US Progressed Mars

Happy (?) Birthday USA, 2022 edition

art by Linda Mears

Every history has a beginning, a crescendo, a crisis, and then either a breakdown or a breakthrough. This is true for individuals, and it’s also true for countries. The story of the United States is a fascinating one, especially through the astrological lens.

Before we can understand the current situation we have to understand how we got here. Back in 2009 I wrote:

The United States is at an astrological crossroads.  The US progressed Mars turned retrograde last year, and is searching for a new direction.  Pluto, god of transformation, has been challenging the US Midheaven, the point of public perception.  The qualities that gave the US its power over the past 400 years will not work for the next 400, and the nation will have to adapt.  Economic systems are changing and becoming much more tenuous and fluid as they go global.  Traditional social systems are weakening and require a new way of looking at the way humans form families and cultural groups.  As a people we must become more lithe and limber so that we can adapt to the changing collective, or we will not survive the 21st century.  This is not a time to look back and long for the conservative values of the 1950s – those days are over.  There is a new day dawning, and we will have to be ready for it.

Apparently we are not ready for it, and the return of Pluto to its place in the U.S. chart is drawing attention to the deep fissures that divide the country. But let’s take a birthday look at the chart of the United States and see what is in store for us […]

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By |2022-07-07T07:38:04-04:00July 3rd, 2022|Politics|9 Comments

The arrest of George Zimmerman and the healing of wounds in the US Sibly chart

Trayvon martin astrologyThe shooting of Trayvon Martin has made national headlines in the United States and in a country that likes to think of itself as being “beyond race” this story has brought the matter of racial bias and injustice to the front page of American news.

George Zimmerman was arrested yesterday just as Mars, planet of aggressive force, changed direction to turn direct.  Because this case has had so much impact on the American discussion I wanted to see if there were any significant connections between the charts of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin and the generally accepted chart for the US, the Sagittarius rising “Sibly” chart.

In order to assess the effect these individuals are having on the evolution of the United States I examined the progressed charts for all of the players using the information available  without accurate birth times.  Trayvon Martin’s progressed Saturn was exactly quincunx the progressed Moon in the US chart, demonstrating the challenge (Saturn)  to the emotions (Moon) of Americans in a struggle that, like the quincunx aspect, has no real way of achieving resolution. Both progressed Mars and Jupiter in Trayvon’s chart are trine Progressed Chiron in the US chart, motivating the desire (Mars) to raise up painful old wounds (Chiron) so that they can be healed and some meaning (Jupiter) found from the situation.  And Trayvon’s progressed Neptune, illusion and mystery, conjoins the US progressed South Node (karmic matters), with his progressed Uranus (shocking events) sitting right on the US Pluto (revelation of secrets and the principle of destruction).

George Zimmerman’s progressed chart also has interesting and potentially significant relationships to the US chart.  In the US progressed chart itself, progressed Sun is […]

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By |2019-11-10T19:21:19-05:00April 12th, 2012|Crime, Politics|9 Comments

The Decline of the American Empire

decline of america

Last week I wrote about the Sibley chart that I and most other astrologers use for the United States as a preface for this series since this is the chart I am using to track the change of fortune for the US.  The Sibley chart shows Sagittarius rising, with the Sun in Cancer in a wide conjunction to Jupiter in the seventh house of alliances and open enemies.

Since I mentioned writing this article, the US debt was downgraded for the first time in American history by the Standard & Poor rating index.  (Let’s ignore for the time being the irony of the fact that it was errors in the methodology of S&P’s and other rating agencies that got us into this mess with the subprime mortgage debacle.)

I’ll save an exhaustive analysis of the Sibley chart for another post, but it’s important to note a few things before discussing the situation today. The Sagittarius ascendant in the US chart reflects the expansive tendency of the American empire which is probably the single thing that will be its undoing.  Like other empires before it, the expansion of the national identity (Sagittarius ascendant) through ideas like “Manifest Destiny” which inspired pioneers to trek across the undeveloped terrain and do battle with the native peoples and Mexicans and Canadians who were already living on the land.

This relentless push for expansion tends to weaken the underpinnings of a nation, as we can see in the history of the Roman, the Russian and the British empires, the great empires of our age. During the period from 1995 to 2008, when Pluto transited through Sagittarius bringing globalized governments and corporations, it appeared to some that the expansion of […]

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By |2016-10-08T11:05:06-04:00August 8th, 2011|Favorite posts, Politics|5 Comments

History lesson: Balance of Power and the US Midheaven

US powerI’ve been predicting in these pages over the past couple of years that the balance of power in the world would soon be shifting away from the United States.  I say that not because I lack a sense of patriotism, or because I “hate America” as Sean Hannity would say, but because I recognized a combination of astrological events that were tied closely to actual American behavior.  You can read more about this in my Astrological State of the Union post from last year.

An article in the New York Times yesterday spells out the details:

By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.

For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded. …

Mr. Obama has published the 10-year numbers in part, it seems, to make the point that the political gridlock of the past few years, in which most Republicans refuse to talk about tax […]

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By |2010-02-02T08:06:11-05:00February 2nd, 2010|Politics|Comments Off on History lesson: Balance of Power and the US Midheaven

Unfriendly fire in the US military

A US soldier stationed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad has allegedly killed five fellow soldiers and wounded three others at a stress clinic which has been set up to handle cases of psychological problems.

Already there has been an eruption of news articles with revelations about