easy victory in that conflict, American found itself with foreign colonies: Guam, Philippines, and of course Cuba. The decision was made that America was to be an empire, an important change in the consciousness of America.

Alfred Thayer Mahan published his very influential book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660-1783 in 1890. People like Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt immediately got the idea of expanding America’s influence to have overseas colonies, like the European powers did, and they saw with the Cuban revolt against their Spanish masters a change to get involved in the Great Game. The ramification of this decision would bedevil America up unto the present day.

An important Supreme Court decision happened in 1896 which influenced race relations until another decision in 1954. The was the case of Plessy v Ferguson which was an argument against segregated railroad cars. The result was that “Separate but Equal” became the standard for the land, enforcing the use of “whites only” facilities. The ruling of Brown v Board of Education (of Topeka) is widely seen as the first blow against that 1896 decision.

In 1890 the Census Bureau declared that the frontier was closed. The Native Americans had been subdued and most of the land settled. In 1893 a historian from Wisconsin named Frederik Jackson Turner proposed his “Frontier Thesis” which stated that the expansion of the frontier made American democracy and shaped American character; this thesis was later expanded to a book, and it altered the way historians and thus Americans in general looked at the past.

Astro chart of Pluto opposition in 1937 — Pluto Opposition

This Pluto opposition to its natal position occurred during the New Deal which was the biggest change in the country since the Civil War. This New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt was a response to the Great Depression which was the largest financial crisis the country had yet seen. The Great Depression, which began in October of 1929, was not amenable to standard measures. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, he instituted measures suggested by various third parties, such as socialists. Laws passed under his administration gave the US Social Security and made it much easier for Unions to do their job. By 1937 the Depression had been ameliorated so much that FDR held back on some limits, which resulted in a resurgence of the depression; this depression was not finally ended until the increased defense spending needed for World War II. This “military Keynesianism” has never stopped.

The results of this period were to influence America through the administration of Richard Nixon, who was called the last New Deal President by Noam Chomsky. This was more than 35 years after that Pluto opposition, which indicates how strong the effects of that opposition were. They lasted until the closing square in 1983, as explained below.

Pluto return astro chart for 1964 — Closing Sesquiquadrate

Interestingly, the first of the three exact aspects occurred on October 10, 1963, about six weeks before President John Kennedy was killed. This Pluto sesquiquadrate occurred just as the Uranus-Pluto conjunction was forming. The Pluto-Pluto aspects indicates the changes that were coming in this decade, which would alter the way the country saw itself. Notice also the square between Pluto and the Ascendant: America was trying to force its will on a Southeast Asia country, and the results were not pretty. The Vietnam War would continue for the next ten years.

Astro chart of Pluto and the US, 1983 — Closing Square

This aspect is near the beginning of the Reagan Revolution, the start of the Age of Reagan that we are still in. There was also a Saturn-Pluto conjunction at the same time, the last one before the conjunction at the beginning of 2020. There were so many changes that started in this period it is difficult to list them all. This was the start of neoliberalism which has been discussed extensively in this blog. This was the closing square between transiting Pluto and natal Pluto, and the country (and the world) were changed massively by the actions of Reagan and his supporters, which turned out to be most everyone. If one does not take account of neoliberalism in the years since this square, one’s analysis will be as vacant as an analysis of a fish which does not recognize that it lives in water.

Astro chart, Pluto in the US, 2000 — Closing Semisquare

On August 23, 2001 Pluto went retrograde within ten minutes of conjunct the Ascendant and also a closing semisquare to its natal position. This was shortly after the last exact pass. Not only did this period see the selection of George W. Bush as President by the Supreme Court of the United States, thus avoiding a recount (there was an exact pass on November 29, 2000) but also the beginning of the War on Terror. At the same time there was a Saturn-Pluto opposition, the middle of the cycle that started under the previous hard Pluto aspect mentioned above. The War on Terror would be one of the dominant motifs of the next 20 years, not only in America, but in the rest of the world as well. Many nations used America’s War on Terror as an excuse to also crack down on “terrorism”.

You will notice that the first half of the Pluto Cycle is from 1776 to 1937, a period of 160 years, and the second half will end in 2022, a period of 85 years, or almost half of the first half period. This is because Pluto has a very eccentric orbit and moves faster when it is close to the Sun. Pluto was inside the orbit of Neptune from 1979 to 1999 and thus was traveling the fastest at that time.

Pluto astro chart in US, 2022 — Pluto Return

This actual return occurs one week after the 246th Fourth of July, the second of three exact conjunctions, all in 2022. There is also a stationary direct Pluto which is within half a degree of its natal position during the fall of 2023. From looking at the previous aspects, we can guess several things about this upcoming Pluto Return.

The effects of this Pluto Return — a conjunction to its natal position — will start before the exact conjunction, but we will not be able to see the indicators until after the exact return has happened, with the benefit of hindsight. This return will be a transformative event for the United States, changing the country in ways that people can not see now, but afterwards everyone will say “it was so obvious, you could certainly see it coming”. The effects of the return will extend well after the conjunction, perhaps many decades. And since I believe that the conjunction is the mother of all aspects, this transformation will be greater than those we have seen in the various aspects described above.

Uranian sidebar: For those who use the eight hypothetical planets of Uranian astrology we see an important conjunction coming up. As illustrated in the graphical ephemeris below, at the same time that the Pluto Return is happening — 2022 and 2023 — we also have the hypothetical planet Kronos conjuncting the Sun of the United States. In the illustration below, Kronos — whose symbol is a cross with a hat on top — moves very slowly over the golden dashed horizontal line representing the natal US Sun. The standard meaning of this conjunction is a president or leader, someone with high authority. The planet by itself represents everything above normal, high up, excellent. Perhaps this conjunction will mean that America will once again be a force for good in the world, a massive transformation (Pluto return) from what it is now.

Graphical ephemeris highlighting Kronos — Kronos Conjunct Sun

By Doug Kellogg, reprinted with permission

Death of the Uni-polar World

October 31, 2014 By fishercatKJR

One of the phenomena of the last 500 years — the Party Time — was the rise of the uni-polar World. This is a world that has one dominant player. Before that time, the concept did not really exist, since the world was not globalized, and the large scale empires of the time, such as the Roman, Chinese, or Persian, only held sway over a limited part of the whole world. Once the New World was known by the Europeans (and I ignore those who criticize the term since it was obviously known by the natives, as a case of semantic confusion) the uni-polar world became possible. We are now moving into a multi-polar world where there is more than one power center. But the unfortunate situation is that the uni-polar power at this time does not recognize that a multi-polar world is possible or desirable. When the previous uni-polar champ, Britain, was replaced in the early years of the Twentieth Century, it was able to resign with some grace and did not make a scene. This is often held up as a example that superpowers should follow. But perhaps Britain was an exception to the rule that a superpower does not go gently. For the next 500 years, there will be several dominant powers in the world, including, one hopes, the people of the world, as was predicted by the New York Times (“world public opinion was a second superpower”) after the large marches on February 15, 2003 to prevent the invasion of Iraq.

For the purpose of this entry, I am going to talk about four superpowers that dominated the last 500 years, their rise and fall. These four were, in turn, Spain, Holland, Britain, and the United States. The important astrological event for these power changes seems to be Pluto crossing the Cardinal Axis — 0 Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Note that the importance of the cardinal axis is shown by the chart of 1492, which has Neptune, and not Pluto, crossing the cardinal axis.

Spain was the dominant power at the beginning of this 500 year period because the country became unified and they had several explorers travel to the rest of the world and bring back riches, gold and silver, to the home country.

The important year seems to be 1479: This was after Isabelle and Ferdinand were married, but Isabelle was still involved in a war with her sister over control of Castile. This war was settled in September of that year with the Treaty of Alcáçovas. Also that year Ferdinand succeeded his father in Aragon. This paved the way for Castile and Aragon to join together and a unified Spain to result. As we can see from this chart, Pluto crossed the Libra point, and thus crossed the Cardinal Axis.

Both these events took place in the same year, but of course the developments leading up to and following after were important. Spain had been conquered by the Moors in the Tenth Century, and it was a challenge for the Spanish to drive (or convert) the Moors over the next 500 years. They were finally successful in 1492 with the Reconquista. Another ethnic group that upset the Spanish were the many Jews who lived in Spain. Spain also gave them the choice of converting to Catholicism or else — see Spanish Inquisition. This was accomplished pretty much by the same year. But Spain was still not a unified country: There was Castile which was in the center and north of the Iberian peninsula, and was controlled at this time by Isabelle, and Aragon in the north of the Iberian peninsula near the Pyrenees Mountains, controlled by Ferdinand. After the two were married in 1469 the two nations of Castile and Aragon were joined together, and after the Muslims were driven out, Spain became a unified country, bent on establishing its power. After this point Spain was sending explorers around the world, bringing back gold and silver to enrich the home country. This Spanish Golden Age was also a great one for Spanish arts and literature, with the examples of the painter El Greco, known for his elongated figures, and Miguel Cervantes, whose best known work is Don Quixote. The country began to lose lustre with the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England in 1588 and the loss of the lowland countries. As we can see from the chart for that date, Pluto came to the Aries point, thus crossing the Cardinal Axis again.

The Dutch Republic rose with a long war against the Hapsburg dynasty of Spain. The Dutch Republic established the Dutch East India Company and the oldest stock market in the world in the early years of the Seventeenth Century. The Dutch had a large fleet of merchant ships covering the world. At one time they were masters of New York, which they lost, won and lost again to the British. The artists of this Dutch Golden Age are well known, consisting of such as Rembrandt (Night Watch) and Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring). The Dutch of the Low Countries dominated the world trade that had previously been controlled by the Spanish.

Like other Empires, the Dutch enjoyed their time in the sun, but they felt competition with England. England was involved in the Seven Years War (1756-63) which also involved the other major powers of Europe and was fought at various locations around the world. The part in North America is called there the French and Indian War. Winston Churchill thought that this war should be considered a World War. In North America there was a battle between the French and British over the control of Canada, and the French lost. The painting by Benjamin West called The Death of General Wolfe marks an important point in this battle, near Quebec. This marked the rise of Britain to be the dominant power in the world, a position that would last for over a century. The chart for this transfer of power from the Dutch to the British is marked with Pluto at 0 Capricorn, again crossing the Cardinal Axis.

But by World War I, in which Britain defeated Germany, they had lost much power, and going off the gold standard didn’t help. There was a new powerful country in the world, one that did not exist in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and they wereThe Death of General Wolfe able to step into the gap vacated by the British. The British loss of power is spoken of in almost reverential terms by historians since that are widely credited with handling their loss of world power in a responsible manner. One can only hope that the last country to give up power will have learned lesson from Britain, but at present that outlook is doubtful.

The United States was the country to become dominant after the British lost their pole position after World War I. The Twentieth Century was indeed the American Century as Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted in the Thirties. With the 9/11 attacks and the Great Depression America is no longer the dominant power of the world. A single dominant world power was a phenomena of the previous 500 years and now the world must adapt to something new in this area, as in many, many others. As H. G. Wells said, “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

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.