This is one of the sig­na­ture align­ments I exam­ined in the overview for 2011 that is occur­ring in Oba­ma’s chart and in the chart for the Unit­ed States. This is what I wrote then:

Uranus Square Venus (Apr. 12, Oct. 16, Jan. 31, 2012)
Oba­ma has his Venus in Can­cer at just under 2° of Can­cer; the Unit­ed States has its Venus at just over 3° of Can­cer. Just as in 2010, when Sat­urn passed over Venus for both, so too this year Uranus will tran­sit their Venus’ togeth­er. The Sat­urn tran­sit was dif­fi­cult since it cre­at­ed a feel­ing of a lack of self-worth, a lack of val­ue which results in all sorts of prob­lems for rela­tion­ships. But in the end it serves to clar­i­fy what is more valu­able with­in and around us. Uranus is a very dif­fer­ent ener­gy; cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent kind of chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for the US and Obama.

Just as the Uranus tran­sit to the US Venus calls for a new under­stand­ing and expres­sion of Amer­i­can val­ues, so too does this mean that this tran­sit to Oba­ma’s Venus calls upon him to ful­fill his role as a leader whose pur­pose is to artic­u­late those chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties we face now.

Uranus Shocks
Uranus is not gen­tle, espe­cial­ly when it is form­ing, as it is here, a “hard” aspect; it opens up new path­ways and pos­si­bil­i­ties through shocks, sur­pris­es and upsets. Often­times its ini­tial effect can appear as a loss, it requires a sac­ri­fice, but its true pur­pose is to break up the old forms of val­ue, (to release the spir­it of val­ue from a more lim­it­ed form of being), so that spirit/life may cre­ate new forms of val­ue which are to be expe­ri­enced, (in this case, most impor­tant­ly, in our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and to oth­er nations, the 7th House).

The chal­lenge of Uranus is met by being open and wel­com­ing of change; Uranus serves to break up old pat­terns that have sti­fled the flow of spir­it and there­by cre­ate con­di­tions for a new order. The dan­ger is that the upset or chal­lenge will be expe­ri­enced as some­thing to fear; reac­tion sets in that actu­al­ly brings about more painful shocks and adjust­ments that could have been more man­age­able had the ener­gy been allowed to do its work. The oppor­tu­ni­ty of work­ing with Uranus is that by being open to new forms and expres­sions of val­ue, the per­son or enti­ty can keep unfold­ing their spir­i­tu­al potential.

Spir­i­tu­al Law
Spir­it must take on form; it must lim­it itself and become some “thing” in order to be any­thing on the earth plane. But that form is lim­it­ed and will even­tu­al­ly lose its mean­ing, its relevance.…its beau­ty. So, the form must be tran­scend­ed so that Spir­it can rein­car­nate into a new form of expres­sion. This process is one of the most fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al laws that gov­ern our universe.

We do and must try to pro­tect, pre­serve and pass down these forms of val­ue as long as we can. How­ev­er, whether in great forms of art, or beau­ti­ful forms of human inter­re­la­tion­ship, even in our per­son­al val­ues, prin­ci­ples and laws, at some point the par­tic­u­lar form must be tran­scend­ed; spir­it must be free to form anew. One of the prin­ci­ple agents of such release and ref­or­ma­tion is Uranus.

Uranus and our Chal­lenge
The chal­lenge of Uranus in Aries to Venus in Can­cer is to re-define how we find or cre­ate secu­ri­ty in our lives, all the while our world is in the midst of great changes, (Even greater than we might at first imag­ine. I will come back again to this theme of the epic changes ahead, but just know that we have not faced changes as great as this for over 200 years).

If we stay attached to the exist­ing forms because we are afraid, we will suf­fer. If we re-affirm the spir­it that cre­at­ed those forms, we can find a way to renew our sense val­ue at the cen­ter of our lives, and so forge a new base of secu­ri­ty to stand upon. When the form is break­ing apart, we must get back to the spir­it behind the form; we need to go back to root ener­gies and so restore and re-affirm our spir­i­tu­al truth in renewed forms.  

Venus
Uranus is chal­leng­ing and break­ing up the old forms of Venus in Can­cer. Venus is the plan­et that binds us to one anoth­er through our shared val­ues, whose purest and truest expres­sion is found in our love for one anoth­er. In any soci­ety and cul­ture, what binds us to one anoth­er as a peo­ple is what we cre­ate with one anoth­er and share with one anoth­er. In any sys­tem, there are ener­gies hold­ing it togeth­er and forces pulling it apart. What holds us togeth­er is our love for what we share in as a people.

Venus and Amer­i­ca
With Venus in Can­cer, Amer­i­cans come togeth­er in our love of the indi­vid­ual, and the sacred­ness and dig­ni­ty that forms our dri­ving spir­it of self-deter­mi­na­tion. Our myth is the sto­ry of the jour­ney of the indi­vid­ual to dis­cov­er and con­nect to their root ener­gies, to be cen­tered upon one’s true self, and so be empow­ered to go forth and ful­fill his or her des­tiny. The spir­it of rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism has been giv­en form in our idyl­lic imagery of “the pio­neer”, of “the inven­tor”, of the “per­son of con­science”, which is ground­ed in our fun­da­men­tal belief that one per­son can (and does) make a dif­fer­ence. These and many oth­er images are at the core of every Amer­i­can’s belief in the essen­tial worth of the individual.

Yet, at the same time, with our Moon in Aquar­ius (and so the ruler of our Venus), we have had to acknowl­edge that an indi­vid­ual can­not find them­selves, they can­not be ful­filled, they can­not be “free” to do what­ev­er they wish, because an indi­vid­ual can­not have a life of mean­ing and pur­pose with­out sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tions with oth­er indi­vid­u­als. Here, in Amer­i­ca, we came togeth­er, as our founders stat­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, and freely chose to cre­ate a new soci­ety and in order to do so “… we mutu­al­ly pledge to each oth­er our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor.”

Venus, Rela­tion­ship and Our Sac­ri­fice
We are formed in and find our mean­ings through what we share with one anoth­er. We are not so dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er, real­ly. Our needs and wants find expres­sion in cer­tain forms because of the cul­ture and sub-cul­tures we find our­selves in. The devel­op­ment of our “unique” self is only pos­si­ble because of our well-matched capac­i­ty to sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. This is the core of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence of val­ue: that to be one­self and be free is found­ed upon a love of one anoth­er, that we pledge our alle­giance to one anoth­er, and so we are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for one another.

The word sac­ri­fice means lit­er­al­ly “to make sacred”. Sac­ri­fice is the key to love and self-ful­fill­ment. We make an offer­ing; we give up some­thing in order to achieve some­thing. We seek to become bet­ter than we were before. To sup­port one anoth­er in our own indi­vid­ual strug­gle to become what we wish to become, we must come togeth­er and sac­ri­fice to one anoth­er. We affirm our indi­vid­ual worth in our union which is based upon our shared val­ues. We affirm, strength­en and expand these core val­ues as we give up our attach­ment to less­er things.

Uranus and Our Sac­ri­fice Now
This has always been the chal­lenge of a cre­at­ing a “free” soci­ety. To ful­fill our­selves we must sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. Uranus Squar­ing our Venus (and Oba­ma’s) is remind­ing us that we must face our chal­lenges now in a spir­it of mutu­al under­stand­ing; and that requires the sac­ri­fice of our less­er alle­giances and our less­er val­ues. We need to be remind­ed, reaf­firm and make a real sac­ri­fice for our core val­ues that have bound us, formed us and guid­ed us. We need to restate our under­stand­ing of these core val­ues so that we are clear as to what it is that we stand upon with one another.

We need lead­ers who artic­u­late the truth that every one of us must sac­ri­fice if we are to meet the chal­lenges that lie ahead. For Oba­ma, for the lead­ers in Con­gress, for the lead­ers in the many agen­cies and insti­tu­tions of our gov­ern­ment, for busi­ness and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and for each and every one of us who seek to under­stand, inspire and guide us through this time, we all must free our­selves from our old reac­tive val­u­a­tions and refresh our expe­ri­ence of what is of most val­ue between us.

Oba­ma’s Sac­ri­fice
Oba­ma’s chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty is to be the leader who sets the exam­ple of what we need to become now. He will have to show his will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice some of his val­ues in order to dis­play courage and lead­er­ship. He must call each of us to those sac­ri­fices that will lead to a “new world”.

As it has been said before, “Beat­en paths are for beat­en men”. We need pathfind­ers now, we need lead­ers who have courage and chal­lenge us to rise above our dif­fer­ences and sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er… because we are one anoth­er. Uranus to Venus says renew your love for one anoth­er, because you will need one anoth­er if you are to meet the chal­lenge of your destiny.

The forces that are lin­ing up in the next sev­er­al years rival those at our found­ing over 200 years ago. We are at the end of age (which also means we are at the dawn of a new age). We must allow our­selves to be filled with the spir­it of under­stand­ing, to be inspired now to choose to turn to one anoth­er, again, and pledge “our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor”.