Starcatsastrology’s Blog

The Sun Moves To Aries – Where Does America Stand?

Sun in Aries, Venus in Aries

The horoscope for the Sun’s dance into spring has Aries rising and a graceful Venus retrograde (only a scant 14 minutes shy of the Ascendant!) waltzing into hidden realms. There’s something suspicious about the lesser fortune – Venus – slipping into the house of secrets just when the brazen Sun proclaims rebirth in the sign of its exaltation. The solar deity – the symbol of kings and presidents — is tightly cloistered behind the robes of Venus, Uranus and Mercury. What gives?

Mars, Aries ruler, is also positioned in the 12th house in sacrificial Pisces. In fact, by degree and house cusp, Mars just dropped in as if suddenly summonsed to a smoke filled room. A secret chamber meeting has already been underway between talking head Mercury, rabble-rousing Uranus and the proud Sun who is grateful to no longer be drinking from the poisoned well of the fixed Star Scheat (29 Pisces).

“Influences: According to Ptolemy the bright stars are like Mars and Mercury. The constellation gives ambition, vanity, intuition, enthusiasm, caprice and bad judgment. [Robson*, p.56.] With Sun: Danger through water and engines, liable to accidents [my article on Natasha Richardson to come – CDD] or drowning. [Robson*, p.206.] “ Anne Wright’s Fixed Stars

Mars, the Aries Chart Ruler

Mars secreted in the 12th house of hidden matters, enemies and circumstances – all testifying to sobering levels of national self-sabotage — is the ruler of – wait for it! – the chart’s 8th house of banking, loans, bonuses, inheritances, pay outs, tax cuts, and insurance.

All of the aforementioned are in high focus as more scandal-laden disclosures involving egregious swindles (Bernie Madeoff), AIG and Merrill Lynch, et al. are revealed. The president, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (August 18, 1961, Philadelphia, PA) Congress members such as Chris Dodd (D-CT, born May 27, 1944, in Willimantic, CT), are making headlines as the country spins itself off a financial, legal and ethical cliff. Check out The Huffington Post for the latest breaking news and find out more about who’s who.

Pluto and Raw Power Plays

Pluto of American “Plutocracy” (in the second house of money in the USA chart) is at 3 degrees of establishment oriented Capricorn. It is actually only 3 degrees 14 minutes shy of a conjunction with the Aries Ingress chart’s Midheaven (10th house cusp), however, it is conjunct from what we astro wonks deem as “coming from the 12th house side of the 10th.”

A bit of definition here — every house cusp on a chart has it’s own 12th house sign operative. For example, the 12th house of house 2 in the chart is house no. 1, and so on. The preceding house gives information about what circumstances bear influence on the workings of the house under examination.

Therefore, Pluto’s 12 house side conjunction to the 10th cusp – not yet exact – is still in shadow, but will bring more to light re what the executive branch (president – 10th house) is doing in regards to all the issues you’re reading in the today’s headlines.

The Timers

Pluto in the 9th house, or the 12th house of the 10th, is 3 degrees and 17 minutes shy of a conjunction with the Midheaven. Using horary and event astrology timing rules, we note that in about 3 weeks time and then again in 3 months time, more will be revealed regarding the nation’s financial meltdown and all desperate attempts to remedy it. This takes us to April 10, 2009, Good Friday, and June 20th – the Summer Solstice (Sun to 0 Cancer).

WWE Raw Pluto and Raw Wrestling Plutocrats

Robber Barons and Gordon Gekko of the “greed is good” school of predatory capitalism have had free reign in America since the beginning with a brief hiatus post WWII up to about 1973 where the middle class was born and allowed to flourish. Donald Trump’s father made his fortune post WWII building houses for returning soldiers who benefited from the G.I. bill. Donald joined with his father and later made his own mark as a real estate mogul.

Now that the USA is gearing up for it’s very first Pluto Return in 2022 (July 4, 1776, Pluto was at 27 degrees Capricorn), we’re facing the dark side of a Saturn ruled Pluto in Capricorn. Saturn, the karma keeper, will not be denied. The hubristic overreach of Pluto’s transit through ever-expanding Jupiter ruled Sagittarius brings serious consequences.

The corruption and irrationality reached it’s apex during that 14 year transit — the 12th house of Capricorn is Sagittarius – and every belief system inclusive of predatory capitalism, the ego inflation of right wing religiosity, political terrorism hiding under the mantle of religion (9-11), fascist and authoritarian abuse of government, torture, illegal war (Iraq) and outright theft of hard earned taxpayer dollars must now be accounted for.

What we’re facing now is a national hangover. The nation is like a drunk coming-to realizing that he’s lying in his own piss. The national myth, like private drunken dreams, is destroyed in the harsh light of the morning after sun. But the national myth, unlike drunkeness, is something the soul needs to bind a people together in common purpose. The biblical proverb “without dreams my people perish” came from a very wise man. The numinous backdrop of the American myth is a real body existing within the psyche. It is this sad, numinous psychic body that is aching.

Saturn in the Aries Chart

Saturn (ruler of Pluto and Moon in Capricorn) is beset by retrograde motion and falls “amiss” by virtue of it’s cadent position in the 6th house. Ivy Goldstein Jacobson called the 6th house the angle of distress.

The 6th house has been deemed an unhappy place because it is the one associated with slavery and all forms of grim servitude. In modern times the 6th house is associated with jobs, work, routine, health, mental health and service.

Saturn retrograde in the 6th confirms for us what we already know: 651,000 jobs were lost in February sending the unemployment roles skyrocketing. For the first time in American history, food drops such as those we make to foreign lands got underway in a small town in Ohio. The town, once home to DHL worldwide international delivery has been devastated because DHL is now bankrupt. DHL was the town’s only big employer.

An Axis of Evil Fortune – the 12th House, Opposite the 6th

The 12th house, the polar opposite house to the 6th, is where we locate unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, hospitals and clinics, charity, and homeless shelters. The 12th house is “The Poor House”, the convent, the Midnight Mission, The Salvation Army, Goodwill and the soup line. It is the house associated with Hoovervilles – tent cities set up by vast numbers of homeless people during the Great Depression. Today the 12th house tent city is one that sprung up in Sacramento, California. This one and numerous others are on the rise.

The 6th house with a negative, destructive retrograde Saturn therein, also relates to:

“Illness and disease, its condition and cause, whether the illness will be short or long, curable or not. All matters relating to the health industry and those who work in it: dentists, doctors, nurses.
Employees, tenants and servants . . . day-labourers, farmers. . . . . . domestic issues gernerally; this house has some relevance to domestic appliances that are purchased to ease day to day chores and laborious tasks.. . . Pets [victims of house foreclosures/pet shelters – CDD. . . . The 6th house also has a connection with farming [blighted crops, food shortages,empty food banks – CDD]. . . Generally this is regarded as a house of weakness and affliction. As a cadent house it represents alien or unhelpful conditions.” [See Deborah Houlding’s stellar Skyscript traditional astrology website.]

Back to Saturn – the Traditional Ruler of Aquarius

Saturn is the traditional ruler of Aquarius (Uranus is the modern ruler). From its position in Virgo in the 6th house to Jupiter in Aquarius in the 11th house, there is an uncomfortable aspect between the two called an inconjunct or quincunx. Tactiturn Saturn is 150 degrees from network savvy, outgoing Jupiter. We associate the 11th house with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and the two branches of Congress.

On the one hand our computer social networking helps cheer us up, but on the other, Congress, under grave stress via the inconjunct from Saturn to lawmaker Jupiter, finds itself hamstrung and obstructed because of an irrational investment in worn out ideologies.

Saturn is the old guard, the establishment, old ideas, the status quo. It is an obstacle laden energy field when operating out of its shadow but is the keeper of the light of wisdom (Hermit card/Rider Tarot Deck) when a person or a collective mobilizes discipline, solemnity, a spirit of sacrifice and hard work.

Unfortunately, the more dark or ignorant manifestations of Saturn are more likely to manifest during its retrograde phases.

Saturn’s obstruction via the inconjunct to the highly placed 11th house Jupiter (also called the house of hopes and dreams and the good daimon/spirit) is a lesson in two strong energies working at cross purposes which is a phenomenon that has troubled and undermined the United States for decades now.

The 150 degree aspect is a difficult moment in the Jupiter-Saturn cycle taking us back to when the two planets conjoined in Venus ruled Taurus – think of the iconic Merrill Lynch bull on Wall Street – back in May 2000. The once every 20 years conjunction of the two “chronocraters” (timers and manifestors) took place just under 6 months before the debacle known as the Bush-Gore 2000 election.

Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions set the tone and the agenda for the next 20 years of American politics, economics, and social growth (or restriction). To learn more about this all important 20 years conjunction see Starcats’ May 2000 Alignments | Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction

At this stage of our long national nightmare, all that’s been done since the American economy crashed, is to hand money bailouts to banks, corporations and rich CEO’s while the core issues (6th house) remain unaddressed. The inconjunct aspect between Saturn and Jupiter show how disjointed the attempts are to correct the nation’s course. Inconjunct aspects reveal uncomfortable, painful requirements to stretch in ways that are unnatural to a person or to a body such as the collective consciousness of Congress.

Where the Aries Ingress Chart Leaves Us Today

Whatever is decided upon and enacted now, both nationally and personally in our own lives, will come up for it’s first test of efficiency at the Summer Solstice when the Sun enters Cancer.

The obvious connecting point will be the cardinal Sun’s square (from watery Cancer to firey Aries. The intuitive, brave, warrior Aries Sun and all it does over the next 3 months, will be called to give an accounting to national security oriented, home and country loving Cancer.

There’s a war (Aries) on terror but an equally upsetting war at home on how a nation in such dire circumstances can hope to prevail.

A “take charge” Aries Sun will have to show real results for effort spent to the Cancerian Solstice Sun. After all, it is this Moon ruled sign that protects society and civilization.

In 3 months time – when by horary and event chart timer rules we find Pluto exactly conjoined to the Midheaven of the Aries Ingress chart, we will face more complicated scenarios. A short time after the Solstice, we celebrate July 4th. What kind of birthday will American have in 2009?

Starcats, March 20, 2009

Footnote:

*An Ingress is when a planet moves into another sign. The word Ingress means entrance – a going into or the right to entrance. Egress means exit. It’s a leaving or the right to leave a place. There are 4 cardinal ingresses a year: Aries, the spring equinox, Cancer, the summer solstice, Libra, the autumnal equinox and Capricorn, the winter solstice. Each of the cardinal ingresses, along with the year’s eclipse cycles, are used by mundane (world) astrologers to judge the conditions of a calendar year for good or ill.

Starcats – March 20, 2009

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