Trump’s Tran­sits

In the pre­vi­ous essay, I delin­eat­ed some of the sig­nif­i­cant natal fea­tures in Don­ald Trump’s chart. Today I will exam­ine some of the major tran­sits in Trump’s chart for 2016–17. Then I will exam­ine the con­nec­tions between his chart and the chart of the USA in the fol­low­ing essay.

The tim­ing for plan­e­tary tran­sits will often cross over from one cal­en­dar year to the next. Dur­ing 2016, there were two very sig­nif­i­cant tran­sits to Trump’s chart, Uranus squar­ing his Sat­urn from spring 2016 until ear­ly April 2017, and Plu­to squar­ing his Jupiter, which is in effect from spring 2016 and will last until the late fall of 2017.

Uranus/Saturn

Uranus align­ing with Sat­urn in a “strong” man­ner such as this will occur about every 21–22 years or so. When­ev­er this tran­sit occurs, Real­i­ty is shak­en and can in fact be shat­tered; it is a call to reform/remake that real­i­ty (or your under­stand­ing and inter­fac­ing with Real­i­ty), to deal with the neces­si­ty for change. It can appear as a great loss; but it is equal­ly the call to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a new way of being. For Don­ald, the two pre­vi­ous pass­es were 1994 and 1973–74.

The more recent date coin­cid­ed with his suc­cess­ful escape from his fail­ing casi­no ven­tures by “going pub­lic”; he end­ed up sell­ing shares in his pri­vate­ly owned and deeply indebt­ed enter­pris­es. He trans­formed his “real­i­ty” from a fail­ure to suc­cess. He “social­ized” his debt and came out a win­ner. In the ear­li­er peri­od, the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion, his father and he, were charged with a con­sis­tent and very long prac­tice of racial bias with regards to their rental prop­er­ty empire, in Brook­lyn and Queens. They were found to have used var­i­ous tac­tics to deny leas­es to “peo­ple of col­or”. Uranus forced them to change their ille­gal prac­tices and con­form to Real­i­ty, to abide by the let­ter and spir­it of the law.

Giv­en the promi­nence and impor­tance of Uranus in Trump’s chart, he will respond/react even more notice­ably than most to this influ­ence. As I not­ed in the pre­vi­ous essay, Trump is very much a “Uran­ian man”, with both his Sun/Uranus and Moon/Uranus align­ments. His self-char­ac­ter­i­za­tion fol­lows this theme of Uranus, in his often-stat­ed asser­tion of being an excep­tion­al man, a genius to whom the nor­mal rules and norms will not apply. He believes in his spe­cial­ness. He will blaze “new trails”, he will smash the “icons” and break the “bound­aries” of nor­mal­cy. Trump will most cer­tain­ly be the car­ri­er for and instru­ment of change; he will be dis­rup­tive and destabilizing.

Sat­urn is the Avatar of Real­i­ty, the struc­tures of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, but it also indi­cates where you will encounter the “shad­ow” in this life. It is where you have old wounds and fears. But it will be also, by your efforts to deal with your shad­ow and fear, it is where you may end of wield­ing your Author­i­ty, where you may find your “Role”.

For Trump, with Sat­urn in the sign of Can­cer and in his 11^th house, his fears would be cen­tered upon his expe­ri­ence of nur­tur­ing and care-giv­ing, the ques­tion would be whether he felt secure and hap­py in his child­hood, or did he expe­ri­ence nurturing/security as some­thing that was lost or was nev­er tru­ly there. It is the chal­lenge of Spir­it, to real­ize that each of us must find our way to our own true self, and so become tru­ly cen­tered and sta­ble indi­vid­u­als. Then we are to use that expe­ri­ence to help oth­ers find their way to their cen­ter and secu­ri­ty too.

And, with Sat­urn in the 11^th house, he would long for true friend­ship, and would feel his des­tiny is to become a leader of a group or groups. But, he would like­ly suf­fer from the expe­ri­ence of var­i­ous forms of alien­ation, of not fit­ting in or belong­ing, of being “dif­fer­ent”. Trump, if not healed of this Sat­urn test, could end up lead­ing in a group or a cause that was not tru­ly of him.

In 2016–17, Uranus squar­ing Sat­urn has elicit­ed once again Trump’s promethean abil­i­ty to con­found the “sta­tus quo”, by rebelling against the main­stream in both polit­i­cal par­ties. He finds him­self as the fig­ure­head rid­ing a wave of pop­ulist anger direct­ed towards elites and the sta­tus quo. More than a few observers have not­ed the irony of a bil­lion­aire, who has pushed the enve­lope of bend­ing finan­cial reg­u­la­tions, norms and bound­aries for his per­son­al gain, hav­ing become the leader of a move­ment born out of the out­rage erupt­ing from these very abus­es of privilege.

Pluto/Jupiter

But it is the sec­ond major tran­sit, of Plu­to over Trump’s Jupiter, that reveals a more com­plex sto­ry with his present rise and exer­cise of pow­er. Plu­to is the Avatar of Will and Pow­er; Jupiter is the Avatar of Truth, Sci­ence, Reli­gion and Law. When Plu­to is mov­ing over Jupiter in a chal­leng­ing man­ner, per­haps twice in a life­time, the com­bi­na­tion of the plan­et of Pow­er and the plan­et of Expan­sion and Growth may lead to tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties. But, if this pow­er is mis­han­dled or mis­di­rect­ed it will lead to great dif­fi­cul­ties with Jus­tice and the Law.

The pre­vi­ous pas­sage of Plu­to to Trump’s Jupiter, a con­junc­tion or plant­i­ng of a seed, was in 1978–79. This was exact­ly when he became known as a pre­mier devel­op­er. By tak­ing advan­tage of the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in the US econ­o­my in gen­er­al and in NYC, Trump was able to arrange a “sweet­heart deal” of a 40-year tax abate­ment in con­struct­ing the Grand Hyatt hotel at Grand Cen­tral. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, this was also when Trump leased a site on Fifth Avenue, just down from Tiffany, and built his sig­na­ture build­ing and cur­rent home, known as Trump Tow­er. This was when Don­ald Trump became a nation­al name and brand.

In 2016–17, almost 40 years lat­er, Trump has Plu­to pass­ing over his Jupiter once more, but this time it is the square aspect which means there will be a much greater chal­lenge and choice in how these ener­gy-forms will com­bine. The plant­i­ng of the seed of Pluto/Jupiter in the late 70’s has brought him to this major cross­road and fork in his life. The ques­tion will be put to him regard­ing the exer­cise of Pow­er as informed, guid­ed and so direct­ed by his Beliefs.

The Plu­ton­ian “Test of Pow­er” is an awe­some yet chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence. Fun­da­men­tal­ly, the ques­tion for any indi­vid­ual, in exer­cis­ing their will in any realm, whether that be con­fined to just the first cir­cle of the fam­i­ly, or in one’s imme­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty, in a busi­ness or oth­er large enter­pris­es, on up to the lead­er­ship of a major world insti­tu­tion, (like the USA), the ques­tion will be for that individual:

“Do you under­stand how you are to be prop­er­ly guid­ed and direct­ed to wield this pow­er. Do you under­stand where this pow­er comes from, do you under­stand whom and what you serve? Will you then fol­low the path of wis­dom so that you are guid­ed to faith­ful­ly wield this pow­er and ful­fill your purpose?”

The “Test of Pow­er” will come to all of us in many forms. It will always con­cern this spir­i­tu­al truth:

We are all vehi­cles for chan­nel­ing and focus­ing the power(s) that we have devel­oped or have had con­ferred upon us. If we serve “the Source of this pow­er”, under­stand­ing what is to be used for, then we will remain cen­tered and ground­ed in the right exer­cise of our duty.

If we mis­tak­en­ly believe that some­how “we are the pow­er”, if we become “inflat­ed” or infat­u­at­ed with self-ref­er­en­tial absolutes and unques­tion­ing cer­tain­ties, then like in all the great sto­ries, whether in Greek mytholo­gies or the Polit­i­cal dra­mas in Shake­speare, in the his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of lead­ers such as Napoleon or Richard Nixon, for those who come to believe they are “it”, it is inevitable and nec­es­sary that they must fall. What we will always see is that when a human com­mits the clas­si­cal error of “hubris”, then it will not be very long before their mis­use of pow­er is fol­lowed by this reac­tion, a con­se­quence that they have brought upon them­selves through the agency of kar­ma known as “neme­sis”.

Real­ly, it is all about Kar­ma, of action and reac­tion. And the test of pow­er is one of the most pro­found. That is why we look to those who assume greater author­i­ty, to equal­ly be exem­plars of humil­i­ty and grace. This not only pro­tects them but also reas­sures those over whom they rule that there is a right­ful order­ing to the world based upon trust and mutu­al respect.

Trump is fac­ing his great­est test of pow­er, of how well he will faith­ful­ly fol­low the rules gov­ern­ing the exer­cise of Pres­i­den­tial Pow­er. When Plu­to reach­es his Sat­urn in 2020, we will per­haps see the next or final chap­ter in how well or poor­ly he under­stands his test of pow­er and humility.