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.

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.

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.

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 7^th 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 1^st 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 7^th 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 7^th 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 7^th 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 7^th 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 1^st house instead of the 7^th 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 1^st 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 7^th 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.