Astrological Musings — The Wealth of a People-Alchemy and Creation, Pluto and Neptune and the USA
(If you wish to listen to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Podcasts)
What Creates the Wealth of a Nation? Alchemy.
What is the Wealth of a Nation? The People.
In my previous show back in October, I presented the series of remarkable Astrological transitions that are occurring in the years of 2025, 2026 and beyond. Today, I want to narrow our scope, and consider the history of the United States, with a particular focus upon the economic and political history of the America as framed by the influence or indications of two planetary cycles, Pluto and Neptune.
I have spoken or written numerous times, (and you can search on my blog for those previous observations), commenting on the importance of Pluto and Neptune in the chart of the USA, and how their cycle around the chart of the United States can help us to frame periods in US history, as we consider the broad arc of its journey since 1776. I believe that this greater understanding of the journey thus far can help us to better understand our current situation.
First, we need to remember what Pluto and Neptune mean generally and what is the significance of their particular manifestation in the chart for the USA.
Pluto
The United States is a what I like to call, a very “Plutonian Nation”. Pluto is the Rising planet in the USA chart and is located in the second house of the chart, which is the house of Value. Remember that the Energy-Substance of what I call “The One” is the source of all Value, and this root value is the Divine or Unconditional Love of the One, and it is this Energy-Form that is behind everything and everyone. This Divine Light is shaped and formed into definite, discrete vehicles of manifestation, that are circumscribed and delimited from other energy-forms by the power of the Will that is within each monad of Creation. It is those monads or sparks of the Divine which are the innumerable vehicles of self-realization that form the cosmos. For us in our Solar System, this Avatar of the Will of the One is Pluto. As I have previously indicated, the Power of the Will is the Creator at work through all of the energy-forms that make up Creation, including us humans, and that singular spiritual power manifests in what we should understand is the primal source for what makes Creation unfold and become, which is the magisterial mystery of “combinational transformation”, the Power of Alchemy.
Yes, the entirety of Creation is formed by the one Substance-Energy, Divine Love. Creation is the Involution of Spirit into Matter Forms, which equally brings about the Evolution of Spirit through Matter Forms by the infinite series of combinations and transformations, what we see as births, deaths, and rebirths, and which I like to call the dance of Spirit through Matter Forms. Whether it is by atoms combining with atoms to form larger atoms, molecules with molecules, organisms with organisms, (like we do), on up to the planets, stars, and galaxies, what we see as the Dance of Spirit through forms of realization is that the whole of Creation is made by the Protean Power of Alchemy, which is the sublime mystery of Spirit moving through innumerable combinations and transformations of Spirit-Matter Forms.
Now, for us humans, and especially for the USA, we were established in an agreement to be a self-governing society, which meant that we would be beholden to no King, lords or masters, that instead in the United States we would the subjects of the law, laws which we made and agreed to govern our society. That instead of being subjects of a monarch or lord, we formed our union so that we might be self-masterful, and so by this rule of law we formed our compacts, partnerships, joint ventures, enterprises, communities, companies and our government.
What this also means is that our value, our strength, is made or forged by the alchemy of our diversity of citizens, of our ethnicities and creeds, of cultures and people from around the world. Our value is not sourced by our physical property. No, the radical or root source of our true value is forged by “we the people”, who create all our values by these alchemical combinations with one another.
For the USA, as a covenant creation, we agreed to form a union so that we would support one another, so that we might be free to live and grow and realize our happiness, (and here “happiness” means our self-fulfillments), through joining together in self-determined combinations; we would be freer to be ourselves by supporting one another, and we each will become who we are by our unions with one another.
Neptune
The planet Neptune is also very prominent for the United States, as it is the uppermost planet in the USA chart. As much as Pluto is the Avatar of combinational transformation, Neptune is the Avatar of Divine Love, which is the Divine Light that is the Energy-Substance that forms the whole of Creation. Neptune in any chart is the principle of the spiritual vision and dream of that being or entity, the true nature of its spiritual self. For America, the planet Neptune is in Virgo and is located in the 9th house, which is the realm that holds the Spiritual, Religious, Scientific and Cultural stories or truths that frame the understanding of the United States.
The fundamental “truth” or story of America is that we are a “covenant nation”, formed as a compact of choice, and we are joined in an ongoing endeavor to continually seek to forge a more perfect (Virgo) union, as we strive to create and preserve a society where we may each secure for ourselves and for one another, “our life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. This dream of America is made possible through our combinational associations with one another.
Most importantly, the true meaning of that phrase, “the pursuit of happiness”, was that our founders understood “happiness” to be self-fulfillment, so that the self-realization of each member of our society would be to our mutual benefit, and that we would be the means for one another’s dreams to come true. To govern these many combinations with one another, to secure our lives and fulfillment, we agreed to be formed, guided and protected by the laws we made to support and protect one another. So, it is quite fitting that Neptune is in the 9th house, which rules Truth and Law.
Alexis de Tocqueville
One of the most extraordinary observers of our “experiment” in democracy and self-government was Alexis de Tocqueville, and his analyses and warnings about our system ring true to this very day. I firmly believe that they can help us understand how and why we find ourselves at the crossroads of where we are today. (Published in 1835)
The principal and defining feature of the United States he noted was this, that what is essential to a self-governing, democratic system is made possible by an integral balance of individual freedom and social responsibility. De Tocqueville saw and understood that you can only have the true experience of freedom when you equally assume and fulfill your responsibilities. In other words, individual freedom and social responsibility are necessary to one another, and only when they are found in this reciprocal relationship can you create a truly free society.
He observed that Americans formed their society organically, from the local level on up through a range of voluntary organizations of mutual help and support, both secular and sectarian, in realms civil and religious. Rather than a top-down ordering of Regal or Authoritarian control imposed by fiat or Divine Right, the people of America assembled for self-governance because they had to. The structure of power was not “top down”, power and authority rose up from the assemblies of the people.
In order to provide for one another, we agreed to preserve our self-determination by giving up some “freedom” for the good of the whole, to trust in that larger whole, to our associations and governing bodies as the expression of our collective will, and that this would be the very means to equally ensure our individual freedoms too. This was new, this was revolutionary, the source of the American power was Alchemical, with people governing themselves voluntarily.
Tocqueville also noted, “…that when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. As none of them are strong enough to fight alone with advantage, the only guarantee of liberty is for everyone to combine forces.” The citizens of America agreed to form their various levels of civil society for their mutual benefit, to meet one another’s needs and thereby protect their freedoms.
De Tocqueville also observed, and this is essential for understanding the nature of the crises we face now, that the most critical element of our self-governance would require this balance of Individual Freedom and Social Responsibility, and that it could only work if there was a more or less equitable distribution of the value and wealth within our society.
For De Tocqueville, the strength of America was to be founded in its vibrant social mobility, (that in our alchemic or combinational transformations we have the inherent potential to become more than we are), and unlike the static structures of nobility, privilege and class in Europe, our dynamic social mobility would prevent a permanent hierarchy of power and wealth from becoming established. Tocqueville observed that if that equitable order were to be undone, that this would be the beginning of the end of true democracy here, (and I would argue anywhere).
Where are we today?
But today in the United States, we are more unequal and divided by wealth than we have ever been in our history. At the present time, the top 1 to 2 percent of the nation has managed to obtain and control the vast majority of the wealth of the nation, and this fact is not sustainable for a truly functional democracy nor was it inevitable.
How did we get here, and where are we now? Today, we find, for example, that instead of the top income earners making five times what the lowest income workers make which was typical in during the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, (which would mean for example where a top earner would make $100,000 and that $20,000 would be for the bottom earners), instead we now have a grossly unequal distribution of income where the top earners make at least if not more than 400 times the bottom percentile, (which means that those at the top will earn $8,000,000 versus only $20,000 for the bottom percentile). Or another way to visualize this is that the average annual income of the top 1% is 1.3 million dollars, and the average annual income of everyone else, for the bottom 99% the average annual income is $50,000. Today in the United States, the top 1% make 26 times more than the bottom 99%. (Economic Policy Institute Study)
And it is those individuals and families at the very top percentiles who are able to acquire and secure much of their wealth and power through investments yielding interest and dividends, and most of this growth in their wealth is not taxed under current law at all so that their accumulation of wealth is accelerating, as is their power.
It is by holding so much of the wealth of the nation, the top .1 percent up to the 1 or 2 percent, it means that they can influence the economic and political order and so shape the laws and regulations in order to reinforce, retain and maintain their influence over society, in the government, so that this unequal distribution of wealth and power is fixed and social mobility has been broken.
We cannot be called a democracy any longer; what we have is what is known as a Plutocracy, the rule of the wealthy over the vast majority of people. We have the stated ideals, mechanisms and the exercises of what appear to be democracy, but the fundamental division of our country and the exercise of control is by the extreme wealth of the few, and this is why for the majority of the people in the USA our system is not working. Happiness, self-fulfillment, and the belief that one’s children will have a better future than their parents, that hope has been broken.
People cannot afford housing; young people cannot afford to start a family, and most live from paycheck to paycheck, with only the next medical crisis or some other unforeseen event throwing them and their family into desperation and fear, so that there is no hope for a better life, only the hope for some stroke of good luck to avoid hardship and worse. For a society, for a people, for this nation, this is not sustainable, and you can see it in the news, you can feel it on the street, and the winds of spirit are stirring, and the people are fearful, and they are angry.
In fact, the degree of wealth and income inequality in America today is greater now than it has ever been, even greater than the largest prior period of inequality which was in the late 1920’s. Our agreement to sacrifice our individual liberty for the common good has been broken. But this result is not caused by accident or fate nor was it the result of some natural phenomena. It is caused by the very few holding the power to make and shape a system that reinforces their wealth and power.
Pluto and Neptune in American History
Let us now take a look at the timing of the major economic turning points in American history as framed by the alignments of Pluto and Neptune, and we will see that the most significant moments in their two cycles have signaled the biggest shifts in our experience of value in our society. We are certainly at another major moment in their alignments now, and what that will bring, well that is yet to be decided.
1850’s
If we begin in 1776, we will find that Pluto reaches its first square to itself in the 1850’s as Neptune reaches its opposition to itself. This was the first great struggle over the value of America, when a minority of wealthy plantation owners in southern states, (whose wealth was principally formed by their ownership of other humans, treating other humans as slaves, a Master-Slave economy), attempted to force the rest of the states in our Union to make human enslavement the law in every state. Fortunately, good men and women of conscience, organized, struggled, and voted to turn back that attempt to destroy democracy. The result was our Civil War and the ending of slavery for all, and a major step was made to redeem the dream of America.
For the next many decades, the dynamic spiritual struggle over the question of the value of human labor versus the accumulation of capital and wealth by the few, between the laboring masses and the owners of industry, led to the production of great wealth for the nation, but it also produced shocking levels of poverty, violence and corruption too.
Reform movements, both political and economic, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. which occurred during Pluto and Neptune’s next alignments, brought about some real improvements. But on the whole, the imbalance of wealth and power continued to grow to such an extent so that the USA had the greatest inequality of wealth since the Civil War during the late 1920’s, which meant that something was bound to happen, and it did, and we know it as the Great Depression.
1930’s
During the 1930’s, the next great alignments of Pluto in opposition to its natal position, and of Neptune making its first return to its natal position, both of these critical alignments coincided with the most consequential and transformational restatement of the economic and political order of the United States. FDR saved capitalism for the USA, by taking neither the path of fascist authoritarianism as in Italy and Germany, nor of communism as in the USSR. Instead, he brought to bear the power of the people as exercised through their government to regulate and shape the economic growth of the country, and to begin to provide a basic safety net for the population with Social Security, along with tougher regulations of business to create a more balanced economic system, and the alchemy of collaborative investments by private and public entities brought about a new America.
As a result, from the late 1930’s until the late 1970’s, the growth of wealth and well-being in the USA was more evenly distributed than it had ever been. Though the injustices and inequalities by gender and race still prevailed, there was a general well-being among all economic brackets in the United States, who could see that their future was improving, and as general productivity rose, there was a more or less equal sharing in that growth, and people had every reason to believe that their children’s lives would be even better. The dream of America was closer than ever before. From 1933 to 1981, Americans in both parties agreed that the government must regulate the economy and provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. This role of government, which embodies the will of the people, would stabilize society and prevent future economic disasters by protecting the rights of all individuals to have equal access to economic prosperity.
But the growing economic and social crises in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, along with the rise of an ideology that disavowed the necessity of a strong government role in the economic well-being of the nation, the ideology known as neo-liberalism, led to the next great turning in American economic history beginning with the election of 1980.
1980’s
Between 1980 and 1983, Neptune squared Neptune and Pluto squared Pluto in the USA chart. With president Ronald Reagan’s mantra that “the government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”, the conservative movement and the Republican party pursued an agenda that held that by reducing government’s role of economic regulation and of the fairer distribution of wealth of the nation, that the resulting surge in economic growth would trickle down and benefit all the people in the United States, a rising tide would lift all “boats”.
What happened? For the next 40 years, deregulation and tax cuts, privatization of government services, and the dismantling of protections for the most vulnerable, led to a massive redistribution of wealth (and well-being) for the United States. During this period, it has been calculated that the erosion of the middle class, not to mention the impoverishment of the lowest classes, resulted in the transfer of as much as $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. (Rand Corporation Study)
If we can agree that the wealth of a nation is its people, and that the people are the creators of the realized wealth in the goods and services they provide, the neo-liberal program has gas-lighted the people of the United States. We have been conned and robbed of the wealth that we the people created. Oh, and many of the people in the United States know this, they know the system has been rigged, and quite a few of them want to just tear the whole thing down.
That is the “why” of where we are today as we reach have reached this next turning in the Pluto and Neptune cycles of US economic history.
2020’s
Here in the early 2020’s, Pluto has returned to its natal position for the very first time, and Neptune has arrived at its second opposition, (the first being as we began our Civil War). Again, the people of the USA are at a major turning point in our political and economic history. And we would do well to remember our history, to understand how we arrived at our current condition, to consider where we have come from and how far we still have to go to realize the dream of America.
Yes, we must remember that our Plutonian Power and Neptune Dream have never been faithfully exercised or fulfilled. In our origins, and for far too long, we misused our power to take what we labelled “virgin lands”, but there were (and thankfully they are some still here), there were vibrant peoples and cultures who were eliminated or diminished by deliberate acts of genocide. And other peoples were ripped from their homes and loved ones and brought by terror and violence to this land as slaves.
We must remember those immortal words which must hold us to our original and sacred oath, “that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Let us take seriously our oath and ideals and recommit ourselves to the dream of America. Until everyone of us in this country is treated as “human”, as what they are, as a sacred spark of the divine, until we fulfill our promise to make it possible for each and every person to reach their fullest measure of self-realization, to secure that true source of “Happiness”, until we have made this a reality, we will not be what we promised to be for one another.
We cannot make a mere adjustment here or cut something there. We need to be bold and caring, holding to the fundamental truth behind all of this beautiful Creation. We are all here to learn one thing, to be and become better humans. To live by the one principle behind one and all, and it really is so very simple.
We must turn from fear and blame, from our divisions and misunderstandings, and to simply follow the one Truth behind them all, which is to “love one another”, to be that love that made us all, and make real the dream of America.