Dreams of the Future, Chimeras from the Past: Our Tangled Planetary Web and the 27th Degree

May 13, 2009

© Terry Lamb

There is a quiet orchestration occurring right now in the heavens, a celestial conspiracy to create harmonic resonance in the human consciousness at the 27th degree (anything over 26̊00'). It is at once perilous, powerful, and beautiful, with the potential to lift us up out of ordinary consciousness and create miraculous change. To get at what’s going on here, we have to look at the contributing planets and their cyclic interactions.

The Contributing Planets
From May 21 through June 10, four slow-moving planets will be at 26 degrees and change in their respective sign: Uranus (Pisces) and Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune (Aquarius). On May 26–27, Mars joins them from its position in Aries, boosting the chance of a harmonious human response. (See image above.) They will all be vibrating on the same “note” of the 12th harmonic, and this opens the door to profound change. It also allows us to check in on changes we began as a human collective in 1992.

The entire time that any of these planets is at this degree spans a broader expanse of time from April 14 through August 10. Since every planet but Mars backs off this degree, they will return to it later but in a dispersed form, with Jupiter reaching it first at the end of December, Chiron-Neptune connecting at that degree in February, and Uranus reaching it in March. This suggests that, whatever comes up now feels like a now-or-never “crunch time” that we must respond to urgently; and that a more dispersed and gentle resolution to the issues that develop will come about early in 2010 — that is, if we respond well to those issues.

The Simple Take
At first glance, this means that any person, group, leader, or nation that has planets at this degree will be transformed by these energies. It also means that issues that began showing up in April will face turning points in the next two weeks, when critical decisions will be made. What issues are we talking about?



We can get a clue about the answer by looking at the US chart. Depending on the time you use for it, the Moon may be at this degree. (However, it is not in the chart I use.) Regardless of that, the US directed Jupiter is at 27̊05' (or thereabouts) in Aquarius, the degree at which transiting Jupiter will station on June 15. (See image above.)

This is a “hook” into the US chart, and it suggests issues that affect society and its well-being. In the chart I use (Dobyns-Boehrer timed for 9:36 am), this falls in the 6th house of workers and the health of the nation. It suggests that we are not doing all that is necessary to support the engine of the US economy, its workforce, and that we are also weak in health (care). These must be rectified in order to live long and prosper as a nation.

What’s It All About?
Accordingly, here are the matters that seem to tie in to the planets at the 27th degree.

Health Care
From Max Baucus’s one-sided meetings with insurers and big pharma (pointedly excluding proponents of single-payer plans) to President Barack Obama’s more universal approach, there is no doubt that health care is on the table and will be dealt with in some form in the coming months. If it follows this time table and is addressed wisely, we will see a new plan in place by the spring of 2010.

The Economy
We have to regulate. This may mean some reinstated or revised regulations (like breaking up the big banks — a MUST!), or simply enforcing the regulations that are there (like the Sherman Act). Nothing must be too big to fail anymore; and the Wall-Street mindset of Geithner, Summers, and the big bankers must be opened to consider what is happening to the people who are (currently still, sadly) their victims. It is beyond belief that so much money could be pumped into the financial industry and so little benefit (in fact, even more punishment) extend to the people. The banks (with some exceptions) remain adamantine in their disregard for the people who drive the economy and therefore their wealth. For more on what’s going on, stay tuned to Rachel Maddow, especially her May 12 interview with Eliot Spitzer, and read the blogs of Spitzer, Paul Krugman, William Greider, Robert Kuttner, and David Cay Johnston. Bill Moyer also covers this topic regularly on his Journal, as does Fareed Zakaria on CNN.

The Environment
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is proving to be a Bushie in Obama clothing. He has refused to increase protections for the highly endangered polar bear and has allowed permits to go through for the mining of uranium near the Grand Canyon, a direct threat to the water supply of southern California, as well as the area surrounding the mining sites. These permits are currently being challenged in court.

Directed Jupiter in Aquarius in the US chart can also signify the level at which people are direct participants in maintaining or (re)gaining their freedom. Transiting Jupiter’s retrograde station on this point could signify a necessary learning curve for the public in the need to become more actively involved in creating the world they want to live in. The alternative is for lobbyists to continue to be the driving force behind the direction the country takes.

On a Deeper Level . . .
There is so much depth and richness to this set of planetary interactions. There are three new planetary cycles beginning (Jupiter-Chiron, Jupiter-Neptune, and Chiron-Neptune), as well as a trigger to one that started in 1992. The latter is the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, which occurs every 171 years or so. The word on every tongue at that time was “reinvention”. What are we reinventing? Nothing less than the way humans live on the planet, the way we dream about our possibilities, and the ways we live, interact, and communicate with each other.

Uncannily, the last time we considered real health care reform was in 1993, when Harry and Louise — a front for the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), a health insurance industry lobbying group — put the brakes on the Clinton health care plan. We get another shot at this now, as Uranus and Neptune resonate with each other once again. It gives us yet one more layer of awareness to make the right thing happen.

Tough Love: Paul Krugman & Obama’s Economic Policy

by Terry Lamb

April 8, 2009

Large chart images: Paul Krugman, Barack Obama, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Paul Volcker

The cover story in last week’s Newsweek was “Obama’s Nobel Headache”. In it, Evan Thomas lays out the facts to a mystery I’ve been pondering since Obama started putting together his economic team: Where’s Paul Krugman?

Right before Obama named his team, Paul Krugman became an even more glittering star in the living economic pantheon by being given the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”. He is also a professor in Economics at Princeton and the London School of Economics, and a member of the Group of Thirty international economic body as well as the Council on Foreign Relations. He writes regular op-ed pieces for the New York Times in his column revealingly called “Conscience of a Liberal” (title perhaps inspired by a book by the late Paul Wellstone). He has shown special fascination for and understanding of macroeconomics, especially international trade and finance and “economic geography”. His economic ideology is of the “European social democrat” ilk. He decries the growing gap between rich and poor and feels greed needs to be held in check — hence is pro-regulation.

He is also outspoken and prefers being an outsider, according to Thomas. His op-ed pieces have carried more than a few draconian pronouncements, like the one on March 23, 2009 (when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spelled out the details of his bank-rescue plan). He called the plan “cash for trash” and said it “filled him with a sense of despair”. His preferred plan: The government must quickly act to nationalize the big, “zombie” banks (to stop the bleeding through bonuses and other self-interested actions) and guarantee the liabilities of all the nation’s banks. The lack of funding of the current plan will lead to a downturn like Japan’s “lost decade”, which started in the 1990s.

What Is It with Paul Krugman, and Why Is He Saying These Terrible Things about Us?
Well, now I know that Krugman disagrees with Obama’s guys (but is probably more aligned with Christina Romer), but why is he on the outside? What does he think is going on? What makes him tick?

To go a little deeper into the mystery, the wise astrologer uses the tools of her trade. We have an untimed birth chart for Mr. Krugman, shown above. Even without the birth time, which gives us the location of the planets around the wheel and the degree of the Moon, we can see a great deal about a person. The resulting solar chart shows that Krugman was born a Pisces with a Virgo Full Moon.

The Pisces is evident in descriptions of him. Evan Thomas describes Krugman as shy, sweet, not a prima donna, wears his fame lightly, gentle, a little absent-minded, and adaptive. These are all Pisces traits, when Pisces is not masked by a stronger energy. A mentor, Robert Solow, describes him as “very unassertive, mild mannered” as a grad student. His demeanor in public appearances is humble and unassuming. When he won his Nobel Prize, he was not out there blowing his horn. It was another day in the life, despite it being the accomplishment of a major goal for him.

The Virgo Moon comes out as “nervous[ness]” and nerdiness and contributes to his reputation for gentility, lack of hauteur, and adaptiveness. Being an academic is second nature to this Moon. What may go unnoticed with these placements, however, is the quality of the Full Moon: It has “crisis consciousness” in two forms. First, it can adapt to and deal with crisis when it actually arises. Second and less favorably, it can see crisis in everything that moves.

The Assertive Mr. Krugman
Pisces-Virgo does not describe the whole man. No description of Paul Krugman would be complete without noting his strong Aries streak, a part of him which is well known to colleagues, friends, and probably his wife. It certainly comes out in the more strident tones of his op-ed pieces and his sometimes need to dial back on the rhetoric.

Does it surprise you then that he has Mars in Aries? This powerful rulership placement overpowers nearby Venus in Aries (her detriment), while the two oppose his early-fifties trademark Saturn-Neptune conjunction. This is both complex and deep, speaking to what drives him and his sense of purpose in life. One thing for sure, whatever Saturn-Neptune represents, he is driven to express it, or express against it. He is likely to be “anti” about the things he's interested in. This is even more the case when the universe throws in Uranus in Cancer and Chiron in Capricorn. The resulting cardinal grand cross gives us a revolutionary, or as he describes himself, “anti-establishment”, made quiet by Pisces-Virgo.

Saturn-Neptune & the 50s Crowd
For those born in 1952-53, Saturn and Neptune were conjunct each other, and all those born in this age group share a common awareness and related purposes. At its core, on a social level Saturn-Neptune is about how wed we are to consensus reality, that dream that we all dream together. This dream plays a huge role in an economy. We learn that money has value, so it has value. If we were to lose our faith in money, that a particular currency (or even money in general) faithfully represents our goods or efforts, the currency stops working. If we lose our trust that a system will reward us fairly for our goods or efforts, or that it will protect us against harm to their value, the whole system falls apart. Krugman carries this seed forward with his attunement to the economy and humanity's macro trends and systems.

Dream a Little Dream of Our New Economic Future
One good thing about Krugman is that, with so many planets in cardinal signs, he can pioneer new concepts. He can create the future. He is uniquely equipped for this when we add the visionary qualities of Pisces and the pragmatism of Virgo.

You see, it takes courage, knowledge, wisdom, and vision to see the future, not the least because what we see is what we create. Although Paul Krugman may be glum about how Obama’s administration is handling the economic crisis, I keep asking myself, “And this is bad because . . .”. Krugman does suggest that substantive changes will take place in the world economy, changes that he still couches in terms of the old reality. However, he does have a vision of a better future, where the distance between rich and poor is flattened, greed is curbed through regulation, and where it is possible to do good and still succeed.

In a fascinating report on Monday, “Economic Downturn Signals a New Normal”, Robert Siegel ponders the question of what will become the new normal once the new economic reality becomes established, whatever that is. He asks, “How will the recession change our country in the long term?” “They change us in ways we can hardly imagine,” says historian David Kennedy. Some of the suggestions: less credit, more saving; less home-buying, more renting; less spent on possessions, more on experiences; changes in what is considered a luxury experience or item; a smaller role for the U.S. Krugman would surely sign up for some of these possibilities if he weren’t so busy still trying to give voice to a better path to them.

Why Doesn’t Obama Listen to Krugman?
President Obama, for all his strengths, is human. He has been known to defer to his advisors, especially in areas of great complexity or where he is less well-informed, such as the economy (the former) or military policy (the latter). Obama’s advisors may be telling him that Krugman’s position is too extreme; Krugman feels that Geithner is too close to the crisis, including the people who created it, and has adopted too much of the investment banker mindset. He feels that Larry Summers has more resiliency in seeing through their foibles, and he hasn’t yet given up on the administration to move closer to his idea of what will work.

Astrologically, there are many connections between Krugman’s and Obama’s charts, but the key points of annoyance appears to be first, one of personality, and second, one of ideology. The personality differences are many, but you get prickles when you put a Leo (Obama) and a Pisces in the same room. There’s something about the attention-seeking of Leo that really gets under a Pisces’s skin. (Perhaps it’s what Pisces secretly wants but spends so much time studiously avoiding.)

Mystery Solved, Partially
But with Obama’s Saturn directly square to Krugman’s, Obama is at once too pragmatic for Krugman; and with Obama’s Pluto on Krugman’s Moon, Obama is the wrong kind of pragmatic for Krugman. In fact, with Krugman’s Pisces-Virgo approach to life, he could be called the Idealistic Pragmatist. And if he didn’t have such romantic notions of being the nerd who saved civilization (born of reading Asimov’s Foundation series in his youth), he might be willing to compromise more on his viewpoints — but would it help us if we didn’t have the caped economic crusader speaking for the poor masses huddled at the door of the big banks?

Obama may end up listening to Krugman. He and Larry Summers stay in touch and share a mutual respect. However, it will go through the Summers filter. If Summers buys it, it will be transmitted and perhaps used. Summers is an idealistic Sagittarius who has more astrological connections with Obama, especially ones that give him that father-figure feel (Summers’s Saturn on Obama’s absent-father Neptune).

More troubling is the fact that Obama’s economic team is decidedly old school, with the exception of Christina Romer. While this is a cause for concern in my opinion, it doesn’t trouble me as deeply as it would if this were still the case at this time next year.

Saturn-Uranus Provide the Timing.
We are still in the first half of the Saturn-Uranus opposition period. Because they interact over two yearly planetary cycles, there is a two-step process in “getting it right”. This pair is heavily implicated in the economic crisis we are now experiencing (but are not the only culprits). By the fall, it will become apparent that the administration’s approach will need adjustments. Obama and Summers (with the help of past Fed Chair and elder economist Paul Volcker) may find their way to a more Krugman-like direction. What is now considered slightly lunatic fringe may become the new mainstream.

If you think Krugman is a lone voice in the wilderness, think again. There’s William Greider, Robert Kuttner, Dean Baker, Robert Reich, and Nouriel Roubini, to name a few of those who speak with a similar voice. Once we see what type of regulation policy the Obama Administration embraces, we’ll know how contented this bunch will be. Regulation is likely to be the strongest feature of Saturn-Uranus Phase II.

For now, patience, optimism, creativity, and informed activism are our best economic policies. I’m not sure that we can or should save the banks, myself. However, that’s the path we’re on, and if we’re going to do it, we should do it right.

© Terry Lamb

Lunar Illumination: Mr. Obama Goes to Town

February 9, 2009

This morning’s penumbral eclipse was not visible in locales where weather obscured it, but it is still being felt around the globe. In the United States, it has a particular impact, since it hits several significant points in both the US chart and that of our national leader, President Barack Obama. This tells me that this eclipse is one of the more important to be experienced by the nation in recent times.

Can You Say, “Stimulus Package?”
The interactions between the US chart and the chart cast for the eclipse in Washington, DC, speak to the discussion that fills the news — the economy and the stimulus package that is supposed to rescue the American people. Most notable among the interconnections is the conjunction of the US Lot of Fortune (Fortuna) to the Ascendant of the eclipse chart. Fortuna has, obviously, to do with “fortune” or money, but it also has to do with well-being or health. The health of the nation is therefore highlighted, more in terms of economic health (this being in the US 8th house) than literal physical health.

The Wound Is Being Healed.
Chiron is there too, very close to Fortuna. This suggests that a long-standing wound in the national psyche is being addressed, if not healed. These placements, found in Aries, have to do with the tendency for people in power to place self-interest over the interests of the nation.

Highlighting this factor is the location of the eclipse itself, at 21̊ Leo-Aquarius, lined up on the US Moon, the symbol of the people. The people are the linchpin in the process before us, and the people will lead the way forward. Already we can see this, as President Obama appeals directly to the public today and tomorrow through a prime-time press conference and town-hall meetings in Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida. In doing so, he is making ample use of the planetary energies available to him.

Watershed Moment for Our Leader
This is something of a watershed moment for Mr. Obama, as the eclipse Full Moon opposition is aligned critically with his Ascendant-Descendant (the east-west horizon line of his chart). This can feel like a make-or-break time for him, as if he is being called upon to dig deep into his character to muster the “right stuff” for this task. He is called upon to reassess his way of relating to others, and to make adjustments — which he is doing. I believe that this has to do with his “bipartisanship initiative”, turning it into a long-term project instead of something he can use as a foundation of his approach to the legislature in the current moment.

The importance of this process to the nation is underscored by the fact that the Sun of the US chart, representing the life force of the nation, is squarely on the IC of the eclipse chart. This takes us all to our heart, to deeply question what is important to us, what makes this country thrive, and which political viewpoint (if any) we resonate with.

Given the other planetary pattern out there — the conglomerate in Aquarius — the way of the future will not be the way of the past, and the new way forward will prevail. Even though it looked last week like the Republican retro-economic plan was going to steal the stage, Mr. Obama is reshaping the dialectic quite eloquently, much to the dismay of the Republican right, which is still struggling to find its feet in the dawning new era.

I don’t believe that this stimulus package has it all perfectly correct. I’m with progressives like Novel Winner Paul Krugman, Robert Kuttner, and Rachel Maddow on what we need (so far) — to spend more on things like infrastructure and to make sure jobs are created. The government CAN do this, but it is not going to get as much bang for the buck with so many tax cuts.

When Will the Stimulus Package Be Passed? Once Again, Mercury Is Involved.

January 6, 2009
We have much to cheer about as the new year opens. A new president is about to be sworn in, after an unimaginably disastrous eight years of GW Bush destroying the concept of government, the freedoms upon which the nation is based, and the Constitution that codifies both. It is with relief that we see our republic spring miraculously back to life.

However, we know, as much as we may hope otherwise, that life does not proceed in a straight line. It follows a zig-zag path, something that both astrologers and practitioners of the I Ching can agree on. We are about to encounter a zig-zag in the path to a better economy in January.

It’s (Not) All About Mercury.
Yes, it’s time for a Mercury retrograde again. It’s the time when Mercury appears to travel backward in the heavens when measured against the backdrop of the degrees of the zodiac (called the ecliptic). While I hasten to add that this is an apparent motion related to our position on an orbiting planet, the results in the world around us look very real.

Mercury in mythology was the messenger of the gods, and this is his role in astrology as well. Although a “minor” planet, he has the power to unleash the furies of the heavens during his retrograde period, which occurs every 3½ months for about three weeks. Mercury naturally has to do with communication, and this is a cornerstone of all human activity. But when Mercury makes contact with some of the planetary heavies during its retrograde, we get that extra dose of drama that, while blamed on Mercury, is not of his making.

The Mercury retrograde last fall (September 24 – October 15) was one of these furious retrogrades. As it made challenging contacts to expansive Jupiter and Great-Wound combination Chiron-Neptune, the markets lost confidence and the investment world fell apart, taking the economy with it. It was testimony to the power of these heavy planets, and only to Mercury as their messenger.

Up to His Old Tricks Again
If you count the days, you’ll figure out on your own that it’s almost time for another Mercury retrograde. Indeed, if you’ve had the clear skies and high visibility that southern California has enjoyed on the evenings of the past week, you’ll have been treated to the pleasure of seeing four planetary bodies in the western sky at sunset. Bright and easily visible were the crescent moon and Venus; not so visible but just as stunning were the two lights hugging the horizon but dimmed by the Sun’s afterglow: Mercury and Jupiter. Over the past week, we could watch Mercury move slowly past Jupiter.

When Mercury is even visible to us, it’s a sign that it is near its retrograde. So it is now. On January 11, it will make its standstill before moving backward across early Aquarius and late Capricorn. It returns to forward motion on January 31. This, as you might expect, establishes the potential for drama in the world around us.

Now, think about it. If Mercury goes backward over a segment of the zodiac, it covers some of this celestial turf three times, right? Ah, therein lies the rub! This segment of the heavens gets overstimulated, along with all the bodies that resonate at those degrees. The time when Mercury crosses this zone before and after its retrograde are called its “retrograde shadow”.

The themes of the retrograde emerge when Mercury first enters its shadow. They are confronted as problems or issues during the retrograde. Finally, they are resolved when Mercury makes its final pass through the shadow after the retrograde.

So, what snags in the fabric of life will Mercury’s energy get caught on this time? What issues is receiving obsessive interest by the media right now? It’s the economy, stupid. Everything is about the economy. And now, as Mercury slows down, the stimulus package offered up by soon-to-be-inaugurated Barack Obama is the source of much Pavlovian salivation.

The Good News
Mercury makes only two contacts (and one near miss) during this retrograde. These contacts are conjunctions (a neutral contact) to Jupiter and Mars. These are fairly benign as contacts go. They bring stimulation without the easy potential for major cock-ups. What’s more, Mercury and Jupiter as the two mental planets are a natural pair. Even more than that, Mars is in Capricorn, the sign that it performs best in (its exaltation). This is good news! It means that some combination of objectivity and pragmatism may reign.

The Big Question: When Will the Stimulus Package Pass?
Everyone is speculating on when it will pass as much as on what form it will take. With Congress’s swearing-in ceremony tomorrow (January 6), they cannot help but consider the stimulus package during Mercury’s retrograde. Since this is the case, Mercury establishes some nearly certain timing constraints on the situation. Here’s a time line for how it will affect the passage of the stimulus package:

December 25 - January 10 (Mercury Shadow 1): Anxiety and anticipation build as the reality of the weak economy hits home. The shortcomings of the bail-out devised during the last Mercury retrograde are fully revealed. The hue and cry rises for stimulus in the real economy to rescue “Main Street”, as it becomes apparent that the first ($700bn) stimulus package has been squandered. December 31 (Mercury conjoins Jupiter): More bad news from the economy and American manufacturers, especially automakers.

January 11 - 31 (Mercury retrograde): First, nothing will pass while Mercury is retrograde. There will be the predictable sense of urgency, but nothing will gel. It will be a time of fruitful and clarifying discussion. New facts about the economy will emerge. Under-represented viewpoints will be heard (perhaps progressives Paul Krugman, Robert Kuttner, David Cay Johnston, and James K. Galbraith). Partisan politics will threaten to take over the process. January 18 (Mercury-Jupiter): More bad economic news pushes the debate in a more progressive, Keynesian direction. January 26 (Mercury-Mars): The real economy, manufacturing sector, and blue-collar workers rise in prominence.

February 1 - 20 (Mercury Shadow 2): Stimulus legislation will begin to move forward. Although it is possible for it to occur sooner, a bill will probably not be ready for signature or signed until on or after February 20.

Caveats: Although the masses most frequently follow the norm of planetary timing, it is always possible to respond above expectation. This makes it possible for Congress to pass legislation before February 20, but it is relatively unlikely, especially before February 1.

One thing that will certainly spur action is whatever happens at the time of the Solar Eclipse on January 25, coinciding with a major stellium (cluster) of planets in Aquarius and the Mercury-Mars contact. This could be a game-changer.

Impact on the US
This is “Mercury retrograde lite” for the US chart, since Mercury only contacts the US’s destiny line, the nodal axis. This suggests a major shift in direction for the country but does not imply any complications more than are inherent in the issue (and they are huge).

There is no doubt that there are more facets to the situation than I can anticipate or that lie beyond the depth of this inquiry. However, there is no doubt that Mercury and its compadres will play a role in the unfolding of events.

How Are We Doing? Mercury Sends More Messages About the Economy

When Mercury turned around on the 15th, there were three times I wanted to watch to see how the economy responded. They are actually upon us now: October 24–26, 29, and November 1.

The players are the same: Mercury, Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune. (Lurking in the background for now but creating a long-term trend are Saturn and Uranus.) All four of these planets are especially active right now. Jupiter is pleasantly aspecting Saturn. Chiron and Neptune are ending their retrograde periods, which started at the end of May.

As anticipated, Friday proved to be a rough day for stock exchanges around the world after more bad news on corporate earnings. All indexes were down, and some to their lowest levels in 5 years. According to Scott Fullman of WJB Capital Group, “People have been saying that we’re in a recession. This is the realization.” (AP, reported on MSNBC.com, no link available).

Redefining the American Dream
So, what we on the streets have known since February (and years earlier in some areas) is that we’re in a recession. It’s taken Wall Street a while to recognize it. This fits with the current planetary patterns. When Neptune returns to forward movement, we “discover” something collectively and individually. Chiron plays a part in this too. In my post, “McCain Rubs Salt in the Great American Wound,” I mentioned that Neptune is our representative of the Great American Dream.

As Chiron passes over Neptune 2008-10, Americans will be redefining what this dream is. On Bill Moyers’ Journal, he told us that the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) has just released a report on income distribution and poverty, detailing global gaps between rich and poor. The United States has the fourth highest inequality in incomes between the highest and lowest, after Mexico, Turkey, and Portugal. The report says, “Rich households in America have been leaving both middle and poorer income groups behind. This has happened in many countries, but nowhere has this trend been so stark as in the United States.” Moyers says, “Now there’s some real spreading around of the wealth, in one direction — up.”

The Chimney-Up Economy
The American Dream obviously needs redefinition, when all the wealth gets sucked to the top. This chimney-up economic model, firmly supported by free market fundamentalists since the 1980s, has ruined American society and the dreams of the middle class and poor along with it. I was right in picking out the most insidious remark that McCain made in the last debate, about spreading the wealth around, which the media missed completely.

This remains a robotically repeated cornerstone of his floundering campaign, firing up those fearful (but worthy) “low-information voters”, who do not understand the finer points of economic policy (who does?) and see their dreams slipping away. When a hypothetical Joe the Plumber (or any “low-information voter”) hears “spread the wealth”, he sees himself as having his money taken away even though he doesn’t have it yet. When he hears about $150K spent on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, he doesn’t experience cognitive dissonance at the disparity between her expenditures and his ability to spend that much himself; he anticipates the time when he will have that much to spend on his wife and family, because he can achieve the (old) American Dream if he only votes for McCain-Palin.

Healing the American Dream
This is the old American Dream that Chiron’s transit over Neptune will help us cast aside in favor of a more meaningful one. Chiron in mythology was the wounded healer. He knew how to empathize with others and heal their wounds because he himself had been there. This alludes to the fact that we do our best healing of others from the context of our own painful experiences. They humble us, teach us the way back to health, and help us show the way to others. When we offer healing to others, we also heal ourselves. While this experience is global, in the US the American Dream needs healing. (On the global level, the planet needs healing.)

The American Dream needs to be de-materialized. It needs to go back to its roots as the embodiment of a free life that is full of abundance and prosperity, but not necessarily the material kind: the wealth of good health, happiness with your family and friends, the ability to have and enjoy leisure time, security in your job, and help from the government if you are caught in circumstances beyond your control. It is being de-materialized, and it will be re-formed by every American who carves their future out of the rock of the new economy.

Another Economist with a Clue
In another segment on Bill Moyers’ Journal on 10/24/08, Moyers interviewed James K. Galbraith (son of famed economist Kenneth J. Galbraith) about his new book, The Predator State. Galbraith displayed reassuring clarity in describing what is going on economically and what the US can and should do about it. Although I need a broader understanding before I give his perspective my 100% seal of approval, I am intrigued and encouraged by what he said. I recommend watching this segment rather than me trying to summarize it for you. I am adding Galbraith to my list of the brain trust we should consult to resolve the economic crisis. That list also includes Paul Krugman and George Soros. For insights that we can understand, try Thom Hartmann and Bill Moyers.

Events over the next two weeks will be seminal in shaping our economic future, and among them October 24–November 1 will stand out. The planets show us the energies we will have most available but do not determine how we will respond to their support.

What Could be More Unusual?

In my last post, I mentioned longer term planetary cycles at work in the economic crisis. One of these is the Saturn-Uranus opposition. This is a planetary contact that builds over months to a peak on the day when it becomes exact, then dissipates slowly over months. However, since both these planets retrograde (apparently turn backward), they interact five times through July 2010. From now until then, we’ll feel the swinging pendulum of tension and release, tension and release as it changes structures in the world around us.

This is a planetary event that occurs about every 42 years; the last time was in a period that should stand out in the memory of anyone who was over the age of 10 at that time — 1965-67. This signifies a period of rapid and often startling change in the structures of government and society. At this point in the cycle, structures that have not changed through gentler means have become so entrenched that they are stretched like a rubber band. At the opposition the rubber band breaks as society makes a sudden adjustment to a reality that has (often forcibly) revealed itself. In the mid-sixties, we saw such a time of rapid change in society (made more intense then by Pluto’s involvement). This is not a bad thing — it is a necessary thing.

This makes September-October “more than your average __________”, which can be filled with the words “Mercury retrograde”, “election”,“economic crisis”, or “social revolution”. The first culmination comes on Election Day, when I at first thought that we would not be likely to come up with a definitive winner of the US presidential election (or many other races). However, now I’m having second thoughts. (We astrologers learn too.) One of my colleagues, Claire-France Perez, is predicting a landslide election, which she defines as a 22 point spread between the two candidates. This occurred at the last Saturn-Uranus opposition in the election of the incumbent Lyndon Johnson in 1964. While I’m less sure that this will occur with an exact contact between Saturn and Uranus on Election Day, such a landslide will make it possible to give a result more quickly. The word ‘landslide’ was first used by a pundit last week to describe a possible outcome in this election.

The key words here are unusual, sudden, and significant. So that leads me to what I’m pondering. On the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC yesterday, she interviewed New York Times columnist and Princeton Professor of Economics Paul Krugman in her “Talk Me Down” segment. He was worried and suggested boldly that "as soon as the election is over we're going to have to have - we can't wait until January 20th - we may have to have in effect the incoming Obama team move into the Treasury and start coordinating the rescue, because this is going to be a very, very bad transition period if we don't do anything until we actually have a new administration." The implication was, I hasten to add, that this would not be a takeover but an effort to support the country through a hard time with new energy and perspectives.

As an astrologer and observer of planetary cycles, I can assess the likelihood of this. With the dominant energies of the time being “unusual”, “sudden”, and “significant”, I would not rule this out as a beneficial possibility. Unusual steps for unusual times.