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A year after its dive into the vortex, America feels the suction of a planetary perfect-storm black hole...


...One Year After the Leap

By John Townley, October 2017

It’s been a year since our initial analysis of America’s November dive into the vortex, and time for a progress report. From a glance at the news, our take has so far turned out pretty much on the mark. The country is now in an historical state of discord (and a puzzled world with it) that on approach should have seemed obvious to almost anyone, but apparently wasn’t. If this were The Pilgrim’s Progress, we would be moving backwards through the Slough of Despond, with the City of Destruction looming at the next crossroad.

What, in America’s birth chart, would make a nation take such a leap and then find itself floundering and helpless, confused and conflicted, in the throes of at least momentary self-destruction, unable to find, much less pursue a clear inner or outer path?

We have had some suggestions as to where the snares like in the country’s three-ring-circus horoscope lie, but lately it’s become much more evident how they are manifesting. Here’s a look:


It's The Pilgrim's Progress in reverse, as Neptune transit mimics the Slough of Despond.

Neptune

The number one issue both natally, and by transit and progression, is Neptune. America has a history of Neptune crises, but this may be the biggest ever. A look at the progressed Sun tells much about the nation’s trends, and you can read a fun historical wrap here. Right now it’s in mid-Pisces, and most notably, transiting Neptune is running right on top of it, most exact this fall. As in the more familiar Moon-chasing-Saturn phenomenon (which the country is also in the midst of, more later), the transits of both Neptune and Pluto can similarly squat on the progressed Sun for several years, by conjunction or other aspect, wreaking havoc in the process if it’s a hard aspect. This is the first time the conjunction has happened to the U.S.A., but it has already experienced first the opposition and then the square, and neither was pleasant.

The opposition (progressed Sun Libra, Neptune Aries) occurred exactly (by heliocentric average) in late 1865, just as the end of the Civil War was reverberating across a devastated nation, split in mutual opposition about secession and slavery. It was certainly a time of horrid uncertainty about the future, and the foundation of today’s geographical culture wars. What started as seemingly-bright ideals on both sides resulted in undreamed-of carnage for everyone, evolving into corrosive moral and political challenges that still linger today.

The square (progressed Sun Sagittarius, Neptune Virgo) centered in the spring of 1940, with the world already in crisis and America wavering cluelessly unprepared on the sidelines. It was also a Neptune return, and war arrived (appropriately by deceitful attack) when squaring Neptune conjoined the national MC the following year 1941. In both transit/progression combos, in the several years both before and after the exact aspect, the nation was largely unaware of what really was happening or what the cost of its illusions and unpreparedness would be.

Now that the conjunction has arrived, it’s beginning to be evident that nothing was clear to anyone on its approach, and all is confusion and disarray now. How long the wind-down and what its price will be is anyone’s guess.


October 2017 has a triple-play of malefic planets chasing progressions, exact, with more to come.

But, there is a further Neptune natal aspect and progression that may provide a broader view: that is the natal Mars, itself square natal Neptune, that is now retrograde by progression (since 2006). It is currently back to where it was in 1994 when America first gained its brief solo superpower status. It will be retrograde until 2085 when it will turn direct at its earlier progressed position of 1941, after which the transiting-Neptune square to progressed-Sun will recur in 2089. It seems to paint the picture of a native with less energy to spare and recurring long-term issues of uncertainty, distrust from without and confusion within, for generations to come.

The natal affliction of Mars by Neptune is often blamed for America’s tendency to hesitate before taking critical actions, especially in war, for reasons of tardiness (WWI and WWII) or goal confusion (Vietnam, Iraq), which enormously raise the cost of commitment. A pound of cure after the fact seems always the way, resulting from the indecision to commit to an ounce of prevention ahead of time (exacerbated by natal Sun square Saturn). Add Neptune transits along with Mars even more-weakened by progression, and you’ve got quite a stew.

Pluto

Americans are often noted for their determination, or their stubbornness, not surprising with a natal Mercury-Pluto opposition. Simply put, that’s a blockage (Pluto) of the mind (Mercury) that blinds one to apparent impossibility (so you actually overcome it, as in 1776) or to actual impossibility (so it overcomes you, as in 1861). The former can manifest as matchless heroics, the latter sheer pig-headed stupidity (for a great definition of stupidity, go here). When we truly feel certain about where we’re going, it’s the former in charge, when we don’t it’s the latter. With so much Neptune preventing certainty, the stupidity factor burgeons unchecked. Since the hard, more Uranus-like truth of any matter has gotten fogged out, the inclination to take a Custer-like extreme stand on an imagined (and often irrelevant or totally wrong) ill-informed position becomes the norm. Stubbornness and intractability substitute for faith, delusion replaces hope, and the selfie is raised as if it were the banner of love. The end result is disarray and defeat.

 
Stubborn pig-headedness of Mercury opposite Pluto can be a two-edged sword, as transiting Pluto nears.

The astrological tangle with this particular natal aspect is imminent, as by 2022 Pluto makes its return and folds right into the natal Mercury opposition axis, after first opposing the Sun (2014) then Mercury (2021). Historically, hard transits to this haven’t been as critically troublesome as the Neptune problems, but it will likely make general concord more difficult in the face of the rest of it, especially as the next Jupiter-Saturn conjunction entering the bowl of outer planets makes the whole world change its tune.

For fans of even more recently-discovered planets, one finds that transiting Eris, considered the planet of discord, is hanging in exact square to this Mercury-Pluto axis at 23 Aries throughout, so an inclination toward general chaos spreading within (or being injected from without by the likes of Russia or other adversaries) can only add to the troublesome mix.


Sun square Saturn, with Eris crossing Mercury-Pluto, bring weakness and discord, within and without.

Saturn

This traditional malefic is also an important afflicter in the U.S. chart, squaring the Sun. In an individual’s chart it often indicates lack of self-confidence, negative self-image, and the development of bad coping behaviors such as bullying to reinforce a weak or uncertain ego. By transit it manifests as a great weight to bear from passing circumstances, akin to an on-deck batter warming up by swinging two bats, except this batter is actually at the plate and expected to deliver. The current Saturn situation for the U.S. includes not only the brief transit of the Ascendant and first house, but the more lingering progressed-Moon-chasing-Saturn where the malefic weights down the national emotions for years at a time, in this case at its greatest right now and extending into the early 2020s. It’s actually a blessedly quick run for this phenomenon, which can sometimes run for decades if the speed of the progressed Moon is slow. Nevertheless, it adds immensely to the weariness jointly brought on by the confusion and combativeness already in play from Neptune and Pluto effects, and the increasing weakness and skittishness of ever-more retrograde Mars.

Trump, et al...

It can be easy to simply say that all that ails the country is personified by and embodied in the person of the recently-ascended president and his minions -- that somehow he is the cause. His chart directly touches all the problematic natal afflictions in the U.S. chart, so he is certainly helping lead (or at least stir) the fray. But it was a near-majority of the voting nation itself that ushered him in, by a combination of the enthusiastic support of a Mercury-Pluto-like minority and the Neptunian, self-involved lack of serious involvement of many more on all sides of the political spectrum. The very afflictions of the nation’s nativity have conspired to enable the rise of a government that epitomize the astrological illnesses from the body politic in general down to the carelessly self-involved and otherwise unaware individual that popular culture currently admires, nurtures, rewards, and feeds upon.

When the sheep embrace the wolf, mutton is on the menu...

A Wild Card

And as if all this weren't enough, Uranus, always the wild-card,  is also in the mix, just now hovering over America's progressed Venus. This has happened twice before, once in 1783-84 as the Revolutionary War ended at home, and later in 1898-99 marking the Spanish-American War, centered in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. What this time? Unexpected shocks, anyone? There are plenty of possibilities on deck, both natural and man-made (or a combination). Whatever it turns out to be (or may have already been in motion, in retrospect), it will fall on a populus wearily divided and uncertain of foot.

Forecast and Outcome

The forecast?...there really isn’t one, except more of the same until the storm is over and America, and the world, moves on to recovery through the wreckage. We are now passing the very center of the Neptune affliction, but there’s more to come later, here and worldwide, in the changes 2020 promises. The 2017 hurricane season is more than just a metaphor for what is to come.

The outcome? The damage done to America, as happened before in earlier times of similar astrological affliction, will be long in the undoing, even when its better angels (like Venus-Jupiter) resurface to heal and repair.  And the experience will be marked not only by immediate loss of control and perceived reliability worldwide, but by broad recognition that the nation's basic political system lends itself to such sporadic disconnected behavior and ought be accorded less power and reliance in the future. Barring a major stabilizing of its rules, it is innately an entity not to be trusted.


The record hurricanes of 2017 are more than a metaphor -- after the storm, nothing will be the same...

As with any individual in a community, even such historically-brief aberrant conduct must leave lingering international suspicion and distrust, along with a reputation that will reduce the influence, respect, and wealth that was America’s legacy after WWII. Those looking at the immediate past may just see mysterious paroxysms of worrisome behavior, but those inspecting the country’s greater history will recognize these as cyclical eruptions of defined character faults, tagged to the planets, that may be expected to return. In a competitive world with an increasingly wider balance of cultures and power, especially considering the imminent outer-planet bowl shift, America may recover from its current distress, but will not likely regain its former singular global position this century, or perhaps ever.



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