Author Archives: Bill Attride

About Bill Attride

Providing Astrological advice for over 30 years. Readings by appointment. Combining Metaphysical and Psychological Insights to guide individuals to greater self-fulfillment. Mr. Attride is known for his unique integration of the spiritual and the psychological dimensions of Astrology. Mr. Attride has been featured in articles in such diverse publications as New Woman Magazine, Avenue Magazine and the Sunday Business section of The New York Times. Consultations in person, by phone, Skype or Zoom. Sessions are recorded for the client as an mp3 file delivered digitally. Natal delineations, life progressions and transit timeline analysis, Astrocartography/relocation Astrology, relationship Astrology, Mundane/Financial analysis, Chart Rectification. $300 per hour session. Special introduction of 2 sessions for $400 (1.5 and 1 hour).

2024–8‑11 Radio Show Transcript — The 2024 US Presidential Election, Kamala Harris-Donald Trump

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 12th house, it also func­tions as one of his Ris­ing plan­ets too. This means Trump is a fight­er too, but with Mars in his 12th 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 1st house since July 2023 and it will enter the 2nd 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 1st 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 2nd 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 9th house (which is where it is locat­ed in her birth chart). When Sat­urn is mov­ing through the 9th, 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 10th house, the Test of Respon­si­bil­i­ty. Sat­urn entered Kamala’s 10th 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 1st house in 2002–2004, then ful­ly com­mit­ting to her path with Sat­urn in the 4th house in 2008-10, and final­ly mov­ing out into an even more pub­lic life when Sat­urn entered her 7th 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 3rd 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 6th 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 7th 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 7th 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 6th 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 7th house now.

For 2024, while Sat­urn is mov­ing through the 7th house it is form­ing a square to that most sig­nif­i­cant plan­et in Donald’s chart, the plan­et Uranus in his 10th 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 10th 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.

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

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 11th @ 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 11th @ 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.

Sun Enters Leo (July 22, 2024)

The Heart of a Lion

In the year­ly jour­ney around our star, we have fin­ished the first of the three acts that are shaped by the four ele­ments of life. We have tak­en the leap into Fire that is Aries, we have touched the Earth in Tau­rus, we have flown into the Air by Gem­i­ni, and we have plunged down into the Water that is Cancer.

It is by Fire that we find our inspi­ra­tions, and by Earth that we expe­ri­ence our man­i­fes­ta­tions, and by Air that we reach for our under­stand­ings, and by Water that we make our­selves whole. Now it is time for you to begin once again, to turn the page of life and lis­ten to the Fire that is the light of your soul.

For the past 30 days, you have fol­lowed your feel­ings, as you dipped your cup into the well of mem­o­ry and remem­brance, you felt the car­ing of the roots that made you, that hold you, and secure you, and which will ever point you towards your des­tiny in the stars. It is our com­mon fate and for­tune, for one and for all, to feel these con­nec­tions stretch­ing back to the begin­nings of cre­ation and down to this present day. For the Spir­it with­in us is like a rib­bon of light made by love, which we most per­son­al­ly expe­ri­ence in the care and love of moth­er and father, grand­fa­ther and grand­moth­er, of our sis­ters and broth­ers, held as we are in the love that made us and forms the chord of life to our ever­last­ing spark of the divine.

For the next 30 days, and for­ev­er and ever in your own nature too, you are inspired by the Spir­i­tu­al Fire of Leo that begins this sec­ond act of life. The Fire of Leo is of a fixed nature, it is pur­pose­ful, deter­mined and stead­fast. Here the Spir­i­tu­al Fire becomes focused and res­olute, shin­ing and affirm­ing the eter­nal val­ues that forged and form the Uni­verse. For humans, these eter­nal val­ues behind Cre­ation are revealed by your con­duct, when­ev­er you stride upon the stages of life, it will be by hon­or, in respect and through love for one another.

You hon­or your­self when you show con­sid­er­a­tion to your fel­low humans (and all oth­er life-forms too); you earn the respect you seek when you treat those before you as they are, just like you, a spark of the divine; and you feel the love that is your true nature when you love who­ev­er is before you as you are made to love, unconditionally.

For just as in your heart, and in the heart of our star, so it is true of every par­ti­cle and being of Cre­ation, at the cen­ter of one and of all, there is the spark of the Divine which is pure uncon­di­tion­al love. It is the foun­tain-source of the song that is Cre­ation, and so you must be what you are, you are a cre­ator too.

When you align your man­ner and pur­pos­es to your own spark of the divine, then the song of what­ev­er you cre­ate rings “true”, it feels authen­tic to you and is wel­comed by oth­ers who respect and hon­or the gift of your con­tri­bu­tion to the greater song that is life.

It is by Leo that you will strive to bring out the best from your­self; and it is by your exam­ple that you will inspire oth­ers, so that they will find with­in them­selves the courage to be their bet­ter selves too, to stretch beyond the ordi­nary and become a star among the stars, singing our songs of Creation.

This this is true mean­ing of lead­er­ship; it is not about direct­ing or order­ing anoth­er to do this or that, no that is not lead­er­ship, that is con­trol. Lead­er­ship is about being a light for one anoth­er, so that we encour­age one anoth­er to be bet­ter than we were before. We are here to inspire one anoth­er so that the light of the One beams from their eyes, and their love and laugh­ter and joy of being part of the mar­vel of becom­ing, it is this which makes real the des­tiny that we all will reach some­day, to become as we came from, to be a bright and shin­ing star.

We do not need, nor should we look for lead­ers who tell us what to do; we need only to look with­in our­selves and feel the light of love that is there, and then look to those who inspire us with the light of love with­in them too.

It is in Leo that we can see one anoth­er for who and what we real­ly are, to know the truth that is held in your heart which is Love of the One, which is the heart of the Lion.

Be fear­less, be respect­ful, be loving.

Be one with the Lion and let your heart soar.

Sun Enters Cancer (June 20, 2024)

What is the cen­ter of you?

Today we move through one of the four por­tals of the Zodi­ac, one of four car­di­nal realms in this Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, who are the Lords of Fire, Earth, Air and Water. And when­ev­er you move through one of these car­di­nal signs, you are guid­ed and inspired to find the way to your true self.

Now you enter the sacred space of Can­cer, that most spe­cial realm where you feel your way to the cen­ter of your being. Here you go inward, so that you may remain cen­tered in your truth and draw upon the many sources that form your jour­ney through time and space. But what will you find as you go to the root of you, exact­ly what is at the cen­ter of you?

Your cen­ter is forged in the sto­ry of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, it is the sto­ry of Cre­ation, and it is the Life of the One. You and the entire­ty of Cre­ation are essen­tial­ly formed of Spir­it, you are a spark of the Divine, a Light made of Love.

Guid­ing this unfold­ing sto­ry of the One is the Zodi­ac, which is real­ly the fun­da­men­tal field of ener­gy-forms that form the Design Body of the Uni­verse. This field of ener­gy-forms cre­ates what we under­stand as the sub­tle body for all beings in the uni­verse, whether they be an atom, mol­e­cule, organ­ism, plan­et, star or galaxy. The signs of the Zodi­ac are the Twelve Dimen­sions of the One and only Spirit.

There is a very real hier­ar­chy in Cre­ation, from the most infin­i­tes­i­mal of par­ti­cles on up through the plan­ets and stars. All of it is Spir­it-Mat­ter that is becom­ing some­thing more, shaped, informed and guid­ed by the Twelve. For us humans here on Earth, we are each held in our own auric field of the Zodi­ac, which is in turn aligned to the greater aura of our Earth, which in turn is aligned with zodi­a­cal auric field of our Solar Sys­tem, and then to the zodi­a­cal field of our Galaxy. Each of these “zodi­acs” is part of the One, and all are aligned to and cor­re­spond with one another.

The illu­sion of the mate­r­i­al world is that every­thing is sep­a­rate and apart from one anoth­er, and that we have to find and forge the con­nec­tions or rela­tion­ships between all these “things” and between one anoth­er too. But tru­ly all of Cre­ation is held with­in the Divine Space of the One, which means that we are, in so many won­der­ful forms and dimen­sions, insep­a­ra­bly relat­ed already. Actu­al­ly, we are made of and by all of our weav­ing togeth­er with one anoth­er, grow­ing togeth­er, becom­ing togeth­er, and with all of the rest of Cre­ation too. The order­ing of the Uni­verse is formed by and held by the One, the One “whose Cen­ter is Every­where, and whose Cir­cum­fer­ence is Nowhere”.

But, now in this time of Can­cer, and for­ev­er present in your own space of Can­cer too, you need to remem­ber this sto­ry of your roots, of the mean­ing of Can­cer in your life. You need to make your way to the cen­ter of you, and to do this you will, and you must, enter the world of intu­ition, and allow your feel­ings to guide you, as you move beyond what is known by mind and into what can only be expe­ri­enced and shaped by your heart. You do this most deeply by fol­low­ing the gen­tle whis­pers which come from your own spark of the divine, your immor­tal light with­in your mor­tal frame.

What you will find is that the roots of you are deep and wide, stretch­ing back into the mists of time, formed by many lives and shaped by so many expe­ri­ences with oth­ers. You feel the mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences in the endur­ing con­nec­tion to the ever-present Arche­types, to lives lived long ago and to liv­ing beings here and now too. You feel and know Father-Moth­er, Grand­moth­er-Grand­fa­ther, the warm embrace of all your present and past rela­tions, who were and are the web of life that bring you back to your roots, back to the famil­iar space of being from some­where, from some­one, some peo­ple, in the just before and long, long ago.

Here in Can­cer, in the ves­sel of your mem­o­ries, the riv­er of life and mean­ing that flows back­wards into the mists of the past, and for­ward into what you shall some­day become, you find your cen­ter, your ever-present sense of being on this great jour­ney, with a host of fel­low explor­ers singing our songs as sparks of the Divine, search­ing, seek­ing, car­ing and lov­ing to be, some­day, a star among the count­less stars.

Here at the root of Cre­ation, here in the shin­ing light of your dear heart, what you will find at the cen­ter of you is the source of life. It is the spark of the Divine which is your true self, the cen­ter which is every­where and whose cir­cum­fer­ence is nowhere, and you will feel the essen­tial truth of spir­it, that we are all relat­ed, that we are because we care, because we love.

This is the truth of Can­cer, that your ori­gin is your des­tiny too.

And that you are here to love and be loved.

2024–6‑9 Radio Show Transcript — Neptune in the USA Chart

Nep­tune in the USA Chart, the tran­sit of Nep­tune and the shap­ing of Pol­i­tics and Par­ty Evo­lu­tion in the USA 

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

In my fifth show of 2024, I want to return to anoth­er theme I have addressed over the past many years which is the impor­tance of Nep­tune in the chart of the USA, and how Neptune’s tran­sits to the USA chart dis­tin­guish, define, and con­nect the shifts in pol­i­tics and polit­i­cal par­ties in the USA.

Of course, the real devel­op­ment and evo­lu­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties is forged by humans, by our shift­ing life­ways, cul­tures, and eco­nom­ic lives. But just as we are guid­ed and shaped indi­vid­u­al­ly by the “dance of the plan­ets”, these “time­keep­ers” of our solar sys­tem can pro­vide insights as to the nature and tim­ing of the shifts in our polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions too.

First­ly, we must remem­ber that Neptune’s influ­ence is very impor­tant in the USA chart. The place­ment of Nep­tune in the chart of the USA is quite promi­nent as it is at the very high­est point, at the top of the chart, in the 9th house of Under­stand­ing. Nep­tune in a Mun­dane chart is the ves­sel for the dreams of a nation. A prin­ci­pal found­ing myth of the Unit­ed States is the sense of being a quin­tes­sen­tial­ly excep­tion­al nation, a “first of its kind”. The nation­al seal of the USA declares that it is a Novus ordo seclo­rum (a “New order of the ages”).

Unlike pre­vi­ous nation states, the USA came into being as a covenant nation, with the goal of unit­ing and hold­ing togeth­er dis­parate peo­ples from around the world, and that which would bind us togeth­er was not our race, or cul­ture or creed; no, we would pledge our alle­giance to an idea, to an Ide­al. That for the first time we would be a nation where the Law itself would be King, and we would cre­ate a social order for those who are seek­ing to live a freer life, and that we would be a shin­ing exam­ple of Free­dom and Tol­er­ance, in a com­mu­ni­ty of Fel­low­ship. The USA would be a new soci­ety, formed by a belief in one another’s self-ful­fill­ment as being made pos­si­ble through one anoth­er, and by our self-gov­ern­ment, where­in we would care for one anoth­er; and we affirmed in our Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, that “We Mutu­al­ly Pledge To Each Oth­er Our Lives, Our For­tunes, And Our Sacred Hon­or”, and that we would strive to cre­ate a space of free­dom and jus­tice for one and for all.

The record of the polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions or par­ties in the USA has been defined by his­to­ri­ans into (so far) sev­en dis­tinct peri­ods: The First Par­ty Sys­tem from 1792 to 1824, Sec­ond Par­ty Sys­tem from 1828 to 1854, Third Par­ty Sys­tem from 1854 to 1896, Fourth Par­ty Sys­tem from 1896 to 1932, Fifth Par­ty Sys­tem from 1932 to 1980, Sixth Par­ty Sys­tem from 1980 to 2016, and the Sev­enth Par­ty Sys­tem from 2016 to (who knows).

A polit­i­cal order will be informed and shaped by the dreams of a peo­ple, and these dreams and their evo­lu­tion can be seen to be held and shaped by Neptune’s orbit. What we will find is that as Nep­tune cir­cles around the solar sys­tem every 160 years or so, it will make sig­nif­i­cant align­ments with ele­ments in the USA chart that cor­re­spond to these shifts in the polit­i­cal cul­ture and shape the polit­i­cal par­ty struc­ture of the USA. The shifts in polit­i­cal align­ments can be under­stood and timed by the divi­sions of this cycle, whether a com­plete cycle of about 160 years, or of about 80 years or about 40 years. In an ear­li­er show in 2021, I also not­ed how the two pre­em­i­nent par­ties that emerged in the USA, the Demo­c­rat and Repub­li­can Par­ties, have sig­nif­i­cant Nep­tune place­ments too, and we saw that their evo­lu­tion is deeply affect­ed by Neptune’s orbit as well.

An inter­est­ing side note to all of this is the fact that the founders believed (and desired) that the USA would not have par­ty or par­ti­san pol­i­tics at all. But as we can cer­tain­ly see in our his­to­ry, and most cer­tain­ly in our present-day divi­sions, oh my good­ness, were they mistaken!!

The ear­ly par­ty devel­op­ments in the USA were shaped by a divide and dis­agree­ments over the bal­ance between a stronger or weak­er Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, framed as Fed­er­al­ism ver­sus State Rights, and this theme has cer­tain­ly been dif­fer­en­tial­ly expe­ri­enced in some form as a con­stant dynam­ic through­out the par­ty sys­tems in the USA. Let’s begin after the ini­tial par­ty sys­tem and with the sec­ond par­ty order of the 1820’s.

1820’s to 1850’s, Sec­ond Par­ty System
By the 1820’s and last­ing into the 1850’s the pri­ma­ry par­ty divi­sion was in the USA was between the ear­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty and the Whig Par­ty. The Democ­rats stood for indi­vid­ual rights and state rights and the pri­ma­cy of the Pres­i­den­cy (exec­u­tive branch) over the oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment and were against the bank­ing indus­try and specif­i­cal­ly opposed to a cen­tral bank US bank, high tar­iffs, and also opposed to pro­grams that favored indus­try at the expense of farm­ers. They were the par­ty of the so-called com­mon man.

The Whigs stood for the suprema­cy of Con­gress over the Exec­u­tive branch, and they sup­port­ed poli­cies of mod­ern­iza­tion and eco­nom­ic pro­tec­tion­ism for devel­op­ing Amer­i­can indus­tries by tar­iffs and oth­er mea­sures. They were the par­ty of indus­try, busi­ness and banking.

Over time the grow­ing dis­par­i­ty of an indus­tri­al­iz­ing North cen­tered upon “Free Labor”, and the slave-hold­ing econ­o­my con­trolled by large plan­ta­tion own­ers in the South became more and more dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile. The USA was being shaped by two mod­els of cre­at­ing val­ue, two visions of Amer­i­ca and those divi­sions became more and more of an exis­ten­tial threat to the nation­al union itself. In fact, the Whig party’s attempt to deal with the issue led to its demise and the rise of a new par­ty, the Repub­li­can Par­ty in 1854.

1854 to 1890, Third Par­ty System
For our pur­pos­es, what we need to exam­ine is what was hap­pen­ing at this time with Nep­tune in the USA chart? You may remem­ber my numer­ous obser­va­tions for the past many years of Nep­tune being in the same sign now, from 2011 to 2026, as it was from 1848 to 1862, each peri­od being a time when Nep­tune was, and is now once again in its own sign of Pisces.

In fact, it was exact­ly from 1851 to 1854 that Nep­tune squared the USA Uranus, and then squared the USA ascen­dant. And when did that hap­pen in our own time? The exact same Nep­tune square to Uranus and the ascen­dant occurred from 2015 to 2018, and just as the ear­ly peri­od brought a new Par­ty Sys­tem, our peri­od is the begin­ning of what some his­to­ri­ans are now call­ing the Sev­enth Par­ty System.

Remem­ber, it is one of the pur­pos­es of Nep­tune to dis­solve the bound­aries between real­i­ty forms so that they may com­bine, trans­form and become some­thing else. With the ascen­dant rul­ing Iden­ti­ty or Pres­ence, and Uranus rul­ing Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Free­dom, the USA was expe­ri­enc­ing a most sig­nif­i­cant shift in its very pres­ence or iden­ti­ty, and of its expe­ri­ence of free­dom in the 1850’s. The dream of Free­dom, that not some but all men should be free, and that any human could not be some­one else’s prop­er­ty, well that was the point of the Civ­il War exactly.

Now in our time today, some­thing like that, hold­ing themes of that ear­li­er peri­od, has been hap­pen­ing once more between 2015 and 2018. And just as in the 1800’s, the ves­sels of hold­ing the dreams and aspi­ra­tions of the peo­ple of the USA, the polit­i­cal instru­ments which wield the pow­er to affirm or deny those dreams were changed then as they are chang­ing now. It is like an echo of what came before, but the under­ly­ing truth is there for all to see.

Again, the ques­tion the USA faces is this: are all humans equal, deserv­ing of equal appre­ci­a­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty, or will we break apart into our blood and soil tribes, and see some humans as less than us? Let us come back to our tran­si­tion lat­er and con­sid­er the oth­er shifts of the polit­i­cal par­ty sys­tem first.

So, begin­ning in 1854 and last­ing until the next shift in the 1890’s, the Repub­li­can par­ty became and remained the dom­i­nant par­ty of the USA, and was, as it named itself, “the Grand Old Par­ty”. It was formed as a coali­tion of busi­ness­men, shop own­ers, skilled crafts­men, clerks, and pro­fes­sion­als, com­ing as it did out of the Old Whig par­ty and adding to that coali­tion many new­ly enfran­chised African Amer­i­cans. It was the vehi­cle for a restate­ment of the USA, the instru­ment for Lincoln’s restora­tion and renew­al of the dream of America.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty became a minor­i­ty and oppo­si­tion­al par­ty. It was a most­ly con­ser­v­a­tive and agrar­i­an coali­tion, with south­ern democ­rats estab­lish­ing a sys­tem of repres­sion in the Jim Crow south to deny black self-deter­mi­na­tion. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty con­tin­ued to be fun­da­men­tal­ly a State’s Rights coali­tion but based upon the oppo­si­tion to enlarge­ment of civ­il rights. In addi­tion, west­ern farm­ers and con­ser­v­a­tive ele­ments in the north­ern states helped to broad­en the Democ­rats abil­i­ty to at times hold the Sen­ate or House.

But dur­ing the 1870’s and 1880’s, the nation was rapid­ly becom­ing an indus­tri­al pow­er, and dreams and the chal­lenges of the peo­ple were chang­ing too. In the 1890’s this change in the char­ac­ter of the USA led to a shift in the polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and solu­tions to meet the dreams of the nation, and it was this evo­lu­tion of the socio-polit­i­cal order that brought about the Fourth Par­ty Sys­tem, from 1896 to 1932.

1896 to 1932, Fourth Par­ty System
But where was Nep­tune dur­ing this shift from the Third to the Fourth Par­ty Sys­tem dur­ing 1893 to 1896, and what did that sig­ni­fy? Nep­tune in this peri­od was mov­ing into the 7th house of the USA chart and it was mak­ing a square to itself too. Inter­est­ing­ly, we will find the exact same con­di­tion, but reversed, with Nep­tune enter­ing the 1st house and squar­ing itself was in place dur­ing the shift from the Fifth to the Sixth Par­ty sys­tem from 1976 to 1980. In both peri­ods, with Nep­tune squar­ing itself, it was a time for peo­ple of the USA to ques­tion the nature of their dreams, because their cir­cum­stances had changed.

What was the shift in the late 1890’s? The GOP con­sol­i­dat­ed its hold over the polit­i­cal sys­tem, effec­tive­ly main­tain­ing pre­em­i­nence almost with­out inter­rup­tion until FDR’s elec­tion in 1932. The social and polit­i­cal issues were dri­ven by the con­se­quences of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and finan­cial accu­mu­la­tion lead­ing to pro­grams and laws to reform the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tems, hence the term for this peri­od, cer­tain­ly in the late 1800’s and ear­ly 1900’s as “the pro­gres­sive era”, with reforms of the labor sys­tem, a Fed­er­al Income Tax, the direct elec­tion of sen­a­tors and even­tu­al­ly suf­frage for women.

But with Nep­tune mov­ing into the 7th house, which rules inter­na­tion­al rela­tion­ships in a Nation’s chart, it also marked the peri­od of the USA’s delu­sion that it could and should spread and share its vision of democ­ra­cy by impos­ing it, by becom­ing an expan­sion­ary colo­nial pow­er, and it seized the Span­ish hold­ings in the Span­ish Amer­i­ca War, includ­ing Cuba, Puer­to Rico and the Philip­pines, claim­ing to be bring­ing “democ­ra­cy” to these oth­er lands.

1932 to 1976, Fifth Par­ty System
The next major shift in the Polit­i­cal Par­ty Sys­tem, the Fifth Par­ty Sys­tem, emerged out of the wreck­age caused by the fail­ure of unrestrained/unregulated cap­i­tal­ism in the 1920’s, which brought about the dis­as­ter of the Great Depres­sion, and what emerged from this was a fun­da­men­tal reset of the polit­i­cal order and the par­ty system.

This would prove to be one of the major realign­ments of the par­ty sys­tem, as big as the 1850’s had been, and as we will see, as con­se­quen­tial as our own time too. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty became the par­ty of so-called “big gov­ern­ment”, based on the belief and prac­tice that the gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple should work to bring about change in coop­er­a­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor, forg­ing an alliance between work­ers, cor­po­ra­tions and the gov­ern­ment in order to restore eco­nom­ic growth and to pro­mote the gen­er­al wel­fare of the peo­ple. The com­po­si­tion of the par­ties was trans­formed, with black vot­ers mov­ing into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, and white, south­ern and con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers mov­ing into the Repub­li­can par­ty, espe­cial­ly after the push for broad­er civ­il rights in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Both par­ties had more lib­er­al and more con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers, and as a result there were peri­ods of agree­ment by mod­er­ates in each par­ty which per­mit­ted the pas­sage of very sig­nif­i­cant laws and changes to the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic order dur­ing this period.

But as a reac­tion to the eco­nom­ic malaise brought on by the unfund­ed Viet­nam War, and the tur­moil and social changes that fol­lowed upon civ­il rights and women’s move­ments, the par­ties became more and more polar­ized over the vision for the future of the USA.

But again, what we need to know is what was Nep­tune doing to inau­gu­rate this Firth Par­ty Sys­tem in the 1930’s, and then see what sig­naled its end. Nep­tune in the 1930’s was halfway between where it was in the 1850’s to where it would return in 2015 to 2017, it was in the sign of Vir­go (not Pisces) but squar­ing Uranus and squar­ing the ascen­dant once again. Yes, it seems to me from these three exam­ples, the 1850’s, the 1930’s and the present day, that the larg­er, more con­se­quen­tial shifts of the polit­i­cal order and of the par­ty sys­tem seem tied to or influ­enced by Nep­tune in this align­ment with the USA chart, when Nep­tune is either in Vir­go or Pisces, and squar­ing the plan­et Uranus in the 7th house. Why might this be so?

I would argue that the prin­ci­pal rea­son could be from Nep­tune form­ing this square to Uranus. Why would that mat­ter? Well, for one, Uranus is the ruler of the USA Moon in Aquar­ius, and the Moon in a nation’s chart rules “the peo­ple,” the ordi­nary cit­i­zens who make up what we call the com­mon peo­ple. And with Nep­tune bring­ing its dis­solv­ing, trans­form­ing, illu­mi­nat­ing and delu­sion­al influ­ence to bear on the very plan­et of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Free­dom, well it would cer­tain­ly cre­ate a time when those notions and real­i­ties of what it means to be free, what it means to be an indi­vid­ual in the USA cultural/political order would be trans­formed and made into some­thing else dur­ing each such pas­sage of Nep­tune to Uranus.

But even more for the USA, the plan­et Uranus is in the 7th house, the house of rela­tion­ships or the realm which prin­ci­pal­ly rules the rela­tion­ships that the USA has with the rest of the world. But the 7th house is also an indi­ca­tor of the “peo­ple as a whole”, or the social con­scious­ness of the peo­ple. With Uranus here, one of the abid­ing fac­tors shap­ing the social con­scious­ness for the USA is our myth and expe­ri­ence of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and free­dom. So, when we have the plan­et of “Com­mu­nal­i­ty” or the sim­ple truth that we are all made and held by our com­mu­ni­ties, and fol­low­ing from that is the neces­si­ty to sac­ri­fice some of our inde­pen­dence and free­dom to one anoth­er, well that would mean when Nep­tune is squar­ing the plan­et of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Inde­pen­dence, that this can lead to some won­der­ful dis­cov­er­ies and epipha­nies about these two truths, about Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Com­mu­nal­i­ty, of how they tru­ly are inte­gral to one anoth­er, and can only exist in a bal­anced and mutu­al inter­de­pen­dence upon one anoth­er.  But we have also seen how they can become twist­ed or bro­ken from one anoth­er so that Neptune’s influ­ence may lead to mis­guid­ed or delu­sion­al expe­ri­ences of being sub­merged into a herd iden­ti­ty, or into the oppo­site extreme of the so-called “lone wolf” or excep­tion­al indi­vid­ual claim­ing to be above the ordi­nary, and above the law, the very law we agreed to shape and guide our lives, and so pro­tect the indi­vid­ual and the com­mu­ni­ty too.

1980 to 2016, Sixth Par­ty System
The end of the New Deal Fifth Par­ty Sys­tem order and the move­ment into an increas­ing­ly more acri­mo­nious and polar­ized form of pol­i­tics was firm­ly real­ized by 1980. Where was Nep­tune then? Not sur­pris­ing­ly, it was exact­ly posi­tioned oppo­site to where it had been in the late 1890’s, in the USA 1st house instead of the 7th house, and once again squar­ing its own posi­tion in the USA chart.

What had hap­pened in the USA that brought about this shift in the par­ty sys­tem? Through­out the USA a large nation­wide major­i­ty of rur­al and work­ing-class whites became the base of the Repub­li­can Par­ty, while the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was increas­ing­ly made up of a coali­tion of black Amer­i­cans, Lati­nos, and most­ly white urban pro­gres­sives. Where pre­vi­ous­ly, the col­lege-edu­cat­ed vot­ers had been drawn to the Repub­li­can par­ty, hav­ing a high­er edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment was increas­ing­ly a defin­ing fea­ture of Demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port. These shifts, tak­en togeth­er formed the Sixth Par­ty Sys­tem that began with Regan’s Pres­i­den­cy of the 1980’s.

Astro­log­i­cal­ly, with Nep­tune in the 1st house, the dissolving/transforming effects were to be seen in the very “Pres­ence” of the USA, of how it would see itself and project itself into the world. The dream of Amer­i­ca and the nation­al myth of Amer­i­ca, like Reagan’s theme of “Morn­ing in Amer­i­ca”, became the basis for a resur­gence of a par­tic­u­lar mus­cu­lar and inter­ven­tion­ist role the world. Domes­ti­cal­ly, the Repub­li­can gospel, now firm­ly steeped in the rise of the neo-lib­er­al agen­da, began a many decades long project to dis­able and dis­man­tle the pro­grams and insti­tu­tions of the New Deal order, to attempt to return the USA to the ear­ly 1900’s, of mak­ing the busi­ness of Amer­i­ca to be just about mak­ing more mon­ey, as in “Greed is Good”, which required the con­stant chip­ping away or removal of reg­u­la­tions that had forged bal­ance growth, and had pro­duced the tremen­dous rise of the gen­er­al wel­fare of the peo­ple from the late 1930’s until the 1970’s.

But dur­ing this peri­od the focus of the Repub­li­can par­ty shift­ed, and there was ever more empha­sis on cul­tur­al con­ser­vatism, with oppo­si­tion to abor­tion, and gay mar­riage and trans­gen­der rights. Instead of being for free trade the par­ty became more and more opposed to eco­nom­ic glob­al­iza­tion and also to immi­gra­tion from non-Euro­pean coun­tries. Dis­agree­ments over posi­tions and poli­cies with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty became more and more polar­ized, and the need to pre­serve or cre­ate real pro­grams and solu­tions to the prob­lems of the peo­ple were stymied and denied.

But the removal of the eco­nom­ic and finan­cial safe­guards put into place after the Great Depres­sion of the 1930’s inevitably led to the con­spic­u­ous decou­pling of eco­nom­ic real­i­ty and finan­cial con­duct, and so in 2008, the USA plunged itself, and the rest of the world, into what we real­ly should call the Sec­ond Great Depression.

The strug­gle to recov­er from that self-made dis­as­ter shat­tered what­ev­er had remained of the coop­er­a­tive neces­si­ty incum­bent on both par­ties, both Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can, and with­out good faith in one anoth­er and with their vot­ing mem­bers, the belief in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the USA gov­ern­ment work­ing con­sis­tent­ly and togeth­er for the com­mon good became more and more a fan­ta­sy. Pol­i­tics became a cold war, then a hot­ter war, with char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tions and gotchas, and moral cow­ardice wrapped in the man­tle of moral con­vic­tion defin­ing the polit­i­cal and even cul­tur­al order.

The loss of faith in one anoth­er, and in the insti­tu­tions of the Amer­i­can life, the rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent beliefs about what the USA stood for cer­tain­ly seemed to echo a sim­i­lar time in the USA when two very dif­fer­ent Ideals of human­i­ty faced off before. Just as in the 1850’s, and now again in 2015 to 2017, Nep­tune was once again form­ing a square to the USA ascen­dant, while also squar­ing Uranus in the 7th house.

Back in the 1850’s, the Repub­li­can Par­ty was the vehi­cle for the elim­i­na­tion of the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery, and that noble cause became their sig­na­ture achieve­ment. But now in the 2000 teens, we are wit­ness­ing a very dif­fer­ent Repub­li­can Par­ty indeed.

2016 to when, “Sev­enth Par­ty System”
We are today in a more sur­re­al con­di­tion per­haps than any oth­er time in our his­to­ry. His­to­ri­ans do not yet agree if there is indeed a Sev­enth Par­ty Sys­tem in place. Prin­ci­pal­ly that is because what we have in the Repub­li­can Par­ty is not like any­thing we might rec­og­nize as a par­ty at all. As I stat­ed ear­li­er, the ques­tion the USA faces today is again the same as in the 1850’s, which is are all humans equal, deserv­ing of equal appre­ci­a­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty, or will we break apart as we have been doing for some time now, into trib­al group­ings based on creed or race or per­son­al­i­ties, where we look not to the law but to some strong leader to defend us against whomev­er is “the oth­er”, and to see some humans as less than us?

No par­ty has ever been nor will ever be per­fect, for we are all, indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, “works in progress”. But nev­er in our his­to­ry has a par­ty turned away from the “rule of law”, threat­en­ing to use the law to favor some and per­se­cute others.

I per­son­al­ly do not think we have begun a Sev­enth Par­ty Sys­tem, and that we are in this strange, one would say very Nep­tun­ian and tran­si­tion­al space where the future hangs in the bal­ance. One par­ty has aban­doned the very sub­stance of what it means to be a par­ty, which is to have a plat­form, to have posi­tions, and poli­cies and plans that will meet the hopes and dreams of the Amer­i­can peo­ple as a whole.

Instead, there is an orga­ni­za­tion where mem­ber­ship means that one must bend the knee to the will of one man and his needs, to assuage his fears and per­se­cute his so-called ene­mies, a non-demo­c­ra­t­ic author­i­tar­i­an vehi­cle for end­ing the rule of law and sub­sti­tut­ing the will and whim of their leader.

I do not believe that it is mere­ly a sim­ple major­i­ty, but rather a vast major­i­ty of the peo­ple of the USA do not want to live under this form of mis­rule. The plan­ets can­not tell us what we are to do, nor can they force us to choose. What they can do, and what we must do, is to look at our­selves and our com­mu­ni­ties, and our gov­ern­ment and ask our­selves, what is the dream for the USA now, and how might we be able to get there together.

The ques­tion before us now is this, will we remain a peo­ple who bow to no king or strong­man but con­tin­ue to pre­serve and live under this gift of self-gov­ern­ment, to the rule of law that pro­tects us from tyran­ny, and to live in a repub­lic that was made by the love and sac­ri­fice of those who came before us.