Transcript of Radio Show: America at a Turning Point — Pluto and Neptune in 2020 and 2021
Our main topic today is about the correspondence of energies or resonances regarding the planets in terms of their orbital paths, and how long they take to make a circuit around the Sun. The planets form these definite ratios with one another, and it is interesting that the outer planets of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto form a ratio of one to two to three.
In other words, Uranus’ orbit is about 84 years and you double that roughly to get to Neptune’s orbit of 164 years, and then by three times that we have the orbit of Pluto which is 245. It is not an exact 1 to 2 to 3, but just like we humans, the planets are individuals too, and they speed up and slow down and bobble and weave just like we do. So, everything is not a perfect one thing or another, but individuated and individual in nature.
But we find this general ratio corresponding to many things. Because of these ratios, the planets line up with themselves, (and with the planets in any chart), and they will have a resonance or harmonic of meeting up at the same times or offset by a certain amount of time, which will reinforce their messaging. I found it kind of fascinating that right now we have in the USA chart two big alignments happening simultaneously, overlapping with one another, which they have done in the past.
Pluto
I have been talking, as you know, quite a bit about Pluto and in many episodes, and that from 2008 to 2024 Pluto is marching through Capricorn, (and it has not been back there for 240 years) and indeed this is this what is coming up here in 2021 and 2022, which will be Pluto’s return to the USA Pluto which is the first time it has happened, so it is big.
If we look at Pluto lining up with Pluto, and because we have Mercury opposite to Pluto in our Natal chart for the USA, there is a resonance of this happening throughout our history that seems to deal with our question about how we think of ourselves (Mercury) and how we deal with these questions of value, and in our capacity to have control, self-control or be under the control of others (Pluto).
For instance, if I was to look at this historically, Pluto kept moving along after the birth of our country in 1776 and formed its first major aspect to itself and to Mercury which happened in the late 1840s into the 1850s. That is when this country was grappling with questions about how we were going to develop in terms of our economy and culture, as we were moving towards a critical division between a freer system in the North and a slaved base system in the South, that a struggle was forming in our country between a slave or free economy, and whether new states would be admitted as either slave or free.
When we flash forward to the 1930s, that is when Pluto is opposite to Pluto and conjunct Mercury. That is what we have in the 1930s and FDR and the New Deal, and there is once again a restatement of economic, political, and cultural life.
We flash forward again to when Pluto squares to Pluto and Pluto squares Mercury, and that was in the early 1980s and that is the era of Reagan, where the model set in place in the late 1930s into the 1940s was broken, and we had a new way of dividing up the wealth and well-being of our country between the various sectors.
That brings us to our time, and here in 2020 and 2021 and 2022, Pluto again lines up with Pluto and Pluto lines up with Mercury, and again we are addressing the same question: Is our society based upon a clear division that is equitable and meaningful between the different sectors and how they share in the wealth of this country, or have we reached a breaking point in terms of how unequal the balance is between those who have and those who have not?
Neptune
Well, folding that into something else we can look at the patterning as revealed by the planet Neptune. Neptune is extremely important in a chart. (Pluto rules the will in the sense of integrity, and are we respecting our own space and keeping ourselves with integrity in our own internal spiritual space, and equally respecting and not infringing or violating or trespassing upon the space of others). Neptune is the principle of our vision and dream, of our spiritual self. The dream of America, of anyone, is held by the planet Neptune. When it is lining up with itself, we are questioning or asking, “what is the dream of America?”
We start with Neptune in Virgo in the USA chart, right at the top of the chart, so it is part of this dream structure that is quite strong, and we go from 1776 and by the late 1850s and Neptune is opposite to Neptune. And, we are dealing with the first great example of our country, of coming to a head over this division, will we be a “slave country” or will we be a “free country”? The dream of America is split between two different societies, North and South.
And there were great debates and struggles over that. And, of course, the greatest speech or one of the greatest speeches ever given at that time, and people refer to this again and again throughout our history since then, was Lincoln’s great “house divided speech” during the Lincoln/Douglas debates when he was running for Senate.
Abraham Lincoln - “A house Divided”
So, I would just like to quote him in terms of what he was faced with at that time, what the country was faced with at that time, which of course is like our time. Because what is happening here in 2020, in 2020 and 2021 and 2022, Neptune is once again opposite our Neptune. And just like then these words hold true, and the words of Lincoln are:
“…a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will either become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.”
And here we find ourselves in the beginning of the 2020s, with a country that seems utterly divided between cities and the rural states, between people of mixed backgrounds and diversity and people who are identifying as “white”. And so, we are struggling once again with the identity of America, what is the dream of this country, what shall we do with this dream, is certainly something that we are struggling with now, just as our great ancestors struggled in their time with their great division.
I hope and believe it will not be resolved by war; I do believe we can find a way through with a calling to, as Lincoln said, “the angels of our better nature”, but it is certainly a time where we see divisions within and between one another that are growing and mounting. It has reached such a the point where, as Neptune would say, “we are all confused, we are all disillusioned, and we are simply not understanding one another”, because some of the basic framing and visions, the paradigms that we are living through in these different cultures and subcultures do not hold together.
E Pluribus Unum — Out of Many, One
We must find our way back to commonly held views or an agreement upon what is common to us, in order bring us together in this time of great division and misunderstanding. Whether we can do so or not depends on you and I and everyone else reaching across that divide and finding ways in which we can work together to make it better for one and all; to realize that there are more things that we hold together than hold us apart.
But we are certainly being divided from one another and framed that way by various instruments and vehicles of the modern age, and these are making use of that division for their own profit and well-being. We must not succumb to that siren call of division and of making the other “the other”, but we must see that everyone for the most part wants what we want, and we need to find a way to do that.
Pluto and Neptune
I would point to another great moment in our history, also when Pluto was lined up with Mercury and Pluto, and when Neptune was lined up also; it was when the Neptune conjunction occurred. So, we had Neptune starting in Virgo, and it reaches its first opposition to itself that was the great divide of the Civil War and it came around back to itself and we had a Neptune conjunction, a return of Neptune in the late 1930s when FDR was in office. Roosevelt put out as one of his great statements on how we should try to build a better world, overcoming the divisions of the time, between Fascism and Socialism, and the wars that ensued. What he talked about was our need to work at developing and holding to the “Four Freedoms”.
FDR and the Four Freedoms – Freedom from Fear
The Four Freedoms for him were: First is Freedom of Speech and Expression, and he said for “everywhere in the world”; the Second Freedom is for every person to worship God in their own way, everywhere in the world; the third is Freedom from Want which translated into world terms means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants, everywhere in the world; and his greatest calling, of course, and it resonates down the halls of history, the fourth freedom is the Freedom from Fear, which translates into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armaments, of weapons of war, to such a point that in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor, anywhere in the world.
Well, I know we are far from that freedom from fear, but it is a goal, it is a dream that we should hold dear in our hearts if we are going to make it through these upcoming years. Because certainly the world we know is falling apart, and it is not completely lost, the world we had. We must preserve, protect, and maintain the values, the structures, and the institutions that are still viable and carrying out their necessary duties of meeting one another’s needs, which is what we use them for. But certainly, right now, we are dealing with the shattering of our consensus and understanding of what our life is to be based upon.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Much like our ancestors faced the division between North and South, we face a division within ourselves and within our communities, and throughout this country that must be addressed. And it must be addressed by holding high to the ideals that we founded this country upon; that we are here in a common fellowship, pledging ourselves to one another, our “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
We must preserve, as much as we can, all Life and protect it; we must have Liberty, which means to never infringe upon the rights of any other and to hold each other sacred in terms of our sacred selves; to pursue Happiness which means to encourage and make possible the means by which every person is able to meet the greatest degree of their own self-realization and self-fulfillment.
Happiness is not having more things, it is being yourself and being able to reach the finest expression of that self by living in communities, by working with one and for another, so that we celebrate our diversity, celebrate our individuality, and we do not deny or denigrate it.
This is the dream of America and Neptune rules our dreams. And right now, we are confronting what will be the dream or the restatement of dream that will get us through these dark times. I am always hopeful, that in the long run everything is going to work out, but I know things looked dark right now. And everyone should be reminded that our ancestors went through very dark times indeed and they came through it shining, by building a better world.
We are not done yet of course there is a lot of work to be done but this is our hour to stand and shine for truth, for love, and for one another.