Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Barack Obama and the Collective Shadow

Despite repeated predictions to the contrary by the self-styled UK’s No 1 Astrologer , it’s now looking pretty certain that Hillary Clinton will not make it to the White House. This is because Obama’s lead in the Democratic nomination race is looking increasingly unassailable, and the calls to Hillary Clinton to stand down are growing. According to the Huffington Post on Sunday, the second stage of voting in Texas is likely to increase the gap to nearly 600 delegates, with Obama on 1858 and Hillary on 1270.

In a sense what matters is that it has been a great contest. It reminds me of the Borg-McEnroe matches at Wimbledon in the late seventies, when you had two great champions battling it out for hours and hours. In a sense, it didn’t matter who won, though of course it mattered absolutely to each of the contestants, as it has to. What mattered was that each of them had been tested to their utmost, bringing us moments of brilliance, and this is what awes us as spectators. And it’s been a bit like this with Clinton-Obama, two worthy candidates giving their all for a great prize, with the whole world watching over a period of months, under a prolonged Mars-Pluto opposition. Indeed, as the contest reached its first peak on Feb 5th (Super Tuesday), Mars in the sky could be seen to station between the tips of the horns of the Bull. What an omen!

Obama has been Borg, the cool restrained one, whereas the McEnroe vitriol has lain more with the Clinton camp. Though not everyone likes Hillary, even as the loser she will emerge with increased stature for the battle she has fought, she will receive a standing ovation that will be genuine and earned at the Democratic Convention.

In the last few days Mars has finally moved out of opposition to Pluto, and will this Friday (4th April) complete the retrograde cycle that began last November. So it is possible that Hillary will stand down sooner than we think, as the planetary configuration governing this battle comes to an end. Even if she doesn't stand down, there is likely to be a growing sense that the contest is over.

Obama’s journey so far can be seen in Jungian archetypal terms, with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright being, in my opinion, Obama’s greatest benefactor during this period.

What we find in Jungian psychology is the journey from Young Hero to Wise Old Man, and necessary encounters with the Shadow and Anima, or Feminine, along the way. These encounters deepen the Young Hero, who begins with wonderful ideals, and a desire to complete some enormous task that will save the world (this is my way of putting it, not Jung’s.) But he is naïve, he sees the world in black and white terms, good guys versus bad guys. He, of course, is aligned with the Good. (I’m putting all this in male terms for now, but it translates quite easily into female terms).

It was during this naïve Young Hero phase that we encountered Obamania, when the saintly saviour archetype was projected strongly onto him by many people, and not just by young or uneducated people either. There was rightly a reaction in the opposite direction by many other people.

And then, as Pluto stationed in March, we heard the voice of the Underworld, of America’s Shadow in the form of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s long-time pastor. He vomited out great gobbets of unwelcome truth: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

And again: “And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent, she failed. She put them on reservations... When it came to putting the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed... The government put them on slave quarters...Put them in inferior schools... Put them in the lower paying jobs. Put them outside the equal protection of the law. Kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless America. God Damn America! That's in the Bible. For killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating us citizens as less than human. God Damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is Supreme.”

Pluto was not just stationing: he was opposite Obama’s natal Venus in Cancer. Venus is to do with both personal relationships and, in a politician, popular appeal, the relationship with the electorate. And Cancer concerns home and family and tribe. So it was a potent brew for Obama personally. He was being called upon to acknowledge his origins, his roots, his tribe, and the way they see their country.

“God damn America.”

It doesn’t get much more shadow than this. Yet how can you love your country if you don’t also detest its flaws? What does it mean to say you love your country if you paint out the bits you don’t like? Obama performed a pretty nifty dance in his response to the release of the Wright video. He gave a speech, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” He said some good, inspiring stuff in his usual, eloquent way, and it was good politics.

And he made it clear that though he denounced in the strongest possible way Wright’s views, he did not disown the man (laughter). My laughter is sympathetic. When a man like Wright holds a view so strongly, you cannot separate the man from the view. He IS his views. So in not disowning Wright, Obama is being true to his origins and, despite himself, true to a certain way of seeing America, true to a side of himself that he had not wanted to volunteer to the public until he was forced to by Wright. Whatever Obama might have said in response to Wright, however movingly and genuinely and passionately and eloquently he wriggled, the fact is that Obama has been around this man for 20 years and has considered him his spiritual mentor. That history speaks far louder than anything Obama might now say.

To me it says that almost despite himself, Obama can be trusted, that he genuinely is a voice for unity and not for polarisation. In politics, polarisation is the norm. You win your appeal in part by standing for one section of the population against another. Like George Bush, who seemed not to care about the fate of New Orleans, in a way that would have been inconceivable had it been say Boston. Like the Tory party in the UK, who tend to favour the rich over the poor. Or Labour, who in the past were the opposite. In England, it is now the upper classes who are demonised, who are seen as fair game for ridicule. You cannot do this to the ‘working classes’. (I recently read that in the US it is easier to talk about race than about class).

I think it is remarkable for a politician to acknowledge a country’s shadow without one-sidedly identifying with it. And in Obama’s case, his Venus in Cancer is conjunct the US Venus in Cancer. So via the current Pluto transit to them both, Obama's shadow and the American Collective Shadow are connected, he can articulate it and authentically speak for it. The Shadow is what we are ashamed of. To some extent Obama is ashamed of his roots, as he was forced into speaking about them. But he has in his own way acknowledged his roots, and people are still voting for him. This means that in some way America also is acknowledging its Shadow, which is a profound and wonderful event.

So Obama has passed the test, and has gained stature. He is no longer merely the angel of light come to save America, there is now something difficult and unstraightforward about him that gives him depth.

As for the other 2 archetypes, the Anima and the Wise Old Man, it is interesting how they all seem to be appearing very clearly around Obama. We’ve seen Wright and the Shadow, but we also have Hillary Clinton as the Anima, and the ‘Wise Old Man’ John McCain. I’m not sure how these figures work for Obama, but he has certainly had a full-on encounter with the Anima through Hillary. She may not be conventionally feminine, but she is certainly female of a certain type, and love her or hate her, Obama has had to deal with her and probably learn from her. He has yet to do battle with John McCain, but McCain is his own man, and will not be a pushover.

So it is as though, looked at in Jungian terms, the process of (possibly) becoming President is also a process of psychological integration for Barack Obama, which can only be a good thing.


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22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back DR! Great post.

Barry Goddard said...

As Lynn pointed out in her blog, Obama also had a reverse nodal return going on - i.e. transiting north node opposite natal north node. Nodal transits often lead to significant encounters with others that move us on our way, and this certainly happened to Obama with Rev Wright.

Unknown said...

Spam is the collective shadow, in our collective In-Box.

Venus said...

Welcome back!

Contrary to the Huffington Post's report, Obama's present lead is 130 delegates and 1% of the popular vote.

Those calling for Clinton to stand down are Obama supporters. The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, is predicting that the Democratic Nominee will be known in June. In other words, after all the primaries.

Barry Goddard said...

Yes Venus, I thought the delegate gap seemed a bit large.

All the same, I reckon the astrology is saying the real battle is just about over, even if Hillary does hang around for a while.

Diane L said...

This is very, very good! Your time away got you firing on all cylinders. I'd rather read about American politics in your blog than my newspaper . . . :-D

Anonymous said...

You don't live in the USA and have no idea how racist this country still is. I don't think Obama will be nominated and, if he is, McCain will win. Like I said, you have no idea how racist this country still is.

Anonymous said...

"So via the current Pluto transit to them both, Obama's Shadow and the American Collective Shadow are connected, he can articulate it and authentically speak for it."
Wouldn't that indicate a scorpio ascendant for Obama then, pluto in the 3rd? Maybe that's why his speeches are so compelling.

Anonymous said...

Obama's speeches are only compelling to people who can't see through his Neptune-in-the-First-House fog. (Yes, I'm sure he has Scorpio rising!) Those of us who can see through it, find him condescending, obnoxious, and always throwing out red herrings instead of addressing issues that make him uncomfortable. In the one press conference I saw when reporters didn't fawn over him but actually asked him hard, pointed questions, he became beligerant and stormed off the stage like a fussy child. Finally, he showed his true Scorpio rising nature. But the Naeptune kicked back in and drugged everyone into seeing him favorably again. In this way, he is to the left what George W. Bush was to the right.... a savior whom they think can do no wrong. He will disappoint them exactly like Bush did his idolizers.

Venus said...

I don't think the battle is quite over yet, and Hillary is not just hanging around like Huckabee did.

What is happening now is the Democrat's worst nightmare. Their system for selecting a nominee is flawed, and what has happened this year has proven that. When they changed from a winner take all to a proportionality system, they knew they would have a problem if two candidates were splitting the popular vote, so the created the superdelegates to break the tie. They also know that caucuses are not the same as primaries. The only reason they have caucuses is that some States are unwilling to pay for primaries. So you have to look at the popular vote, because that is what will count in the general election. And right now the popular vote shows a 1% difference. So right now they are neck and neck. And, if Michigan and Florida had not been punished for jumping the gun, Hillary would be ahead in the popular vote now. So the powers that be know that they cannot stop the process from continuing.

If Hillary carries the remaining primaries in the States that the Democrats must win in the general election, and she's ahead now in those States, the issue of Michigan and Florida, which are also States that must be carried in the general election, will have to be revisited and equitably resolved. But it will still be neck and neck, so it will be up to the superdelegates to decide.

Several months ago I plotted the horoscopes of Obama and McCain against the horoscope of the U.S., because from the three charts, Obama and McCain seemed inevitable. And my conclusion was that McCain would win. And that is a horrifying possibility to me, so I am working in every way possible for Hillary to pull it off, in spite of the astrology.

Barry Goddard said...

Hi Venus, I don't know if you use the 1.06pm chart for Obama - which works very well - but have you done his Solar Return for 2008, relocated to Washington? It has MC/IC within 1/2 a degree of the exact Saturn-Uranus opposition on election day, which is extraordinary. And of course his Node conjoins the US Sibly Moon, which Neptune is about to conjoin. In the same way that Pluto was about to hit the Sibly ASC in 2001 and Bush was the obvious Pluto candidate, so is Obama the obvious Neptune candidate.

So how do you make it that McCain will win?

Venus said...

Hi DR, I've read where you've made these observations in previous posts. One I agree with, the other I question. The one on Obama's South Node conjoining the US Sibly Moon, with Neptune approaching conjunction is persuasive. But how is it possible to calculate his Solar Return when the time of his birth is uncertain?

Barry Goddard said...

Fair enough, it is an uncertain time (1.06pm), it's just that it works well in lots of ways so I like to give it some slack.

So how do you make it that McCain will win?

Anonymous said...

Hello Dharmucci

Your article was excellent! I enjoy reading here.

Can you comment on Alex Salmond and the possible separtion of Scotland from Great Brittain under Pluto in Capricorn? Is it possible?

Thanks from,
Spinner

Anonymous said...

If McCain wins, the neocons will have their Iran war and more. You can count on it.

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does anyone else think it's mighty strange that babies all over America are "for Barack Obama". Can anyone explain this phenomenon.

Out of the mouths of babes indeed. Do these babies know something we don't know?
Check out these video clips amongst the growing number on youtube:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmwvu20MvGY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Sp3rA55XU&feature=related

Venus said...

On election day, while all three candidates have multiple aspects to their natal planets through transits, McCain has the most outer planets in aspect. He also has some significant minor aspects. Overall these aspects indicate that McCain will potentially change his residence and his work after the election.

Obama, having fewer transits to natal planets, also has mostly inner planet transits, mostly indicating the potential for personal expansion.

Hillary has a somewhat similar pattern as Obama, but there is indication of potential for expansion that brings change in work, a change in the previous pattern or environment, and is final.

I did the Solar Return for the times that are available for all three. Interestingly, I got a different result than you did for Obama. The Solar Return I got has his Sun at the MC, and the North Node at the IC. Even more interesting was that for Hillary the Solar Return has Uranus at the MC and Saturn at the IC.

When I initially made my conclusion it was mostly intuitive after studying the horoscopes. You question prompted me to go into it more thoroughly today. I hope I've answered your question.

Barry Goddard said...

Spinner, I did a blog a year ago on Scottish Independence. \look under that topic, or here's the link: http://astrotabletalk.blogspot.com/search/label/Scottish%20Independence

Venus said...

Continuing on why I think John McCain will win the presidency:

When you compare the horoscopes of John McCain and the US (Sibly), the first thing that impresses (astrounds) you is that every planet and luminary of one is in aspect to the other, and often multiple aspects.

The next thing is that the Sun of one is at the MC of the other, so the spiritual striving of one could be expressed in the life of the other.

The most striking feature in John McCain's chart is the Grand Cross in mutable signs, formed by Neptune and Venus in Virgo, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Saturn in Pisces, and Chiron in Gemini. These points are intersected by points in the US chart formed by Neptune in Virgo, the AC in Sagittaris (stretching it a little bit), the IC in Pisces (again stretching a bit), and Mars in Gemini. A Grand Cross in mutable signs is about healing and reasoning. It can give tremendous power and ability for decisiveness, if one can balance the pulling, pushing forces.

This Grand Cross will be activated by transits on election day through the T square that will be formed by the opposition of Saturn in Virgo to Uranus in Pisces, both squaring Venus in Sagittarius. Again, John McCain and the US appear to have the same cross to bear.

Furthermore the transiting luminaries will be in sextile and trine (favorable) aspect to the Virgo and Pisces parts of the Grand Cross. In addition, transiting Moon will conjoin John McCain’s Moon at the IC (conjunct US Pluto and opposed to US Mercury) and oppose his Pluto at the MC. Perhaps bringing his quest for power home.

If successful, at best, John McCain could be the savior that has come to heal and pull the US back from the abyss that George W. Bush has pushed us into, or he could be the one that will push us further into the abyss that will lead to the rebellion that might erupt when the T square is formed by Uranus and Pluto and the US Sun.

Those who know him say that he is a "good man." Perhaps when he has ultimate power he will be his own man. We'll see!

Anonymous said...

Astrolger Ray Merriman has an interesting way of predicting election results, and I do mean "predicting" because he's been right on every one of his forecasts ever since I've been reading him (several years).

He goes by the sign the moon will be in on election day. For our November election, the moon will be V/C in Capricorn most of the day, a conservative sign, but will go into Aquarius before the polls close in most places. He believes someone more conservative will win, McCain if he's against Obama. But if it's Hillary against McCain, it could be her. In any case, he doesn't believe progressives will get their way this time. With Mars square Neptune and Saturn OPP Uranus, BOTH EXACT that very day, it wil be interesting...

Barry Goddard said...

Hi Venus, very interesting. The only point I don't get is your first one, about the cross aspects between McCain and the Sibly. e.g. McCain has Sun at 6 Virgo and Moon at 27 Cap; the Sibly has Sun at 13 Cancer and Moon at 27 Aquarius. I don't see any (major) cross aspects there?

What I do mainly notice are unfavourable aspects e.g. US Sun square McCain ASC, and McCain Sun square US ASC and Saturn, McCain Node square US MC.

This is sticking to Sun, Moon, Saturn and Angles, which gives the main outline. It is a good cross aspect for being a thorn in the side, but it won't win you votes.

If you look at his Prog Chart for election day, the Moon, Mars and Neptune are all separating from the Prog MC, so his career will already have peaked.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Dharmaruci

I was in Scotland when you wrote the blog on Scottish independence and when Alex Salmond won the election.

From a Canadian perspective at the time, I felt that Scotland would never split from the UK or if it did it would take decades, but the more I read about it the more inclined i am to think that a split is possible.