The Astro-Logger
ASTRO-LOGGER
“We do our logging in the stars…”
By AEons Astrology (Ted Denmark) Dowd’s Hill at Avery, CA Aug. 16, 2009
Contact: aeons@mindspring.com
California And The Greater Scheme
Since we are going further on a Jupiterian joy ride here in futuristic imagineering, it seems to me in all fairness, we are going to have to do something someday about the fact that Caifornia, a huge state with even the population of greater Los Angeles already larger than that of Canada, and with an economy the size of Italy that would rank about 8th in the world by itself, and with three great cosmopolitan cities, nonetheless, still has exactly two U.S. Senators in that great deliberative body, the same as each of all the half dozen New England states, the least of which, Rhode Island, is about the size of Yosemite National Park and with a population about the same size as the summer crowd there on vacation. This unfair and outmoded governance structure may have made sense in the pre-development early days of statehood, but today it is a roadblock, the remnant of a provincial, colonial past, which is constraining the natural cultural expression of the diverse peoples of California by the dominant governing coalition in the Washington/New York East Coast Axis—even if punctuated by two presidents from (southern) California. When the more advanced breakdown in federal government occurs, as it must if the powerful astrology of the USA chart continues to be fulfilled, I would say we must be prepared to unfurl a new dream for California and make the political transition to a new leadership role in the regional Southwest. This will happen eventually, it’s just a matter of whether it can be detected in the altogether extraordinary astrology of the approaching decade … or not—this entrance into the fateful 2012 era that is so rapidly becoming the great “known unknown” of our time. But that is the next “too big” topic that must await another time, and we are not even going to discuss the great California medical marijuana “tea party,” but you can be sure the Jupiterian stamp is on the box (with Neptune imagery and more than a dash of Prometheus-Pluto blend).
So let us look just a bit further into a possible future geo-politics for the Big Valley State. After giving it some thought, it seems to me that California, if it is “too big to fail” after nearly 160 years, really is probably really too big, having in reality already become two, three—or possibly even four—regions with differentiated identities (there would naturally be lots of different opinions about this) ... each capable of becoming states in their own right. A new state of Northern California, anchored by the San Francisco/San Jose Bay Area, extending out to the valley cities of Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto and into the Mother lode, would include all of the present state above say, 37-1/2 degrees latitude. If there were sufficient desire for a new State of Central California, it might include everything from this south boundary down to the 35 degrees latitude from coastal Monterrey Bay to San Luis Obispo with its capital in the center of Big Valley agriculture in Fresno. A new State of Southern California would then extend a similar 2-1/2 degrees of latitude from Santa Barbara to San Diego at the Mexican border with its capital in the indeterminate megaplex of greater Los Angeles. Or, if the hypothetical statehood for Central California could not compete with the ambitions of either the San Francisco/San Jose Bay Area on the one hand and the Southern California megaplex on the other, it would be two new states with a boundary somewhere in the middle of Big Sur going East. During the Civil War it was determined that states may not withdraw from the Union on their own, but what if a state were to choose to re-organize by dividing, rather like a process equivalent to bankruptcy?
This would finally give California, currently the most populous and third largest state by land area, at least a doubled U.S. Senate representation, still only about a third of the current representation of the New York-New England states, surely the beginning of a more fair and balanced distribution of representative governance, making it the first Western super-region, again like New England. The three (or four) new state scenario from the California of today would offer this greater fairness of representation. Otherwise the great State of California, which though too big to fail, might also be too big to stay under the thumb of the dominant East Coast governing power in a way analogous to the way the original New England colonies found themselves unable to stay subject to the whims of King George III (remember him?), the last King George of colonial America before the recent one from Texas. It’s only a few hundred miles more distant from New England to London than from California to New England, being separated by a majestic mountain range rather than an icy ocean!
Such a major reorganization could also include a transition to a form of digital democracy, enabling a default proxy system based on nearly real-time, on-line electronic Internet “voting” (one would vote directly on a refererendum issue or assign one’s vote to any other registered voter as proxy, which would then form a group of government officials by acclimation—no more “running for office.” Of course one could decline …). This elective system would bypass the stage of multi-party parliamentary democracy common in much of the world today, an analog governing process of great complexity incorporating multiple factions, which was the next step taken by the British government itself, after the historical development of American two-party representative government, which appears to have now deadlocked in a tie between the “mommy and daddy” parties both regionally and nationally. The conservative faction is, and will probably always be, in the ascendancy in the Eastern wing, and the progressives of California are dominant the West (with lots of localized exceptions both places), each of whom collectively would prefer more regional sovereignty and local cultural self determination, as well as local financial management (except the Wall St. bankers, of course). It would be a win-win soft(ware) revolution negotiated during times of financial, political and cultural stress … which could be on our horizon. We will have to do something eventually about this cultural and political deadlock, besides admire the beautiful new pictures on our big Sagittarian digital television screens—first in California and then for other states who might want to emulate our example (obviously, not all would, even in the West, and our California progressives would want to join hands with the Massachusetts liberals, but it is only a fantasy story awaiting its screenplay details).
So there is the outline for my big take on re-visioning the California dream … within the American dream. Is it digital enough for you to dig it? Do you have a big California dream? Have you thought about it lately … or ever? Californians are probably going to need to overcome our lethargy and get to work on these details for saving our Big Valley region, which we dearly love … and soon. The East Coasters have other priorities.
But coming back from our stratospheric view to California astrology phenomena in the chart, the next adventure for the CA P-Sun will be the transition through the last revolutionary degrees of Aquarius (see the reason for the fantasy?) into Pisces over the next four years and eventually within a decade towards a conjunction with its ruler, Neptune, marking a new stage of compassionate expansion of the California dream (not to be confused with “compassionate conservative” which was an oxymoron) … with some confusion in trying to deal with all those who have come to make their homes here in the Big Valley State, amidst the deceptively over-drawn expectations for never-ending fun, cheap energy, water, and credit, leading to never-ending increased profits and real estate valuation—the extreme California Jupiter bubble will have finally fully burst with the progressed Sun’s departure from a 3 decade long Aquarius run for a coming 3 decade meditative look at what it has gained for us and where our Piscean-tinged future will actually now be taking us. Since Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, will be returning to its natal position in mid 2013—completing the first round of the “California dream”, the current transiting Jupiter-Neptune conjunction gains even greater impact for future directions—knowing the wise, sensitive and compassionate side of Pisces yet covers a destructive shadow side of victimization and delusionary self sacrifice. And once again there is an interesting parallel in the USA chart where it is Pluto, the outermost “planetoid” beyond Neptune that returns to its natal position of 1776 (but not until 2022!) with an intense hit of the emergency reset button. Here in California with its corresponding Neptune return, it will be more like updating to California Dream 2.0, but it will nonetheless be a quantum leap into the future that will continue to make us the envy of the world, if the not the USSA (United Southern States of America).
In astrology Aquarius rules the extremes, the best and worst, highest and lowest, usually with missing the “ordinary” middle. In the last quarter century of California’s P-Sun passage through Aquarius, we have gone from the recession of the early 80’s during the Reagan presidency, through the surplus profits of the wild tech and housing bubbles of the late 90’s, back again to struggle with the financial collapse of ‘08, called by many the most severe since the Great Depression, and finally to the emotional climax of ’09.
It has been a roller coaster ride to satisfy the most demanding Aquarian thrill seeker. Even when the P-Sun moves into Pisces in a few years, as noted, the always accompanying Solar planets, Mercury and Venus, will remain in their passage through the New Age Sign of Aquarius for more years, along with Mars, even though they all have to cross the South Node, meaning the shadow side of Aquarius—the misfit stumble that many otherwise envious Midwesterners and Easterners see as their justification for hanging with their own native analog folk cultures, rather than making their break to the digital Pacific coast (can you “dig” it yet, on-the-road, proto-hipsters?).
And if California doesn’t self destruct financially, culturally or geologically—the negative extreme—then it may eventually be able to offer the more worthy pole of the Aquarian ideal of fairly sharing the Jupiterian abundance of the Big Valley and the Big World to everyone in America: the beginning of a fully human governance interaction in a hybrid digital electronic democracy, with a path to earned citizenship for all, along with a certain dialog of persuasion with the vested interests of the mainstream analog American Empire, a culture grounded in corporate dominance of elected government, fundamental religious exclusivity, elitist exceptionalism, and since the Cold War, covert engagement for world domination by export of arms, financial manipulation with entrapment and military force (required “J” movie rating for Jupiterian truth telling). In the ancient biblical world of Jesus, it was the Roman Empire that played this daemonic role amidst the spiritual materialism of the rabbis and leaders of the various branches of the Hebrew faithful.
In the times after the burst California bubble (coming soon to a venue near you) we may eventually need to call a state constitutional convention, consistent with a faltering national government and currency, which is really beginning to look more likely from the staggering amount of debt now being accumulated by the federal treasury to “save us.” We would have to find a way to bring the various vested interests and exotic California sub-cultures together to discuss what we want and what is politically possible, after the great emotional climax of the California progressed Full Moon of late ’09 that will resonate down the years ahead. This is the big one, so let’s hope you have had your house retro-bolted to its foundation because it will probably come as a shock to most when we realize that the torch of the old American dream has been passed to the new California dreamers who … need to awaken from their slumber. Well … are we feeling lucky enough yet to buy a ticket in the Big Valley Casino Colony Sweepstakes? Or do we need to await the fate of New Washbosadelphia? We hope the daytime storefront government of Baracko continues to exert some control over the covert “security” government whose horrors will come as a deadly shock when they become more generally known ... The riddle we have to solve in our time is to understand the dangers of both big government and big business amidst over-population and then create a new framework for the countervailing forces to compete openly and honestly for the benefit of the cultural needs and human rights of all people and the existential rights of all creatures.
May the dream time return to bring our dreams down to Earth.
ASTRO-LOGGER
“We do our logging in the stars…”
By AEons Astrology (Ted Denmark) Dowd’s Hill at Avery, CA June 14, 2009
Contact: aeons@mindspring.com
Barack Obama's Chart
With all the assessments of how Barack Obama has been doing recently, it seems like a good time to again look at the major phenomena in his astrology chart. His accurate birth time was not revealed until somewhat late in the election season, the original times that circulated in the astrology media having been mistaken. The campaign committee must have finally concluded it would be more trouble to have wrong astrology predictions based on a wrong time than any kind of astrology predictions based on the right time. So the presumably correct data is: August 4, 1961, 7:24 p.m., Honolulu, HI. You may have heard that there is a fringe faction that claims Barack was actually born in Kenya, but that is another story …
Baracko’s famous charisma begins with Aquarius rising (ruled by Prometheus, aka Uranus) and his star power gets added with Sun in Leo almost directly across the Ascendant (the “rising sign”) late in the 6th House, giving him his pragmatic hard-working approach to life that comes off at the surface as calm and modest, but is based on careful analysis and deep penetration—as aided by detail-oriented Mercury in the same house. Altogether this is usually called “no drama Obama” but it should be “no melodrama Obama”; the drama is in the authoritative calmness and underplayed effort that deflects resistance and unexpectedly captivates (not always, of course, he still indulges himself with his ciggies). His early Gemini Moon (did they say seeming immaturity?) in House 4, along with Venus in Cancer in House 5, shows his excellent communication skills that are essentially cast in a parental attitude, both as a highly conscious family father of two daughters and a parental president giving careful advice to the extended national family in his care. The Leo Sun is also well suited to his obvious alter ego as a teacher and lecturer, so we also look to him like his law school class in need of understanding our best social and political inheritance of honesty and fairness leading to justice.
His chart is mostly “western,” which means he is primarily involved and connected with others rather than being independently self-oriented, which would mark an “eastern” chart (this astro-jargon is really not much more complex at this level than say, baseball or football, which also appears strange and complex at first, but which we have had most of our lives to get used to …). The only eastern element is the powerful Jupiter/Saturn conjunction on the cusp of the 12th House (and here’s where things take a turn to the metaphysical), indicating likely major savvy experience navigating the full political spectrum from conservative to radical, gained in past lives. When we look at the progressed chart (showing the current symbolic situation), we see that this Jupiter/Saturn pairing has risen to the 10th House of career and was conjoined by the progressed Moon about two years ago as he started his run for the presidency! This calls for an exclamation since the circumstances could not have been better timed, hence his almost flawless political campaign in the face of so many circumstances that could have easily blocked our first president of African-American ancestry, who was also rather young and inexperienced (like Jack Kennedy), beating both the Clinton machine and the stumbling Republicans in the wake of the collapsing two-term military, political and economic Bush-Cheney duopoly.
That progressed Moon is also still in the sign Aquarius (more charisma) and is approaching the Moon’s South Node, indicating a somewhat more troubling rebound from his perceived take-charge radical approach to the country’s economic woes in the flattened auto industry and his wary, careful attempt to rein in the bloated financials of Wall St. It was Dick Durban, the senior senator from New York, who recently admitted that the bankers and financial high rollers already own the US Congress, so we can imagine what Baracko is up against here—this is the big dragon to slay or be thwarted. An 11th House P-Moon indicates that one is in a stage of life when one’s enemies from previous lives re-appear and must be encountered, ideally to be pacified, setting up the next stage for our “three-quarters white” president—appealing for a healing approach in our time of great crisis as the P-Moon then moves into Pisces, at which time (early next year) he will then become more sensitively empathic and … vulnerable.
It just so happens that the ruler of Pisces, Neptune, has recently transited B’s ascendant (personal identity), giving him a naturally compassionate, deeply personal attitude—also manifesting as a sincere and appealing religious demeanor, defusing much of the attack the opposition would like to mount from the political and religious right. The slow-moving Neptune transit also catches up with his natal South Node before long, also showing possible personal vulnerability with this apparently “weak” position. But once again he will opt for a healing approach before he unleashes his backup strategy and his next line of defense. At the current time transiting Prometheus is moving from the 1st House into the 2nd, showing that both “spiritual” outer planets are now the primary shapers of identity for our national head of state. About one year from now, when Prometheus moves into Aries, he will probably have to take charge in a more direct approach to managing the powerful problems of governing in times of financial crisis when things, once again, appear to be sliding out of control (they will be).
This sympathetic engagement with the various disadvantaged classes and groups, the racial minorities, the financial “lesser haves” rather than the “have mores” favored during the Bush era, also extends to those unfortunates caught up in the torture dragnet. He would just like to put the whole unfortunate legal mess behind him and the country, but it will likely be just be the necessary beginning of investigations into the Bush-Cheney “white house horrors” hidden by the ultra-secret presidency as the link between the 911 terrorist attack and the ultra-patriotic attempts to use it to justify the war on Iraq … that will slowly continue to unravel during the latter years of the Obama term.
Obama’s Mr. Nice guy Neptune role is currently being gamely tested by those who attained their privileged positions in business (multinationals with sheltered off-shore profits) and finance (Wall St. high stakes bonuses), and he will attempt to apply his legal yard stick of fairness as broadly as possible, but he will also initially feel the need to make compromises … from his vulnerable position as a new untested leader and manager—who happens to be the first black American president. Later in 2011 this struggle will turn more threatening as Neptune reaches its opposition to his natal 7th House Pluto as his enemies reveal themselves more openly ...
Obama’s transiting Prometheus in late degrees of Pisces, as it transitions from the 1st House to the 2nd (from a sense of identity to an awareness of wants and needs) opposes his natal Mars, sharpening his attachment to the struggle with Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan as it now extends into Pakistan with its continually weakening pro-American government. Here he will feel he must do something fairly dramatic to display his commander in chief role, prodding the Zardari government (via Hillary at first with aid money, then Gates later with the military) to take the offensive in Swat and generally afterwards to catch the nimble Peshtoon fighters, so warlike and proud of their historical upsets to invading empires, in the pincer. This challenge reaches its peak in late Summer with the Saturn transit of Obama’s natal Mars on the cusp of the 8th House opposed by the transiting Prometheus opposition (military struggle with enemies!) ... Obama’s fate in the Afghanistan War is one of the darker specters on his political horizon.
So the continuing role of “no drama” Obama gets its initial script and recurring list of issues from the two outer “spiritual” planets, Prometheus and Neptune, the latter reaching its greatest pitch as it makes a see-saw of direct and retro motion over his natal 7th House Prometheus during the latter half of 2009 and early 2010. This is probably the most sensitive challenge point in the Obama chart (square the Midheaven-IC axis with Moon conjunct IC) evoking a sense that any kind of very dangerous thing could happen but that the chief has things under control and is even having the time of his life (like the Camelot image from the early JFK presidency). My feeling once again is that anything truly could happen … Prometheus is famous for surprises.
The interaction between the Obama presidency and the truly dramatic events anticipated by the continuing series of Pluto oppositions in the USA chart will be very complex, and will likely converge on the financial circumstances that continue to smolder beneath the surface as Geithner and Bernanke currently appear to have gained the upper hand. This is likely the blind side of the Obama presidency, who really does not want this next “great depression” to get in the way of his priorities, and so is trying his effective level best to put it in the background until he can put his personal stamp on the presidency and gain the trust of the still fearful mainstream population. But compared to Bush, he is still a knight in shining armor …
But this Band-Aid will only have a short life span before it is brushed off by the financial pyrotechnics returning in Fall 2009 as Pluto turns direct on 9/12 at the first degree of Capricorn and begins to whip lash the mess into a froth of confusion, uncertainly and doubt. Once again there will be a round of wealth loss (second Pluto opposition to natal USA Venus) as the economy lurches and the banks fail to recover from the as-yet unresolved great derivatives fiasco encountered going into the early financial crises of Fall 2008. The main event of Anglo-Saxon casino capitalism (as the European Continentals say), the risky ventures and bets made by the hairball of “creative” financial instruments and contracts, will once again stumble and fall, this time risking the solvency of the American treasury itself ... as wealth is attempted to be created de novo by the printing press and computer. First expect more deflationary pressure on nonessentials, then greater inflationary price spirals for essential commodities, the beginning of which can be seen in the current gasoline bubble, now rising past $3/gallon.
Pluto will then reach its opposition to Jupiter in early 2010 and see-saw back through the Venus opposition in a recurring pattern of wealth loss accompanied by loss of optimism that recovery is anywhere near term, setting up greater financial fears to the point of panic in some quarters. If one is really a person of means, modest or substantial, and wishes to responsibly diversify holdings, now is the time to look into the price of precious metals, which will continue to increase in value. Otherwise, whatever one can do to gain a more serious-minded austerity position will be appropriate, but a more general loss of optimism will probably not occur until mid 2010 during the second Pluto opposition to Jupiter (Americans are overwhelmingly optimistic).
The aftereffects of the financial difficulties of Fall 2009 will then define the mid-term elections of 2010 as Barack goes into greater problem-solving depth to resuscitate the failing treasury bond sales to the sovereign fund buyers (China and the oil sheiks) around the world. We will then come into a time when truly anything could happen, but unless you are caught directly in the crisis of the cross fire, it will feel like an exciting time as we and our political process are probably going to be exercised even more vigorously than, say the 1960s (no implication for assassination, for which I think he will be protected, but there will be many disgruntled people with weapons skills …).
It feels to me like Obama will continue to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” during the aftermath of the next round of financial troubles, as he spars with the recalcitrant political right as well as the progressive left about what is the appropriate and needed action, but as Churchill said about the USA getting into World War II, he will finally do the right thing—after he has tried everything else that looked easier at first. It still feels like something of a miracle to me that Barack Obama has succeeded to the presidency and has come to the country’s emotional rescue--at least temporarily-- lifting it out of the chronic grinding depression of the Bush-Cheney years which seemed endless and hopeless to all but dead-enders in denial. I don’t doubt that Barack is a genuinely sincere and even humble man who has greatly parlayed his opening wager, and is now probably the most skilled politician of his generation, and a very bright, well-informed analyst with detailed historical knowledge of the roots of the great American experiment in democracy (or was it representative republicanism?), but I can’t help but feel that he is a bit naïve about thinking he can get the financial moguls of Wall Street and the financial groomers of K Street into his movie of even “no fault” financial recovery, after the recent much rumored demise of “free market” capitalism. The parallel universe generating mechanism of space-time itself may have to pause until the state and fate of the great American hardball financial empire … becomes assessable. In the meantime be sure to check the facial expressions on the Washington, Lincoln and Jackson notes in your pocket: the current astrology picture would give them a troubled look for at least a few more years or so, but eventually they will get back to business, even if it may be as images in a new financial model coming to the new electronic digital democracy as near as your local PDA … fashionably presented by you-know-who, perhaps the first president who really understands the pivotal role of what began as the Internet. Well, did you really want to continue living in the BC era (“before computers”, and, oh yes, Bush-Cheney too)?
ASTRO-LOGGER - April 19th, 2009
“We do our logging in the stars…”
By AEons Astrology (Ted Denmark)
Contact: aeons@mindspring.com
Spring On The Ingress Into Taurus 2009
Dowd’s Hill - Avery, CA
It finally feels like the first day of Spring on the ingress into Taurus 2009, even if the dogwoods of Love Creek haven’t barked out their blossoming assurance of Spring yet. Many of us had become appropriately impatient in late Aries for the warmer weather and now have had our wish granted.
Perhaps it is time to pick up our astrology ephemeris once again and check out the planetary positions vis-à-vis the USA chart, now known to be highly reliable, to begin assessing the damage of the various recent financial debacles and … future expectations. The main trouble maker in the USA chart, a Cancer country by birth on July 4, 1776 (home of the brave?), has been and continues to be Pluto, the outermost former planet, now reduced to a Plutino or minor planet by the astronomers (ah, such sweet revenge for the vengeful former planet). The loss of somewhere near one-third of our collective national—or worldwide—wealth coincided in a symbolically appropriate way with the progressed Pluto opposition to Venus which was in orb for the first time last Fall ... and continues on at present and for the rest of the year with a series of whiplash station points in early Capricorn, around the same 3 degree point opposing the run of USA natal Cancer planets. Bottom line: don’t expect a financial recovery anytime this year to be leveraged out of the likely minor bear market rally of last week or next month. My call last year was for a likely Dow Jones market stabilization at about 8K, which has now predominated at the end of the first quarter after the emotional rush of the new Obama presidency (progressed USA full Moon around the time of the inauguration). The market, nearly always a harbinger for slower economic trends to follow, may hover at this now hopeful level most of the year, but as we start to lose our optimism next year for a more robust recovery, it will probably start to sink again, depending on what happens to reforms in the banking sector … (remember Warren Buffet’s warning about weapons of mass financial destruction?).
And the main next problem is that Pluto rapidly drifts into an opposition with Jupiter next year, only 3 degrees ahead of Venus in Cancer, and this will then become the dominant theme of 2010—losing our optimism for magical thinking (the usual standard critique of astrology) and beginning to understand how we are going to have to get back to work (progressed = P Moon in Virgo) to earn our keep. The hopeful expectations for a return of lost virtual wealth will continue beyond 2010, as P-Moon conjoins Neptune on the cusp of 2nd House early in 2011 (hope that some delayed technique or psychological twist of fate will do the trick, our prayers will be answered or that someone will come to our aid, etc.). But the inflated fantasy of wealth without work will become the latest bubble to pop … except for those plutocrats trying to resuscitate the great American financial athlete who overdosed on fire hoses of credit turning into cash—with other people’s money—thinking Wall Street and the US Treasury were the safest bets in the world. But at least it is realistic for optimism that a more sober cultural phase can begin after the demise of the great faith-based wastrel binge of the Bushoholic era.
So let the new realism begin … What are we willing to work for in recovery of the best of our American cultural heritage that would be most fair, as they say, to all the stakeholders? Truly it will be a country in need of rehab, literally and figuratively, as we are forced to discover who we really are and what we really want out of our national life experience together—or not. And especially whether we really want the maintenance costs of an American Empire that has been written into the fine print of the secret “signing statement” edition of our Constitution blatantly but surreptitiously promulgated by the Bush-Cheney oligarchs. These will become the economically driven politics of the emerging Obama era.
Obama is moving in his style of cool serious drama, but also very cautiously on all these issues as he attempts to take hold of the reins of national government, with factual disclosure of what really happened during the secretive B-C co-presidency coming first, the actual misfeasance and malfeasance, as the first gambit for possible future legal measures that he may consequently be forced to pursue with his new leadership in the Justice Department … but it’s still too early to see the pattern, and the prez will probably be much less of a radical than a Midwestern moderate, who is probably still a little idealistically naïve about the roller coaster ride he will be taking … But a rock star has panache for possibilities that ordinary politicians can only envy from afar (and do). The question for the reptilian right will continue to be, how they can make him the scapegoat for all the misery of chimera America (Chimerica?) … The big O will probably have a lot of unexpected moves that will surprise most of us as he bobs and weaves his way around the ring (or will it be the stage or the court? … to further mix a rambling metaphor?). But only yesterday there was a news story about a political rally in Texas in which Governor Perry mentioned the option of “secession” for his proud state if things get really tough … Possible future for Obama: he will become president of a new USA electronic democracy as the base for the next American Revolution which will happen over the next 8 years when Pluto finally reaches its opposition to the USA Sun—the time when the Phoenix finally begins to arise from its ashes, from about 2012 to 2016.
But there are other interesting major astrological complexities in the USA chart as well: first the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction (outer planet conjunctions are always powerful historical inflection points) falling on the USA natal Moon (ruling Cancer), which was transited by the P-Sun in 2001, a sensitive point if there ever was one, particularly as it coincided with the Pluto transit of the USA natal ascendant (!). I’m afraid the powerful main effect will be gross confusion combined with unrealistic unbounded hopefulness about what is really afoot in the country and the world if the mainstream media outlets remain in the hands of the corporate oligarchs (no reason to suspect change here). The television and radio network news programs will continue to pretend to report the news in the most in-offensive way possible without hiding the facts outright (there will be plenty of that too), and we will continue to drift into Huxley’s prescient Brave New World scenario as the Mexican drug cartels supply their pirate chemical wares enforced with weapons imported across the same border. Escapism of every kind would be the likely broad category … and much more of the same. The younger generations will continue to laugh it off on late night and cable entertainment shows until they eventually begin to understand that the boiled frog joke will increasingly be … on them.
Tracking the USA P-Moon in Virgo yields a similar result, as we try to re-gain a sense of national identity by trying to get back to our erstwhile familiar routines after the emotional rush of the election following the financial collapse of Q4, 2008. In mid 2010 the P-Moon conjoins Neptune, again reinforcing a sense of hope (the “O” in this word harks back to you know who) that we can regain our sobriety from various enticing sirens of escapism to care enough about who we are to begin to imagine what we really want. Can we be weaned off the ad cliché of “just wanting everything …” for little or no effort while the peasant farmer in India continues to survive (we hope) on less than one U$D a day? Later, around the 2012 time frame, the P-Moon reaches Mars and then Saturn, when we realize we will have to struggle for our effort to keep spending other people’s money to retain our privileged position in the world economy, gained when we were the good guys.
Finally, the USA P-Sun, after five years in Pisces (ruled by Neptune), will begin to allow us to accept a humbler role on the world stage as we realize the “go-it-alone” cowboy ploy of the early B-C era was a self-destructive dead end. The Chinese will finally realize they were snookered with their pile of promissory US treasury bonds that the essentially bankrupt USA foisted on them by the Wall Street/Washington Fed axis as their entry price for access to the out-of-control USA retail economy. This will come at a time of major rising world tensions and could precipitate hot or cold war, which as we know, could become nuclear with the Israel-Iran flashpoint very close even now. Just add China. India and Pakistan to these major player world financial troubles, and the outcome looks very dicey, going towards sliding out of control.
Naturally, these thoughts of slouching towards 2012 could spoil your whole day if you were to focus on them excessively, but for now it is still just astrology speculation, even if we can say it is mostly a matter of how much, rather than whether the building crisis of the next four years will “really” happen or not. The post WW II storm has been gathering now for nearly 60 years (as in Korea), and the real structural changes cannot be delayed much longer, nor were they completely obviated by the collapse of the Soviet empire … it will finally be the turn of the other over-extended cold war empire … with hope for a more mature electronic democracy worldwide gained from the spectacle of the great war-time bravado and suffering we are beginning to comprehend ... slowly. Sadly, my view is that it will probably take centuries for Earthumans to slowly become more rational, but the Creation is not in a hurry—it is up to each of us as the bearer of our own spirit and then together in influential small groups, before any aggregate outcome can be effected. At least we have gotten connected …