Virgo, by Jack Baddeley

The Great Work 

What is the rea­son you are here; what is your pur­pose here on the Earth, and what is your des­tiny? Some of the great­est minds have pon­dered these fun­da­men­tal ques­tions, as they wres­tled with the mean­ing of life, and what will be our fate.

For me, the Ancient Teach­ings, and with­in those teach­ings the lessons brought to us by the gift of Astrol­o­gy, point to the answer for these mysteries.

Why are we here; what is our pur­pose on Earth? It is real­ly so sim­ple, and yet so awful­ly hard, we are sim­ply here to learn to be bet­ter humans. In life after life, we encounter oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges, and each Zodi­a­cal Sign holds part of the answer as to how we should and will make our des­tiny, by the man­ner in which we meet each moment, one after the other.

In Aries we learn the les­son of pres­ence itself, of the pow­er of our atti­tude as we encounter each moment in the eter­nal now. In Tau­rus we learn the les­son of val­ue, of how all of Cre­ation is made from Divine Love, as we learn to live by love with one anoth­er. In Gem­i­ni we open our minds to the won­der of Cre­ation so that we may learn how to live as intel­li­gent cre­ators. In Can­cer we reach deep into the roots of our feel­ing nature so that we may be guid­ed to care for one anoth­er. In Leo we see the light of the divine in each oth­er as we are led by love to respect and hon­or one another.

Now we have arrived at anoth­er turn­ing in these, “songs of the spir­it”. At this time every year, and always and for­ev­er a most inte­gral part of your nature too, we turn to the gift that is held by the Sign we know as Vir­go. In Vir­go we observe, adjust, cor­rect and improve our­selves, because in order to grow there must be change, and our growth must be guid­ed by atten­tive intel­li­gence to the need to live a life of inte­gral bal­ance with one anoth­er and our world.

The gifts of Vir­go are clar­i­ty and focus, as we bring a crit­i­cal eye to our­selves, to our world and to one anoth­er. By our ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion through all of our works in the world, from the most menial of tasks to the most mean­ing­ful sac­ri­fices, we strive to be bet­ter, to become bet­ter, to be that bet­ter human we are des­tined to be.

Yes, it is in this most spe­cial space of Vir­go, it is in this time and in this place where we seek and may find what we have always want­ed. Wise ones know that what­ev­er we may wish for or desire, what­ev­er it is that we think might make us hap­py and con­tent, what­ev­er that might be, there is no way to expe­ri­ence any form of hap­pi­ness with­out what you will find here in Virgo.

And what do you seek and what will you find in Vir­go? The great­est gift of Vir­go is to find your way to be at peace, to live as we were meant to be, which is to live in beau­ty and har­mo­ny with our world and with one anoth­er. It is by your self-cor­rec­tion and improve­ment, through your refine­ment and ser­vice, it is by this great work that you ele­vate your con­scious­ness and your actions so that you may live in beau­ty with­in your­self and with one anoth­er too.

Yes, in Vir­go you walk the path of self-mas­tery, sac­ri­fice and self­less­ness, of ded­i­ca­tion and grace to the great work of becom­ing a bet­ter human, and you will do well to remem­ber these words of wis­dom so that you will live your life as it was meant to be:

As I walk, as I walk

The Uni­verse is walk­ing with me

In beau­ty, it walks before me

In beau­ty, it walks behind me

In beau­ty, it walks below me

In beau­ty, it walks above me

Beau­ty is on every side

Sur­round­ed by Beauty

Liv­ing in Beauty

Lov­ing in Beauty

May you walk in Beauty

May you live in Beauty

For all your days

May you be at Peace

Sur­round­ed by Beauty

It is done.

The 2024 US Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion, Kamala Har­ris and Don­ald Trump (August 11, 2024)

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

I did a radio show back in 2019, and anoth­er in 2020 on Kamala Har­ris. In the first episode she was a Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, and in the sec­ond I was ana­lyz­ing her chart as Joe Biden’s run­ning mate. But now that she is the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date for 2024, and Tim Walz is her Vice-Pres­i­den­tial pick, I knew we would all want to take a fresh look at our cur­rent con­di­tions, and in par­tic­u­lar take a look at Kamala’s chart and com­pare it to Don­ald Trump’s.

I will do a sum­ma­ry of Har­ris’ chart and com­pare that with a sum­ma­ry on Trump’s chart. Then I will look at the cur­rent con­di­tions in Har­ris’ chart and com­pare that with the influ­ences pre­vail­ing in Trump’s chart.

When read­ing a chart, it is impor­tant to remain open and curi­ous, to hold one­self with­in a holis­tic or inclu­sive obser­va­tion­al frame­work. What this means is that even though we will imme­di­ate­ly notice someone’s Sun sign, and their Moon sign and Ris­ing Sign, and we will cer­tain­ly ascer­tain a great deal from just these three indi­ca­tors, it is impor­tant to step back and look for an over­all pat­tern, an encom­pass­ing mean­ing­ful­ness of the chart. What we look for are what we call plan­e­tary pat­terns, cer­tain­ly an over­ar­ch­ing pat­tern that all the plan­ets may form with one anoth­er, and also to the indi­vid­ual pat­terns or for­ma­tions with­in the whole chart. And it is from such an over­all pat­tern or impres­sion that we are able to dis­cern a person’s basic type, some­thing that forms their spir­i­tu­al con­sti­tu­tion and their approach to life in general.

For Kamala, the over­ar­ch­ing pat­tern of her chart is what we call an Hour-Glass or a See Saw pat­tern. This is formed when there are a num­ber of plan­ets in one sec­tion of the chart, and then there is anoth­er gath­er­ing of plan­ets across from the oth­er, and then between those filled in areas there are no plan­ets what­so­ev­er. This cre­ates a deep aware­ness or con­scious­ness of oppo­site and con­trast­ing points of view, of expe­ri­enc­ing the world as diverse and com­plex, and espe­cial­ly see­ing our human world as formed by oppos­ing views which can lead to con­flicts between one side and anoth­er. Because of this, Kamala is able to under­stand one side of a ques­tion, and also the oth­er side (or sides), and so when she is work­ing at her best, her desire and inten­tion is to find the way to bring about under­stand­ing between one side and anoth­er, to rec­on­cile the oppo­sites if pos­si­ble. Often that is found by find­ing a “third way”, which blends some of each into a more inte­gral approach to the issues or prob­lems being faced. Kamala’s chal­lenge and her gift is to stand “in the mid­dle”, to see the good and the less than good on either side of the issue, and try, if pos­si­ble, to find a way beyond con­flict. Kamala will strive to bring peo­ple and groups togeth­er to forge agree­ments by build­ing bridges of mutu­al understanding.

Kamala is a Libra, with her Moon in Aries, and she has Gem­i­ni as her Ris­ing Sign. Though that com­bi­na­tion does cre­ate a very strong and ide­al­is­tic per­sona, she also has a num­ber of plan­ets in Earth signs, includ­ing her ruler Venus in Vir­go and Jupiter in Tau­rus, which togeth­er help to forge a more prag­mat­ic approach from her val­ues and sense of truth, lead­ing her to a real­is­tic appli­ca­tion for her ide­al­ism. As a Libra she wants to work towards coop­er­a­tion and under­stand­ing, but no one should mis­take her as being over-accom­mo­dat­ing. After all, she has the plan­et Mars, the plan­et of the war­rior, in Leo, and it is also her ris­ing plan­et, which means Mars will lead her through life. This makes her a fight­er (Mars) for hon­or and respect (Leo), a leader who seeks to leads by inspi­ra­tion and exam­ple. The chal­lenge posed by her Mars, is that Kamala will have to mod­u­late her assertive, mar­tial nature so that she does not come off as too aggres­sive. Though this served her well as a pros­e­cu­tor, it would have to be tem­pered in the pub­lic space of pol­i­tics. I do believe that her more joy­ful demeanor and laugh­ter now indi­cates that she is chan­nel­ing her war­rior spir­it, but she is doing it with a sense of humor too.

At the very top of her chart Kamala has Sat­urn, in the sign of Aquar­ius. Sat­urn rep­re­sents the test in one’s life, which by fac­ing and over­com­ing that spir­i­tu­al chal­lenge will reward that indi­vid­ual by becom­ing one of their most impor­tant strengths and deeply shape their char­ac­ter. Sat­urn in Aquar­ius is the test of social con­scious­ness and con­science, and by align­ing one’s own dreams with the com­mu­ni­ty, state or nation, a per­son can be a leader of social change and jus­tice. And Sat­urn in the 9th house is the test of Truth. Here a per­son is chal­lenged to con­tin­ue to strive to under­stand, to real­ize the jour­ney to truth is not about com­ing to a des­ti­na­tion, but it is instead formed by a series of epipha­nies, which leads the soul to expand their under­stand­ing to encom­pass­ing many approach­es to truth, to find the com­mon threads behind all sci­ences, philoso­phies and religions.

I have exam­ined Don­ald Trump’s chart many times, but I will sum­ma­rize his chart now just as I did for Kamala Har­ris. The over­ar­ch­ing pat­tern for Trump is what astrologer’s call a Bowl or Hemi­spher­ic pat­tern. All plan­ets fall with­in rough­ly 180 degrees, fill­ing one half of the chart, and the oth­er half has no plan­ets what­so­ev­er. This pat­tern fos­ters a high degree of self-con­tain­ment and inde­pen­dence, cre­at­ing a spe­cial sense of mis­sion or pur­pose in life. Often the indi­vid­ual does not need much social inter­ac­tion, as their own posi­tion or point of view is para­mount. The plan­et that is the lead­ing edge of this pat­tern forms the way they meet with the world. For Trump, this lead­ing plan­et is also the upper­most plan­et in his chart, and it is right next to his Sun and oppo­site his Moon. That sig­na­ture plan­et for Trump is the plan­et Uranus. Uranus is the plan­et of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and free­dom, and giv­en its promi­nence in Trump’s chart, he cer­tain­ly sees him­self as a unique indi­vid­ual, and his pur­pose is to be a break­er of icons and norms.

Don­ald is a Gem­i­ni with his Moon in Sagit­tar­ius, and he has Leo Ris­ing. Like Kamala, Trump has a very strong and ide­al­is­tic per­sona, but unlike Kamala he does not have any Earthy plan­ets to bal­ance out or tem­per his ide­al­ism. The com­bi­na­tion of his Gem­i­ni Sun with the Sagit­tar­i­an Moon makes Don­ald a very curi­ous and rest­less indi­vid­ual, who swings back and forth between one posi­tion and then anoth­er, mak­ing him flex­i­ble and pli­able, a mer­cu­r­ial nature with a con­stant stream of thoughts, notions and sup­po­si­tions. And, inter­est­ing­ly, just like Kamala, Don­ald has the plan­et Mars in Leo, and giv­en its place­ment just inside his 12^th house, it also func­tions as one of his Ris­ing plan­ets too. This means Trump is a fight­er too, but with Mars in his 12^th house, he prefers to act as a sac­ri­fi­cial hero, and often works behind the cur­tain, cov­er­ing up his true aims or intentions.

It is very inter­est­ing to note, that two fac­tors shared by many pres­i­dents in US his­to­ry, is either hav­ing Mars as the ris­ing plan­et, for 20% of all pres­i­dents, or Mars in Leo, for 26% of all pres­i­dents. Admit­ted­ly, it is a small sam­ple of only 42 indi­vid­u­als, but the fact that Kamala and Trump have both means something.

But there is anoth­er plan­et that one could argue func­tions as anoth­er ris­ing plan­et for Trump, because we can cer­tain­ly observe that it plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the per­sona he projects to the world, and that plan­et is Nep­tune. Nep­tune is the plan­et of dreams, of imag­i­na­tion and fan­ta­sy, of inspi­ra­tions and delu­sions. When Nep­tune is ris­ing, and many movie stars have had this fea­ture, you can play many or any roles, because the audi­ence finds it easy to project their dreams upon you, so that in effect, that per­son acts like a mir­ror and becomes the bear­er of oth­ers dreams or fears. And not only does Don­ald have Nep­tune ris­ing, but it exact­ly squares the ruler of Gem­i­ni, Mer­cury, and so it is very much inte­gral to the way he thinks and com­mu­ni­cates. But anoth­er fea­ture of Nep­tune, which rules the sign of Pisces, is to take on the role of sav­ior or mar­tyr, to play the hero or the vic­tim. That cer­tain­ly fits the per­sona of Trump, who swings between the van­quish­ing hero and the vic­tim of a world that is out to get him.

Now let us look at the major plan­e­tary indi­ca­tors in Kamala’s and Donald’s charts. When con­sid­er­ing any chart, I first take a look at two indi­ca­tors in order to get a quick sense of what is hap­pen­ing in any individual’s life. One indi­ca­tor is the posi­tion of their pro­gressed Moon, (sign and house) and the oth­er is the house posi­tion of Sat­urn, and the aspects it is form­ing with the ele­ments of their chart.

For Kamala, her pro­gressed Moon has been mov­ing through her 1^st house since July 2023 and it will enter the 2^nd house by Decem­ber 2024, and it has been in the sign of Can­cer since Decem­ber 2023, where it will remain until Novem­ber 2025. The pro­gressed Moon in the 1^st house is a time when you re-present your­self to the world, when you take on a new role, a new iden­ti­ty, and you lean into and devel­op a new­er form of the pow­er of your pres­ence in the world. When it moves into the 2^nd house, you focus on your strengths and val­ues, and you are tasked with apply­ing your fac­ul­ties in ever more mean­ing­ful ways in the world. When the pro­gressed Moon is in Can­cer, it is a time to re-cen­ter your­self, to become more in touch with your feel­ings, and so be able to equal­ly con­nect in more mean­ing­ful ways with oth­er peo­ple. You more deeply con­nect to your roots and ori­gins, and by exten­sion find the way to con­nect to oth­er peo­ple with regards to their needs for nur­tur­ing and secu­ri­ty too.

From 2021 to 2023, Kamala had Sat­urn mov­ing through her 9^th house (which is where it is locat­ed in her birth chart). When Sat­urn is mov­ing through the 9^th, you are going on an inner and out­er jour­ney to deep­en and extend your expe­ri­ence of the truth, whether that be cul­tur­al, sci­en­tif­ic, reli­gious or spir­i­tu­al truths, or usu­al­ly a com­bi­na­tion of them all. By clar­i­fy­ing your truth, and more deeply align­ing your­self to what guides and moti­vates you, you are in effect prepar­ing for what comes next, which is Sat­urn in the 10^th house, the Test of Respon­si­bil­i­ty. Sat­urn entered Kamala’s 10^th house in 2023 and will remain there until 2026. This is the cli­mac­tic moment in her life, where every­thing she has done since Sat­urn began it cycle through her chart, that is when it entered her 1^st house in 2002–2004, then ful­ly com­mit­ting to her path with Sat­urn in the 4^th house in 2008-10, and final­ly mov­ing out into an even more pub­lic life when Sat­urn entered her 7^th house in 2017–19, so that now all that she has done and pre­pared her­self for is ready to be ful­ly real­ized. Now she will feel the weight of respon­si­bil­i­ty, and if she has pre­pared her­self, she will receive acknowl­edge­ment from the world that she is ready to ful­fill her duty.

With just these two indi­ca­tors, the pro­gressed Moon and the tran­sit­ing Sat­urn, mov­ing through these angu­lar hous­es, it cer­tain­ly would seem that the stars have aligned for Kamala. But there are oth­er indi­ca­tors that are also favor­ing her at this time. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Kamala was born with her Sun trin­ing her Sat­urn, which forges and deep under­stand­ing of how the world works, and how one can and should work towards ful­fill­ing your duty as an author­i­ty in the world. In pro­gres­sions, the Sun moves about 1 degree per year in a chart, and it is pre­cise­ly this year, when she is 60 years old, that her pro­gressed Sun is now form­ing a sex­tile to her Sat­urn, which brings to fruition her potential.

Then with regards to oth­er major tran­sits, 2024 is the year when the plan­et Uranus is con­junct her Jupiter, the plan­et of benev­o­lence, of being jovial, of good for­tune and growth. Uranus brings the unex­pect­ed, like a door sud­den­ly open­ing. Kamala was pre­pared to be a vice-pres­i­dent again, but Uranus came along, and anoth­er door opened, sud­den good for­tune, and just as sud­den­ly, joyful.

Now let’s look at those two prin­ci­pal fac­tors in Don­ald Trump’s chart, the pro­gressed Moon and tran­sit­ing Sat­urn. For Don­ald, his pro­gressed Moon has been mov­ing through the 3^rd house of his chart from 2023 and will remain there until 2026. When the Moon is mov­ing through this house you are being asked to work on your means of gath­er­ing data or infor­ma­tion, of pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion, and then of trans­mit­ting it. What you will feel like is that you are sort of “back in school”, and you need to put your think­ing cap on and reex­am­ine the world around you and adjust your under­stand­ing and mes­sag­ing about it. Basi­cal­ly, it is like going through a series of intel­li­gence tests, and if you can adapt and grow you will do well. But if you refuse to change your approach and mes­sage, you will prob­a­bly become more dis­so­ci­at­ed from the world around you. This is, after all, the nat­ur­al house of Gem­i­ni, and Trump should be able to piv­ot and retool his think­ing now. But from all the evi­dence so far this year, he is still say­ing the same things, in the same ways, and it is not reach­ing that wider audi­ence he will need to win.

Mean­while, his pro­gressed Moon had been in Libra from Sep­tem­ber 2021 until Jan­u­ary 2024, but it is now mov­ing through Scor­pio (until 2026). When­ev­er the Moon is in Scor­pio, you are going to expe­ri­ence a far high­er range of feel­ings and emo­tions, much high­er highs and much deep­er lows. Scor­pio is the sign of Union, of birth, death and rebirth. The long­ing for the indi­vid­ual at this time is for a renew­al, and a deep­er con­nec­tion with­in one­self and to oth­ers. The fear that must be faced is rejec­tion and loss, and the very fear of death itself. What­ev­er hap­pens to Don­ald at this time, he is going to react more strong­ly, and if he does not face his fears he will not fare well.

From 2020 to 2023, Don­ald had Sat­urn mov­ing through his 6^th house, the house that rules the order­ing of one’s life, your lifestyle and way of work­ing, of your health and the need for adjust­ment and heal­ing. I call this house the house of suf­fer­ing, because we suf­fer when we become unable to adapt, and we are attached to ways of being that were nev­er or are no longer good for us. We suf­fer, not as a thing unto itself, rather suf­fer­ing is nature’s way of say­ing “move away from this pain”, so that we will let go and grow, and become bet­ter. And if we do this, we are ready for what the next house will bring to us, the 7^th house which is the house of rela­tion­ships and our rela­tion­ship to the world.

For 2023, 2024 and the begin­ning of 2025, Don­ald has Sat­urn in the 7^th house of rela­tion­ship. Just as in Kamala’s chart, this is one of the four angles of the chart, and indi­cates a change in one’s rela­tion­ship with the world. If Trump has made the prop­er adjust­ments dur­ing Saturn’s pas­sage through the 6^th house, then he should be pre­pared to face the tests and oppor­tu­ni­ties of more mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships now. But if he has not released from his attach­ments that have caused him to suf­fer, then that will become evi­dent to the larg­er world as Sat­urn moves through his 7^th house now.

For 2024, while Sat­urn is mov­ing through the 7^th house it is form­ing a square to that most sig­nif­i­cant plan­et in Donald’s chart, the plan­et Uranus in his 10^th house of the pub­lic life. This means he is fac­ing a great chal­lenge and dif­fi­cul­ty bal­anc­ing out his need to be dif­fer­ent (Uranus) and his need to be respon­si­ble (Sat­urn). Often this com­bi­na­tion of Sat­urn and Uranus can cre­ate a very tense peri­od, with upsets and frus­tra­tions as the chal­lenge to make nec­es­sary changes is thwart­ed by one’s own inabil­i­ty to change, or by oth­er peo­ple who are the source of the resis­tance and/or the source of the pres­sure to change what­ev­er he is resisting.

The oth­er major fac­tor in Donald’s chart this year is being brough to bear by that very sin­gu­lar plan­et for him, Uranus. Dur­ing 2024, Uranus is mov­ing back and forth over the cusp of his 10^th house, and at the same time Uranus is squar­ing his Mars. I spoke about this in my show on Jan­u­ary 28, 2024, when I pre­viewed the 2024 elec­tion, with Trump and Biden as the can­di­dates. I not­ed then that with the immi­nent return of Uranus’ posi­tion in Donald’s chart, he would expe­ri­ence shocks, both pleas­ant and unpleas­ant, that Uranus brings into our lives. The chal­lenges of Uranus are meant to free us from our self-lim­i­ta­tions, to move us towards a more tru­ly indi­vid­u­at­ed expe­ri­ence of our­selves and our world. If we are here to grow, then we are here to change, to evolve, to become what our pur­pose of Earth is all about, which is to become a bet­ter human.

If you respond to the winds of change by resist­ing, you may suc­ceed if you are main­tain­ing core val­ues and prin­ci­ples. But if you are resist­ing because of fear, then your world­view and you will begin to crack and per­haps even shat­ter. Trump was pre­pared to com­pete against Biden, and it looked to many as if he would suc­ceed. Then Uranus lined up with Trump’s Mars; the unex­pect­ed hap­pened, Biden bowed out. This is, in Trump’s world­view, incom­pre­hen­si­ble, that some­one would walk away from pow­er? He was stunned, and he cer­tain­ly has not, as yet, recov­ered and respond­ed to this Uran­ian turn of events. And while Uranus is squar­ing Donald’s Mars so as to make him act even more errat­i­cal­ly, Uranus is form­ing a con­junc­tion to Kamala’s Jupiter which is open­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for her.

Giv­en recent events and cur­rent con­di­tions and con­sid­er­ing the over­all influ­ences pre­vail­ing in Kamala’s and Donald’s charts this year, it seems very like­ly that the next pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States will be Kamala Harris.

I think in my next show we will con­sid­er the larg­er forces at work in the world, as we seem to be at an inflec­tion point in many respects. We will cer­tain­ly talk more about the USA elec­tion, but also cast a wider net on the trends in the USA and the world. The winds of the spir­it are stir­ring, and we need to be atten­tive if we want to be pre­pared to meet the moment.

This will be our sixth show of 2024. I think you will agree, that giv­en the series of events since our last show in ear­ly June, we need to take anoth­er look at the USA 2024 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. I will exam­ine the charts of Kamala Har­ris and Don­ald Trump, and con­sid­er the influ­ences present in their charts for 2024. And ‚if time per­mits, also con­sid­er their Vice-Pres­i­dents, Tim Walz and JD Vance.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day August 11^th @ 2 pm EDT:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2024/08/11/astrological-musings-the-2024-us-presidential-election-august-11–2024

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638.

Please join me on Sun­day August 11^th @ 2 pm EDT as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.