
Mundane astrologers take charts like this one, of the birth of the U.S., and make predictions about it. They use various techniques – transits, the daily motion of the planets; progressions, where the natal sun is brought forward in time; and solar returns, where the sun is returned to where it was at birth. I’m not a mundane astrologer. However, if this chart belonged to one of my clients – who would have to be really old! – I would be alarmed.
Here’s why. First, over there on the right side of the inner chart, see all those planets and points in Cancer? (69)
Cancer is a nurturing sign, mother earth, her arms are thrown open and she’s welcoming all who come here.
All? What’s that mean?
Well, look at the sign on her ascendant – – the arrow to the left of that horizontal line that cuts through the middle of the circle. That arrow represents the sign of Sagittarius – foreign people, cultures, philosophies, worldviews. In other words, those planets in the sign of Cancer welcome immigrants.
When Pluto entered Capricorn in late November 2008, I shuddered. Pluto – that odd trident with a circle in the middle of it in the 2nd house) a powerhouse that exposes the dark underbelly of what’s hidden, the power structure, the underworld, death and sex and taxes – sounds like Woody Allen, right? And Capricorn is about ambition, power. We had a financial meltdown and housing crisis and the way the government solved it was by bailing out the banks – not the people.
In the outer circle, you can see transiting Pluto at 17 degrees Capricorn in the 2nd house, and the natal Pluto in the inner circle at 27 degrees Capricorn in the same house. The U.S. chart is going to experience its first Pluto return, which happens every 244 years.
For the U.S. natal chart, that means that between the years of 2020 and 2022, things in this fragile experiment called democracy are going to be really dicey. This Pluto return isn’t necessarily an aspect of war, but it certainly challenges the existing authority of government, how it’s structured, what it hides, its power machine, its power figures, and what it means to be a democracy.
The conjunction is exact in early February 2022, two years into the next presidency of whoever succeeds trump. But because Pluto moves so slowly, we’re already experiencing some of the effects. The dark underbelly of power is being exposed in sex scandals, in a president who is incapable of telling the truth, tweets his policies in the dark of night, and attacks everyone who criticizes him. We see how the internet and social media are empowering the people. As one MSNBC commentator said recently, “Thanks to social media, we the people don’t have to wait for congress to act. The #metoo hashtag powered a movement.”
It’s as if the people, the masses, are now challenging the authority and claiming the daily headlines. It’s tougher to pull off shadowy moves when you’re monitored 24/7. Take the tax bill the house just approved- and yes, taxes fall under Pluto’s jurisdiction – supposedly for the middle class. Despite the spin about how wonderful this is for the middle class, people who make between $10,000-75,000 are the ones who are hit. They lose most of their deductions to the one percent, to the corporations, the uber wealthy. Trump himself will save millions.
That said, the voices of the people may be silenced when the FCC votes in mid-December on overturning net neutrality. There’s nothing good in this repeal for the people. As NBC news put it:
“Try this scenario on for size: You wake up, reach for your phone, and head to your favorite news site to check the headlines. But instead of the latest news, you see a message from your cell phone carrier: “This site is not available. Please upgrade to our deluxe package to access it.”
“Since you’re broke and can’t upgrade your plan, you head to social media to find out what’s going on in the world. On this platform, however, your feed takes forever to load because your carrier doesn’t have a special “Fast Lane” deal with your preferred app. Growing frustrated, you try to search for alternatives to your phone company online, only to be met with a “This site has been blocked,” pop-up in your browser.”
This move is right in line with the approaching Pluto return in the U.S. natal chart. An attempt by the powers that be to silence all those irritating dissenters.
So even though I see these next years in either/or, black/white contrasts, there’s some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I think we’ll emerge from this as a stronger country, with a clearer sense of who we are as a collective and as individuals within that collective. In March 2023, Pluto enters Aquarius, the sign of the rebel, visionary, of the collective called humanity, the one who thinks so far outside the box that I believe this is probably the true beginning of the age of Aquarius.
Thousand years of peace, promises a spiritual text.
Well, we’ll see. I’ll be well into my 70s by then. Our daughter will be 34. The future will lie in the hands of her generation, the millennials, whose first voting experience brought Obama into the white house.