America's Fragile Exceptionalism

“The best is yet to come.” Those were Barack Obama’s words on being re-elected US President last week. I don’t think he really believed them, and I don’t think anybody else did either. I think he said them because the opposite is true, and everyone knows it. Yes, America will probably become more wealthy in absolute terms in the coming years. But it will no longer be Number One in the world. For now, it remains Number One, and will be so for some years yet.

But its days are numbered, and a deep crisis of identity is therefore rumbling. It’s not fully out in the open yet, but it has been felt for some years in the American collective unconscious. That is why Obama said the opposite, almost as if to confirm it. And I think that is why the Republican Party and its followers have been becoming more extreme: this is what happens to the political right wing when a country feels under threat. Look at the increasingly popular Golden Dawn in Greece, which denies that Nazi Germany had gas chambers.

America’s identity is tied up with a fragile exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is the way a race or country feels itself to be special and superior. Like Israel being fuelled by the myth of the Chosen People. The Chinese are the Middle Kingdom, the most ancient civilisation in the world. The Achuar, an Amazonian tribe, consider themselves the only real humans – yes, even super-spiritual indigenous people have feet of clay, just like us! And America is the superior country because of its brand of Democracy and Protestant work virtues. The fact that it is the richest and most powerful country proves that those national attributes are the best.

China can be as poor as it likes, but it remains the world’s oldest civilisation. And the Jews remain the Chosen People, because God told them they were. But America has to keep proving its own exceptionalism – if it is not the richest and most powerful country, then of what value is its ‘freedom’, its democracy, its Protestant work ethic? Democracy and wealth are intertwined in the western mind, and China is in the process of proving that you can be just as rich without Democracy or Christianity.

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The MC and 10^th House describe one’s standing in the world. America is emerging from a hard aspect from Uranus-Pluto to its MC at 1 Libra and to its ruler Venus at 3 Cancer. Militarily, this could be said to describe its inconclusive efforts in Iraq, and its losing war in Afghanistan. Pluto as disempowerment. Economically, China has risen faster than anyone thought, and this transit has made clear that America’s days are numbered.

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The US also has Saturn in the 10^th, at 15 degrees Libra in square to the Sun at 13 Cancer. This is the big one coming up, as Uranus and Pluto hard aspect these two in the coming few years. Followed by a Neptune square to the US Asc.

Already the US Progressed Asc is describing the new USA. In the last year it has moved from grandstanding Leo to humble Virgo.

Saturn in the 10^th shows how important the USA’s reputation, its dominance in the world, is for its own self-esteem. Just as important as wealth which, with Pluto in the 2^nd House, shows a survival attitude that goes back to its founding, and that is outdated: the US Pluto Return at the end of the decade may bring a change in this attitude.

There is a lot that could be said about the US natal Sun square Saturn. It is not an easy aspect to have. People with Sun square Saturn find it hard to be at ease with themselves. They are continually driven to ‘achieve’, and never feel that what they have done is good enough. They tend to be identified with their deeds and reputation at the expense of an inner awareness. Saturn can be the crucible for inner awareness; but he can also be a demon who scoops out the soul and tells you that all that matters is outer: work and wealth and prestige. Sun square Saturn people can also be genuinely impressive, they really can achieve things, just like America. But there is always that other voice, the inner voice, that tends not to be listened to.

And it’s fragile, because outer achievement, wealth and reputation, can always be taken away from you. And that is a huge threat to a Sun square Saturn, because what else is there if not that? And this is what is starting to happen to the USA. Pluto will come within 2 degrees of opposing the US Sun next Spring, and Uranus will be within 1 degree of squaring it next Summer.

The US is in a similar position to the UK 100 years ago, when it was starting to lose its place as the world’s biggest and wealthiest Empire, and it had the same transit, Pluto opposite the Sun, but Cancer-Capricorn instead of Capricorn-Cancer. 100 years on, and we still don’t know our place in the world: we still long to be up there again, as shown in our cosying up to the USA; we are half in and half out of Europe; and we love to knock ourselves, to put ourselves down.

America is already in the early stages of its Uranus-Pluto to Sun-Saturn transit. And it seems to be turning the country in on itself. A President without the hunger to rule (as the first TV debate showed.) A long economic recession and big debt problems. And perhaps most importantly, a gridlocked Congress, unable to rule the country effectively, to make the changes that are needed. Putting political disagreement before the national interest, a sign of decadence, of a country that doesn’t mean business anymore, that doesn’t believe in itself like it used to.

Don’t take this wrong. I’m not slagging off America, though some readers are bound to think I am. I think it may be a good thing. It’s a long, drawn-out grinding process which is in its early stages, but America is I think having to ask itself who it is, what it wants.

For now, I think we are likely to see continuing and even increasing deadlock in Congress, brought about primarily by an increasingly threatened and reactionary Republican Party. Pluto will be exactly opposite the US Sun in 2014, half way through Obama’s second term. It may be that the next few years will be characterised by a growing sense of political crisis, due to deadlock. By the time Uranus-Pluto has well and truly finished with the US Sun-Saturn in 5 or 6 years’ time, China will probably be almost on a par with the US economically, and asserting the power that comes with that.

America will have to adjust to being Number Two in the world. This still isn’t bad for a Sun square Saturn, it’s do-able. But it will necessitate a philosophical change, a change in the US’s belief system that insists that it has to be number One. With natal Sun conjunct to Jupiter, and Sagittarius Rising (which Neptune will start to square in a year or two), the US’s beliefs about itself are unusually strong and religiously toned, but are being gradually re-defined. It may involve a move away from valuing itself because it is ‘better’ than everyone else, towards the homely Cancerian virtues (Sun, Jupiter and Venus in Cancer) – taking care of its own people, valuing the homeland for what it is. 'Failure' is often where we learn most, rather than success.

Astrology: It's a Bunch of Stories

Ebenezer Sibly

The US Sibly chart, which is the one used by most astrologers, is not based on the actual time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Rather, it was generated by medieval methods using the preceding Aries and Cancer ingresses. Nick Campion, in his Book of World Horoscopes, describes this process, but only up to a point; it is not clear, for example, how the Asc ends up at 12 Sag.

So the Sibly Chart signifies the Declaration of Independence, rather than being a literal chart for it.

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But it still seems to work quite well as a chart for the USA. The event that made the Sibly Chart the most accepted one was 9/11, when Pluto and Saturn were lined up along the Sibly Asc/Desc respectively. It was spookily literal: Saturn in Gemini was the twin (Gemini) towers (Saturn), a statement of American achievement and pre-eminence (Saturn).  And Pluto in Sag was foreign (Sag) terror (Pluto).

I’d rather have seen Saturn transiting the Asc and Pluto the Desc myself, rather than the other way round, because it describes more clearly the attack on the USA (Asc) coming from abroad (Desc). And this would be the Gemini Rising Chart, which at 8 Degrees does not have the closeness of Saturn-Pluto at 9/11 as the Sibly Chart, but it’s good enough for me.

Be that as it may, charts work because they have a functional symbolic relationship with the person or entity concerned, not because they are based on an accurate time of birth. It’s like here are a set of stories that describe your nature and your past and your future. The job of the astrologer is to join with the ‘client’ to find and tell those stories.

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I think the reason a chart like the US Sibly works is because it was generated using a sensitivity to symbolism. But then, and this is a strange process, it’s like you become the chart and the chart becomes you over time. Through repeated readings and reflection, the set of stories in the chart and your life stories merge and illumine each other. That is why I think getting the time of birth ‘right’ isn’t necessarily such a big deal. I mean, if you have your chart ‘rectified’ because you are unsure of the birth time, all that the astrologer is doing is generating a chart that fits your life. I think it is nonsense to think that the astrologer has found your ‘actual’ birth time.

That is just another story, one of the stories, a powerful one, that astrology tells us. “This is how the heavens looked at the moment you were born.” Wow! That is a powerful story. As above, so below. The cosmos reflects our deeper nature at the moment we were born.

Well it does. I’m not trying to take that idea away for a moment, it is such a vital one. It’s true, it’s real, but it’s not literal. I mean, look at the chart itself, what a fiction it is! The signs divided neatly into 30 degrees each? And having slipped 23 degrees away since they were first generated? And the House systems, all those conflicting theories, you take your pick which one you want to use.

The fictional nature of much of astrology points to its real nature. We need to allow the fiction in rather than ignore it. It’s about stories that work. It can’t be any set of stories. Mysteriously, the set of stories around the time of birth tend to work, but that is because astrology has been designed that way.

Reality itself is a bunch of stories. 9/11 itself quickly became a set of different stories. Any attempt to pin anything down as literal actual truth can always be deconstructed. Scientific truth is no different. Look what happens when you really push science, it explodes into a counter-intuitive quantum reality, inhabited by a huge array of ephemeral particles that no-one will ever actually see. That is because the world 'out there' is a construction of our brains, both the 'out-there-ness' and the apparent material solidity. It's a hologram, a model, so if you push it too far, of course it breaks down. The best we can do is tell stories about it, stories that for some reason grip us, expand us, give meaning. There is a Reality, there really is, the universe really is meaningful, but we also have to deconstruct, dance lightly on, the dualistic, literal presentation that our minds construct.

The stories come from somewhere else, Neptune's mythopoeic ocean. And like all other aspects of reality, astrology is essentially another bunch of meaningful stories.

It’s right brain stuff, intuitive stuff. When you are doing astrology, if you feel that right brain connection, then it is working. The Sibly Chart works because a right brain connection, a felt connection to symbolism, was used in its creation.

One method of generating charts is to put the planet that rules the event on the Ascendant. This is how the US Gemini rising Chart came about: Uranus, the planet of revolution, was put near the Ascendant.

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And you’ve immediately got the intuition involved here, you’ve got a planet rising that seems right, that tells a story. So of course the chart is going to work. There is no ‘scientific’ or rational reason why it should. It is the logic of intuition, which works completely differently. For a start, it is holistic, the part contains the whole. You get the right planet, the right story on the Asc, and the rest follows.

It might be worth experimenting with your own chart. What planet ruled your birth? Did you or your Mum nearly die? Maybe put Pluto on the Asc in that case. Keep the actual day the same in the process. Or was your birth long and difficult? Put Saturn there. Did you arrive suddenly, or was the pregnancy unplanned? Try Uranus. Was it a Caesarian? Mars. Was it a New Age water birth? Put Neptune there! And so on.

The crucial thing is that intuitive resonance, which is different to a good feeling. Intuition is a form of knowing rather than feeling. As Jung said, it’s a form of knowing that doesn’t come with evidence in the usual sense. It’s like when you see a bird of prey and you know it means something. Yesterday you might have seen it and it was just a bird of prey. But today you know it signifies something. You weren’t looking for omens, it just came at you. That’s intuition.

As an astrologer you can end up thinking everything is meaningful in that sense, because everything has a planetary correlate. Like every event is telling you something. But they don’t. The art is being able to tell which events are meaningful, and that’s intuition. And don’t go along with other people’s intuitions because they say them authoritatively. We all want to feel connected to some hidden dimension, it gives a sense of meaning. That’s why the 2012 Mayan thing is so popular. I think it’s nonsense.

FAKE EINSTEIN QUOTE

The planets are a route into intuition, but they can become a hindrance if you don’t drop them once you get there and just home in on your experience and the other person’s. The charged heart of the story you’ve been circling around.

Christina (The Oxford Astrologer) had one of those moments looking at my chart yesterday. She was noting how both Saturn and Neptune are transiting both my Neptune-Node and Desc, and said she tends to think there’s something monkish about Saturn-Neptune. I said yes, Neptune is the inner experience, Saturn is the container. Then she said but you have that side, all those years in Buddhist communities when you were younger. It’s not all of you, or you’d still be there. But that side is coming back. And I thought wow, that’s a brilliant bit of analysis and intuition. A lot of confusing pieces suddenly fell into place. And no wonder I’m up in my yurt on my own every night, even in winter, luxuriating in the solitude and beauty of the place.

How to Predict an Election

I’ve noticed quite a few astrologers based their predictions for the US election on the astrology of the day, 6^th November. I started wondering a few months ago how valid that is. If the election came out of nowhere, so to speak, like someone being born, then the chart for the day would say everything.

But it doesn’t come out of nowhere, like a new being. It is about 2 people we have come to know only too well, and it is about wider political currents that have been developing for years.

So I came to think no, the chart for the election day only gives a flavour of the election. And if it is too close to call, then that minor influence of the day may tip it one way or the other. That is what happened with Bush vs Gore. It was too close to call, so the Mercury retrograde influence on the day made a difference, and the side that eventually lost naturally felt that the election had been stolen from them.

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I’ve been saying all along it would be Obama, and my astrological reason is this: if a leader is initially elected under strong outer planet transits, then he or she will usually remain in power until those transits are over. Neptune or Pluto has given that person the power to become leader, and they will tend to stay as leader until Neptune or Pluto leave the stage. This is what happened, for example, with Thatcher and Blair in the UK.

Obama was elected under Neptune squaring his MC. For the next 3-4 years Neptune will be hard-aspecting his natal Moon square Pluto. Then that will be that. Romney was at the end of a major Neptune transit – to his Asc – with none to follow. So Neptune took him as far as being a Presidential candidate, then dropped him.

If both or neither of them had enduring major transits, then it’s maybe worth taking more notice of the chart for the election day.

As ever with astrology, it’s best (1) to keep it simple, so you remain connected to the symbolism and (2) start with the bigger picture and then view particular moments – like the chart for the election day – in that context.