Articles
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America
Quo Vadis?
The Stars Speak:
by
John Townley
At the end of the last millennium, I recall trying to raise some alarm
in print and on the Internet about the coming transit of Pluto to the
U.S. My point was that this first-ever transit would change the image
of the U.S. by shutting down its previous image, setting it apart from
allies and the world market, and generally giving it a more
power-driven and less cooperative face, with bad economic
repercussions. The same transit to New York City's chart had resulted
in the city's worst financial crisis and a takeover by the state during
the mid-1970s. What actually has happened to the U.S. is certainly
similar. Few would have predicted 9/11 specifically, but the rest seems
definitely coming to pass.
It is sometimes arrogant for astrologers to predict world consequences
of outer planetary shifts, since their effects vary so widely
geographically and culturally. Still, for instance, Neptune in Aquarius
has coincided with many especially widespread plagues, and the last
time it was proceeded by Pluto in Scorpio, the Black Death occurred.
So, it was not hard in the 1970s to predict a coming world plague of
huge proportions, which turned out to be AIDS. Similarly, Uranus in
Pisces now alarmingly adds suddenly appearing and disappearing diseases
(SARS, avian flu, mad cow, anthrax, and more yet to come). Having both
Neptune and Aquarius in their most uncomfortable dress can only disturb.
Another good astrological view of the larger social trends of the U.S.
comes through secondary progressions. Secondary progressions are an
additional, fractal way of looking at how a chart develops, in which
the positions of the planets each day after birth are considered to
represent the developments for each year after birth. That's a 365:1
ratio. So, in 1776, we started with Sun in Cancer, and have proceeded
onward in approximately 30-year chunks of time, which roughly coincide
over comparatively few cycles with progressed Lunar and transiting
Saturn cycles, two other astrological windows on events. Was there a
pattern? Will it continue? It's probably of real interest, as the U.S.
Sun progressed into Pisces right on Election Day 2004. Let's look back
at when the Sun progressed into new signs:
Leo
(Christmas, 1793) - A
surprising (to the whole world) expansionist period where the U.S.,
just barely escaped from England's control thanks to the help of
France, flirted with war with France, established power in the
Mediterranean, went to war with England again, and finally declared
total discretionary power over all the Americas (the Monroe Doctrine).
Virgo
(April Fool's Day, 1825)
- A total retreat into domestic expansion that opened up agriculture
and trade across the continent and around the world. From supplying
unique flour for around the Horn to relieving the Irish famine, the
breadbasket came to the fore.
Libra
(Groundhog Day, 1856) -
Opposing social and economic forces made leveling the playing field and
leveling the enemy the main focus, followed by bringing the leveled
fields back to life again after the Civil War.
Scorpio
(July 1, 1886) -
Internal resources -- capitalism and labor, mining, industrialism,
railroads, oil - became the national focus. From trustbusting to
unionbusting, to the foundation of the world oil economy and
technology. Power plays all the way.
Sagittarius
(April Fool's Day,
1916) - A previously internalized nation, pausing for six months to
pretend isolationism, launched into world economic expansionism that
engaged us in two world wars, a world depression, and an irrevocable
position as a superpower on the world stage. Very Jupiter, brash,
foolish, but idealistic and unstoppable.
Capricorn
(Oct. 10, 1945) -
Establishing the U.N. that very month, we settled into the business of
running the world like a business. Although the rest of the world
sometimes balked, it was an organizational fest from the Marshal Plan
to the worldwide plan to defeat Communism. The concrete ruled - whether
buildings, cars, appliances. Buy it, sell it, you win.
Aquarius
(March 21, 1975) - two
weeks before the incorporation of Microsoft, the birth of the computer
age. Who needs concrete, when it's really all a concept in cyberspace?
It started with Pong, ended with the Internet. Solutions were sought in
statistical consensus, marketing, focus groups, whether in business or
politics. But lately it's become daily fare, a little repetitive, and
we're looking for new horizons that satisfy more…
Pisces
(Election Day, 2004) -
What to say? We generally start with the simple version (such as Pong)
and end with the very subtle and complex (such as the Internet). How
simple can you make the spiritual, intuitive, and gullible sides of
Pisces? Are Mel Gibson's Christ and the gratuitous, self-serving
violence of "The Left Behind" representative of a momentary popular
peak, or a serious peek of what's to come? And, eventually, how subtle
and complex may it mature into over the coming thirty years? We may
start off buying anything that idealistic or religious P.T. Barnums
have to sell, at great cost, and wind up with spiritual creations we
hadn't dreamed of, to the elevation of all - hopefully in this world
and not only the next. Under any circumstances, our beliefs in the
spiritual, the non-physical, and our actions to try to enforce them on
ourselves and others will be the news stories of the coming three
decades.
The U.S. is not living in a vacuum, however, and the worst side of
religion is also fueling the fray all around us - and, some say, we
have too eagerly jumped into it ourselves. There is no war like a
religious war, and pulling the trigger on a perceived spiritual enemy
is often the equivalent of social suicide. How will we fall into the
picture? The biggest mistakes usually come first, and whatever they
are, they are staring us in the face, following the actions we have
already taken. But, Neptune-like, we may not see them at all until
afterward. Our nation is diving headfirst into an unexplored ocean, and
perhaps the best advice is to take a deep breath before we take the
plunge. That breath may need to be deeper than we suspect, as 0 Pisces
is also the degree of the USA's prenatal eclipse, adding an extra
emphasis of fate and sensitivity to the mix.
But, like a ship with flapping sails in unknown waters, without a sure
wind, we are floundering about and all too willing to run with the
latest gut-level hunch rather than rely on any long-term weather
forecast. Any sea captain can tell you that's no way to set your sails,
but it is, in fact, what we seem to be doing - following ever more
short-term thinking into a spiral of confusion and self-defeating moves
while the world watches in amazement, some regretfully, some eagerly
sharpening their knives.
Adapted
from an article originally
published in The Mountain Astrologer, summer 2004
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