Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — A look ahead to 2024, what is ahead for the USA, and for Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump (Sep­tem­ber 17, 2023)

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

It has been two months since my last show, and I thought that we might want to turn our atten­tion to the astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions for the USA in 2024. Of course, we are all very aware that the com­ing year will be shaped, or maybe bet­ter warped by pres­i­den­tial elec­tion pol­i­tics, and so I will also con­sid­er the cur­rent major par­ty can­di­dates for the pres­i­den­cy, the charts of Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump.

Giv­en that the elec­tion is more than a year away, we cer­tain­ly know that there will be many twists and turns in the tides of his­to­ry between now and Novem­ber 2024, so we sim­ply can­not imag­ine or fore­see at this present time what we will encounter then, and that it may even turn out that only one or nei­ther of these two can­di­dates will end up on the bal­lot. But for our pur­pos­es today, giv­en what we do know, let us see what the year ahead holds gen­er­al­ly for the USA, and specif­i­cal­ly for Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump.

The USA
Let’s begin with what will cer­tain­ly be true and con­sid­er the chart for the USA. One of the prin­ci­pal cycles that astrologers use to frame the arc of the life of a per­son, or in this case a coun­try, is to con­sid­er the pro­gressed chart, and prin­ci­pal­ly the Sun/Moon cycle from New Moon to Full Moon and then back to the next New Moon, a rough­ly 29-year cycle.

For the USA, 2024 will be the year for its ninth pro­gressed New Moon. The pro­gressed New and Full Moons should be under­stood as fram­ing a cycle of unfold­ment for any being. Some of the more mean­ing­ful pair­ings of the New and Full Moon for the USA were the 1846 New Moon lead­ing to the Full Moon of 1861, and the US Civ­il War.

The 1965 New Moon reach­ing its cli­max of the Full Moon in 1979, which led to the turn­ing away from the poli­cies and pro­grams of FDR estab­lished in the pre­vi­ous New Moon of 1935, and also Lyn­don Johnson’s efforts to broad­en the civ­il rights and social pro­grams in 1964–65. This expan­sion of Civ­il Rights and of Social Ser­vices, were framed and blamed for the infla­tion and stag­na­tion of the late 1970’s, but that eco­nom­ic malaise was real­ly brought about by the unfund­ed debts from the years of the Viet­nam War. It was this turn­ing that formed the counter-rev­o­lu­tion to the New Deal and also to the Great Soci­ety pro­grams, pushed by neo-lib­er­als and Ronald Reagan’s elec­tion in 1980.

The 1994 New Moon dur­ing the Clin­ton pres­i­den­cy came a cli­max with the Full Moon of 2008, and anoth­er deba­cle for the USA, where once again the unfund­ed wars, this time in Iraq and Afghanistan forged a cred­it market/real estate bub­ble which result­ed in a finan­cial mar­ket melt­down, form­ing what real­ly was the sec­ond great Depres­sion for the US at the end of the Bush Presidency.

And now we have the present-day New Moon in 2024, and a new seed of mean­ing for the USA is being plant­ed once again. What will be the result at the Full Moon in 2038, who can say. What we do know is that just as in 1816, or 1846 or 1935 or 1965, we are at a turn­ing and the tides of his­to­ry are sweep­ing through the sto­ry of Amer­i­ca with the promise of new beginnings…but it is up to every one of us to make the most of this opportunity.

But we also know that this is the first New Moon after the first ever Plu­to return in the USA chart. Plu­to is locat­ed in the sec­ond house of the USA, the house of val­ue and the wealth of a nation. Plu­to rules the will and the pow­er of Alche­my, and it this spir­i­tu­al root pow­er which dri­ves the entire­ty of Cre­ation as the seem­ing­ly infi­nite vari­eties and hier­ar­chies of ener­gy-forms com­bine to grow and trans­form one anoth­er, and it is this “engine of cre­ation” which forges the many man­i­fes­ta­tions of spir­it in all the hier­ar­chies of life.

The return of Plu­to brings an end to the first cycle of val­ue and of pow­er in the USA. Which means we are equal­ly at the begin­ning of a new order of val­ue and pow­er too. Indeed, we are at the moment of a major restate­ment and restruc­tur­ing of the val­ue of the nation. The val­ue of any nation is fun­da­men­tal­ly formed by the pow­er of the peo­ple. Yes, it is the Will of the peo­ple, and their alche­my of com­bi­na­tion, that forms the wealth of the nation.

For the first 250 years of the USA, this “Will of the Peo­ple”, through their polit­i­cal com­bi­na­tions, that is the exer­cise of their capac­i­ty for self-deter­mi­na­tion and free­dom, was lim­it­ed by cus­toms and laws. In the very begin­ning, the will and pow­er for polit­i­cal self-deter­mi­na­tion was only held by male, white prop­er­ty own­ers, (and not an insignif­i­cant part of the prop­er­ty for some of those was own­er­ship of oth­er human beings!). But slow­ly through the decades, this right of self-deter­mi­na­tion by com­bi­na­tion was extend­ed through the exten­sion of the right and capa­bil­i­ty to vote. It has not been a straight line, and there have been advances and retreats, but the strug­gle for one person/one vote, and the abil­i­ty to join togeth­er for the com­mon good has made progress over the arc of the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States.

After the great expan­sion of self-deter­mi­na­tion by eman­ci­pa­tion of slaves after the Civ­il War, the counter-rev­o­lu­tion of Jim Crow laws in the south broke the promise of free­dom and denied the right to vote to the non-white pop­u­lace, espe­cial­ly in the South. Then with the grant­i­ng of suf­frage to women, the Unit­ed States expe­ri­enced the great­est exten­sion of self-deter­mi­na­tion in 1920. And after the Civ­il Rights move­ment of the 1950’s and 60’s, the re-estab­lish­ment of the right to vote was extend­ed once again.

But in the past few years, we have seen both a legal and oper­a­tional push to restrict vot­ing rights and the abil­i­ty to vote again, espe­cial­ly after the Supreme Court gut­ted the 1965 Vot­ing Rights Act in 2013. The Vot­ing Rights Act had required cer­tain states, those which had a his­to­ry of sup­press­ing vot­ing rights, and prin­ci­pal­ly in the south, that they were required to sub­mit any changes to vot­ing poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to the Jus­tice Depart­ment for review. As soon as the 2013 rul­ing came down, many of those states began to restrict the right and abil­i­ty to vote. That along with oth­er mea­sures by those seek­ing to reassert or main­tain the rule of the minor­i­ty over the major­i­ty has once again put into ques­tion exact­ly what form of democ­ra­cy will pre­vail in the USA.

This is why the return of Plu­to, and the ques­tion of the Will, of who has the pow­er to deter­mine the future of the USA is again dri­ving the sto­ry of the USA now. The ques­tion is this, will the major­i­ty of US cit­i­zens be able deter­mine the future of this coun­try or will they not.

So, it would seem quite fit­ting and time­ly that the major tran­sit in the chart of the USA in 2024 is Uranus squar­ing the USA Moon. In a nation­al chart the Moon lit­er­al­ly rules “the peo­ple”, and each time Uranus makes a sig­nif­i­cant pass over a point in a chart, rough­ly every 21–22 years, there is a shock and release of new for­ma­tions. The most sig­nif­i­cant align­ments of Uranus to the USA Moon for the 20^th cen­tu­ry until now were the con­junc­tion of 1918, the square of 1941, the oppo­si­tion of 1961, the square of 1981, and the con­junc­tion of 2003. Now in 2024 we will be at the next wax­ing square.

The prin­ci­ple behind Uranus holds the process of indi­vid­u­a­tion and the expe­ri­ence of free­dom. As it moves through any space in a chart, and over any ele­ment in it, it serves to elic­it growth through the break­ing up of old pat­terns and mean­ings. The Uranus square to the USA Moon of 2024 is a wax­ing square, and if we con­sid­er the last two times it aligned with the USA moon, we can see that it has coin­cid­ed with a tremen­dous shift in the con­scious­ness and actions of the US population.

The first wax­ing square was in 1857, which coin­cid­ed with the divi­sion of the peo­ple of the coun­try between those who believed in the equal­i­ty of human beings, and those who believed some humans were des­tined to be sub­or­di­nate to others.

The sec­ond wax­ing square was in 1941, and dur­ing this peri­od the USA was deeply divid­ed between those who wished to with­draw from a world at war, a exis­ten­tial bat­tle between Fas­cism and Free­dom, a war by dic­ta­tors and auto­crats against those who believed that indi­vid­ual free­dom is a right that should be safe­guard­ed and extend­ed to one and all.

So here in 2023 and 2024, as Uranus squares the USA Moon once again, the peo­ple of the USA are going to be shocked in order to awak­en in order to free us from our self-made lim­i­ta­tions. We will need to use the many crises we are con­fronting to remem­ber the promise of Amer­i­ca, which is held in our com­pact with one anoth­er and forged by the inte­gral two-fold prin­ci­ple of indi­vid­ual self-deter­mi­na­tion which can only be pre­served and shaped by our com­mu­nal respon­si­bil­i­ties to one anoth­er. That in fac­ing our chal­lenges with and between one anoth­er, we choose to turn from the destruc­tive pas­sions of “us and them”, because we agree to be bound by our sacred oath to the essen­tial truth of our con­sti­tu­tion­al covenant, which is we are seek­ing to forge a soci­ety where all may live freely and fair­ly with one anoth­er, and that this prin­ci­ple must guide every per­son, and every form of union and com­mu­ni­ty, as we reded­i­cate our pur­pos­es to make pos­si­ble a bet­ter future for our­selves and our descendants.

Now as I men­tioned ear­li­er, we can­not know for cer­tain what will hap­pen dur­ing the next many months lead­ing up to the party’s con­ven­tions or who will be on the bal­lot in Novem­ber 2024. But pre­sum­ing that the lead­ing con­tenders today are the choice, let us briefly con­sid­er what is hap­pen­ing in 2024 in the charts of Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump.

When con­sid­er­ing the chart of any indi­vid­ual, one can obtain a very quick sense of what are the major themes by look­ing at the most pow­er­ful tran­sits, those formed by the three out­er plan­ets, that are cur­rent­ly in effect for their chart. In 2024, the plan­ets Plu­to and Nep­tune, and Uranus are all mak­ing strong tran­sits to both Joe Biden’s and Don­ald Trump’s charts.

Biden
For Biden in 2024, Plu­to is squar­ing his Moon while trin­ing his Nep­tune. Giv­en the slow-mov­ing nature of Plu­to, this dou­ble tran­sit is cer­tain­ly shap­ing his life in 2023 and 2024. The Moon rules our emo­tion­al life, of how we meet and respond to our needs and the needs of oth­ers, and most espe­cial­ly con­cerns those clos­est to us, our loved ones, our fam­i­ly, and our most impor­tant emo­tion­al attach­ments. This Plu­to tran­sit is very chal­leng­ing, but it can lead us onto the path of emo­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion and integration.

What is being offered by the intense pres­sure that Plu­to always brings is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for greater insight into Biden’s own emo­tions and that of his loved ones. Since Plu­to rules the Will and the les­son of con­trol, Biden will be chal­lenged to main­tain self-con­trol, to turn away from any attempt to con­trol anoth­er but instead to help him­self and any oth­er find their own true path to self-accep­tance and self-con­trol. For me this intense expe­ri­ence is there for us all to see in Biden’s chal­lenge of deal­ing with his son’s legal trou­bles.  The chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for Biden is to main­tain being cen­tered and bal­anced no mat­ter how chal­leng­ing the cir­cum­stances are now, as he is faced with the test of emo­tion­al self-con­trol which will fos­ter ever deep­er deter­mi­na­tion and a res­olute spirit.

Mean­while, Plu­to is form­ing a trine to Biden’s Nep­tune, and this is a very uplift­ing and inspir­ing tran­sit. Nep­tune is the avatar of Uncon­di­tion­al Love, of spir­i­tu­al com­pas­sion and sac­ri­fice, and Biden’s natal Nep­tune is locat­ed in his 10^th house of pub­lic life and career. Biden is being offered a gift to explore a deep­er mean­ing for his life, as his spir­i­tu­al nature is stim­u­lat­ed to explore the true mean­ing of sac­ri­fice, which means to live a life in a sacred way, where one gives up the less­er to hon­or the greater with­in and around us. He will feel and know, at least for him­self, that what mat­ters now is more impor­tant than him­self, and that by fol­low­ing the path of self­less­ness and sac­ri­fice he is ful­fill­ing his des­tiny, giv­en his Nep­tune is in his 10^th house of career, that his work in this life is not a job but a calling.

As if to mag­ni­fy, but equal­ly hum­ble him, the plan­et Nep­tune itself now is form­ing a trine to Biden’s Sun and Jupiter this year, and to the Sun and Venus in 2024. The Sun rep­re­sents the “self”, and Jupiter rules the moral com­pass, and Venus rules the expe­ri­ence of val­ue and love. Biden’s expe­ri­ence of him­self is being shaped in sub­tle ways, as he finds a deep­er spir­i­tu­al pur­pose in his life, a more pro­found under­stand­ing of his moral pur­pose, and a more inclu­sive expe­ri­ence of love for others.

Last­ly, Uranus is oppo­site Biden’s Mer­cury in 2023, but form­ing a sex­tile to his Jupiter in 2024. For 2023, that means that Biden’s mind is being stim­u­lat­ed and shook up, as he has been expe­ri­enc­ing excit­ing and stim­u­lat­ing insights, but also find­ing that com­mu­ni­ca­tions are very unpre­dictable, and he will have sev­er­al shocks that could throw him off bal­ance. The chal­lenge is to bend as oth­ers chal­lenge your way of think­ing, and to be patient when his insights are not as well received as he thinks they should be. The chal­lenge is to remain open to new ideas and not to jump to con­clu­sions or respond with­out some time to con­sid­er how best to do that.

For 2024, Uranus sex­tile Jupiter is most def­i­nite­ly a for­tu­nate align­ment. Often it brings unex­pect­ed and good news to an indi­vid­ual. As opposed to 2023, Biden will be able to cope bet­ter with any sud­den changes, and even enjoy the oppor­tu­ni­ty and chal­lenge pre­sent­ed by the unfore­seen events that he encoun­ters dur­ing 2024.

Trump
For Trump, he has Plu­to mak­ing a two-year aspect of the incon­junct, or 150-degree aspect to his Ascen­dant for 2023 and 2024. The 150-degree aspect is one of adjust­ment and attune­ment, of pain and suf­fer­ing if one does not adjust, or renew­al and heal­ing if one does. Plu­to rules the will and the issue of con­trol, and the ascen­dant is the man­ner in which we meet each moment in the eter­nal now. This tran­sit indi­cates that Trump is expe­ri­enc­ing a shift in his all his rela­tion­ships this year, and specif­i­cal­ly in how he expe­ri­ences the bal­ance of pow­er between him­self and oth­ers. The test and oppor­tu­ni­ty of Plu­to is always about sacred space and the will, and the ques­tion is whether one can work with Plu­to to devel­op ever greater self-con­trol and self-mas­tery in one’s life, or mis­un­der­stand or mis­use Plu­to and so expe­ri­ence the loss of con­trol and/or of being more con­trolled by oth­ers because of a lack of self-control.

Of course, Trump’s spe­cial expe­ri­ence of him­self is as being an excep­tion­al man, an icon­o­clas­tic avatar that shat­ters con­ven­tions and norms, and him being “out of con­trol” is sort of his brand. Per­haps he will be able to mas­ter him­self when need­ed in these two years, or per­haps he will be faced with the truth that those who fail to respect the bound­aries of oth­ers will face their own loss of self-deter­mi­na­tion in the end.

At the same time as Plu­to is form­ing the 150-degree aspect to Trump’s Ascen­dant, Nep­tune is as well. Now that is some coin­ci­dence! (And of course, I do not believe in coin­ci­dences). Where­as Plu­to is about the Will and one’s self-con­trol, Nep­tune is the avatar of Uncon­di­tion­al Love and Sac­ri­fice. Nep­tune is offer­ing to shape Trump’s expe­ri­ence of his rela­tion­ship with him­self and towards oth­ers so as to incor­po­rate a greater degree of humil­i­ty and sac­ri­fice. But if mis­con­strued and mis­ap­plied, if the spir­i­tu­al mes­sage is not expressed as it can and should be, then he will ampli­fy his expe­ri­ence and expres­sion of per­son­al­i­ty to assume a greater degree of mar­tyr­dom. Whether he is able to bal­ance his being excep­tion­al and pow­er­ful while also mak­ing a true sac­ri­fice, well that will be seen in how well under­stands the dif­fer­ence between mak­ing a sac­ri­fice and being the sac­ri­fice. As most of know by now, Trump does not “do hum­ble”, and he can only exist by being a win­ner. If he is los­ing whether in the courts of law or pub­lic opin­ion, he will most like­ly blame that upon others.

Final­ly, Uranus, which is called the awak­en­er, the bringer of shocks and earth­quakes, whose pur­pose is to bring chal­leng­ing tests so that we might be freed from our self-lim­i­ta­tions and grow into our fuller poten­tial, is reach­ing a sig­na­ture posi­tion in Trump’s chart. Uranus in 2024 is mov­ing over Trump’s mid­heav­en, over the point of des­tiny and into the 10^th house of one’s pub­lic life. Uranus in a way is “Trump’s plan­et”, as he is born with Uranus ris­ing before his Sun, and it is the high­est plan­et in his chart and placed in his 10^th house. Trump is an icon break­er, and his not-so-secret pow­er is that he is not fak­ing it, he is an unsta­ble, unpre­dictable, and shock­ing per­son. But for any indi­vid­ual, when­ev­er any plan­et reach­es their mid­heav­en, you have reached a moment of reap­ing what you have sown, and it is not at all cer­tain what will hap­pen. Nor­mal­ly, with Uranus what you expect is not at all like­ly to hap­pen, and you get the unex­pect­ed instead.

When Uranus reach­es the 10^th house of an indi­vid­ual it will indi­cate the time that they must break through to a fuller, truer expe­ri­ence of their pub­lic life. Uranus brings change, and it is rarely a gen­tle tran­si­tion from one form into anoth­er, and most indi­vid­u­als describe it as shock­ing. Since it has reached Trump’s house of his path and pur­pose, and we must also remem­ber that his path is to be an icon break­er, per­haps he will have to react or act in an even more dra­mat­ic man­ner than ever before. Per­haps he will break through to a freer expres­sion of what­ev­er he is here to be, or per­haps he will face the whirl­wind that is of his own making.

Uranus is the avatar of Free­dom, and each of us must find that one true spir­i­tu­al path where our greater free­dom can only be made and secured by being the path for more free­dom for oth­ers too.