So my little follow-up post to yesterday’s Mars in Virgo-Pluto Direct in Capricorn post has become more extensive than I expected.
As I looked into the dynamics of each nation involved in recent world events, I realized that it may be best to simply write about each nation.
That said, since I’m an American, I guess I’ll start with the U.S. This is easier in some ways because I live here, but it’s also more difficult because the United States of America has had a rough couple of weeks, and frankly, a rough couple of years. Most recently, another mass school shooting in Oregon, an “accidental” military bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, Russia stepping into partnership with Syria and into a prominent leadership role in bringing order to the Middle East region, accusations and questions about possible human rights violations by its Middle East allies and in its own military and intelligence activities in the region, and with religion, immigration, racism, sexism, and abortion continuing to be hot-button issues in its internal affairs, the U.S. has a lot on its plate…and most of it isn’t very appetizing.
Yet what I’d like to do in this post is explain why this is happening and what is happening to the U.S. as a whole right now. I’ll say it now – this isn’t going to be pretty, yet I don’t believe in sugar-coating what I see in any chart I study. Though some of you may take offense and/or accuse me of looking at my country with a n objectively critical eye, I’m only stating what I see for the U.S. now and ahead through the eyes of astrology and numerology. I hope it helps us understand what is happening, and that it helps us get through all that is happening now and next with an optimistic and hopeful outlook for our future.
This essay will be more technical than most of my posts, so I hope I don’t lose anyone with the details. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this post or to email directly with any technical questions or comments you may have. For astrologers, I’ve used the Sibly chart for the U.S. in this analysis.
That said, let’s begin.
The U.S. operates from a natal Cancer 5 Sun in its 8th house. That means our nation, as its foundation, wants to nurture, protect, and defend everything and anything that comes its way in a maternal, nurturing, protective role (think the Statue of Liberty’s “give me your huddled masses…”). Yet the Sun’s 5 energy means there is an excitement-seeking unpredictability inherent to the U.S.’ maternal instincts, and with the Sun in the 8th house, this nurturing presence likely fulfills its maternal duties somewhat inconsistently and often with strings attached.
In international affairs, in order for the U.S. to “take care” of another nation, it expects to have some degree of control and influence over said nation and its behavior in the world. The support the U.S. provides almost always comes with the expectation that those nations will give up a large part of their power and influence in exchange for what the U.S. provides to them, allowing the U.S. to continue its consistently inspired & inspirational leadership behavior while implementing its systems and order in foreign environments.
This foundational operating procedure is strongly complicated by the fact that the U.S. has its natal Pluto Retrograde in Capricorn in its 2nd house. Though its Pluto is not in opposition to its Sun, due to the retrograde, the U.S. absolutely depends on other nations giving up their power so that the U.S. can increase its own. The U.S. depends on the power and influence it acquires from those other nations to stabilize or increase its GDP and to achieve its larger self-preservation goals. As long as other nations are willing to give their power to the U.S., the U.S. is ensured of its ability to fulfill its survival agenda. However, if other nations perceive the U.S. as being weak, as losing or lacking power or influence, or see that its image of having its internal house in order is not necessarily the reality, the U.S. loses their collateral. This is when the U.S. tends to feel threatened and often goes on the offensive in some way.
When its public image fails it and it needs to save face somehow, the U.S. usually looks to engage in conflict or combat somewhere in the world in order to prove that it’s still got power and clout. The U.S. is inclined to continue this behavior pattern, but with the transiting Pluto in Capricorn 1) currently square the natal U.S. Sun challenging its power (13°)and 2) slowly moving into its return on the natal U.S. Pluto (27°), the U.S. may find itself increasingly challenged and questioned by other nations as a shift in the power structure of the world is now underway. This shift will make its biggest impact on the U.S. from 2021 through 2023, but this Pluto-Sun transit is creating quite a bit of difficulty for the U.S. public relations machine.
We’ve established that the U.S. depends heavily on its partnerships which give it the power to achieve its objectives. The thing is – the U.S. isn’t entirely well-wired for partnership. With Saturn in Libra in its 10th House, the U.S. needs to be focused, disciplined, and intentional in its diplomatic partnerships, and can establish enduring bonds through its agreements. With Juno in the same sign & house, the U.S. strives to to honor its commitment to equal, fair, and balanced transactions in those partnerships. The challenge here is that most of the U.S. partnerships have not been equal or fair – the balance of power is dramatically off, usually to the U.S.’ favor. Saturn in Libra tends to limit or shutdown a partnership when it is too far off-balance, and with the transiting Libra 9 Sun approaching conjunction with the U.S. Saturn in Libra putting both in square aspect to the transiting Capricorn Pluto, the U.S. – once the authority figure and disciplinarian in the world – is now beginning to experience life on the other side of the scale as its imbalanced agreements and policies are coming forward to be balanced. This balancing process only becomes more challenging as Mercury, Juno, and Black Moon Lilith will also make conjunction transits with the U.S.’ natal Saturn and Juno over the next few days and weeks, calling for justice and a redistribution of power which places the U.S. into the very unfamiliar territory of not having the upper hand in its diplomatic relationships.
As result of these power shifts, the U.S. is gradually losing some of its credibility with the rest of the world. It is currently facing the consequences of its foreign policy choices from the end of World War II through now and it’s being forced to face the imbalance, hypocrisy, and ignorance of its agreements with other nations over the previous decades and centuries. The U.S. is also now being forced to confront the consequences of its domestic policy choices throughout its history as well as in the present day, It now must face the opinions of the rest of the world which, thanks to today’s technology, can now see fully and clearly how U.S. internal affairs are playing out. These challenges to the U.S. image as a world superpower didn’t just begin – they have been brewing and building for a long while. But now, with the recently-transiting Libra stelliums, the recent Aries Full Moon-Lunar Eclipse, transiting Pluto in Capricorn in opposition to its Sun, and with other challenging transits to other points in its natal chart, the 2015 Libra Sun period has been giving the U.S. its first full-on “come to Jesus moment” – no pun intended. (Well, maybe a little one.)
With Chiron in Aries in its 4th house opposite Juno in Libra in its 10th, the U.S. has long focused on its diplomatic relationships with other nations as a way of avoiding its own internal disasters. Its natal Juno in Libra in the 10th reveals how much the U.S. is committed to partnership to shore up its international image, yet its natal Juno is trined by its natal Mars in Gemini in its 7th house, revealing that the U.S. not only takes aggressive action based on intellectual or logical theory rather than factual or actual truth , it also creates its solutions on the fly to either sway its partners or to respond to them. As result, the U.S. often goes into foreign conflicts only to find out that the situation it’s entered is much more complex than it thought, and ends up making a bigger mess trying to protect itself and defend its actions than it would have if it had just stayed out in the first place. Once the mess is made, the U.S. then uses its commitment to diplomacy and partnership to project accountability for its errors onto its partners, deflecting or avoiding taking responsibility for any of its poor or questionable behaviors.
It doesn’t exactly help that the U.S. natal Ceres Retrograde is in Pisces in its 3rd house revealing that the U.S. has intellectually convinced itself of its altruistic value to the world, believing it is selflessly serving the highest good of other nations through its partnerships; and the U.S. natal Neptune conjunct Black Moon Lilith in Virgo in its 9th house reveals that it seems to idealize itself as a great healing and problem-solving presence in the world, determined to teach other nations how to build their nations in its image.
The thing is – the U.S. probably isn’t going to be back in good standing with others for a while. There’s too much for it to clean up in the world and at home. And with some of its foreign policy choices now showing signs of backfire, the only thing the U.S. can do it come home and deal with itself…which is something it has done everything possible throughout its history to avoid.
Ultimately, the biggest challenge to U.S. power in the world is…itself. Chiron in Aries in its 4th House means the U.S. has major wounds to heal in its own private self-identity. That Lilith-Neptune conjunction is quincunx its Chiron, and this reveals that the U.S. can’t fully align itself nor others with its deepest desires and ideals if it hasn’t healed its own identity and figured out how to keep its own house in order.
This is the perpetual dilemma for the United States of America that is now demanding to be addressed – the pain, suffering, and struggle at home, in its body of citizens, in its own “family” and home. There is no threat from the outside that could do as much damage as the American government and people are doing to themselves right now. By not addressing its own self-inflicted wounds, it will continue to implode until it is ready to own up to its dark side(s) and clean up its messes once and for all.
As much as most U.S. citizens would like to think that they shouldn’t care what the rest of the world thinks of our nation, unfortunately, the sustenance of the U.S.’ position as a world superpower depends on the world’s opinion of our nation. Sadly, U.S. citizens are generally less informed about world and national events than the people in most other first-world and second-world nations, and we are more apt to take action on gossip/hearsay or theories as truth rather than to seek the factual and actual truth for ourselves before making choices (again, Mars in Gemini in 7th). We tend to go for what aligns with our individual societal objectives or with what is socially popular rather than going for what may truly be best for the long-term wellness of the collective whole.
We are also very resistant to giving their leaders a break in any way or form, which may be more of a reflection of how we feel about ourselves than the person in charge…and with this country’s innate and ironic disdain for authority figures, it’s easy for many of us to blame ‘the big guy’ for our personal woes rather than taking responsibility for our participation (or lack thereof) in the circumstances we face. Much like our government and military tend to do in interacting with other nations, U.S. citizens regularly accuse their President and leadership of damaging U.S. credibility in the world if and when mistakes have been made which compromise its partnership agreements over the years. We accuse him of being too soft on or indifferent about other nations’ behaviors if and when he chooses to stay out of their business or if he isn’t sending money or our military in to “help”. Yet it’s also his fault for causing the decline of other nations if he pulls military forces out of other nations or stops sending monetary aid to countries which are irreparably damaged by the U.S. presence, unable to stand on their own because the U.S. involvement stripped them of their ability to stand on their own upon going into the region in the first place.
What many fail to realize and/or acknowledge is that the problems the U.S. now faces are the products of decade if not century-old policies which were faulty from their onsets. They were rooted in inherently imbalanced, unequal, and unfair agreements, many of which were not drafted by the current leadership and are just now revealing the aftermath of their lopsidedness and shortsightedness. Much to the dismay of many polarity-driven citizens who often voice their opinions and take their actions more from gossip-based theories than actual facts, what is happening now in this country and to its role in the world didn’t all start recently. It’s been a long-time coming, and it’s finally all rearing its ugliness now.
Most Americans would also like to think that we shouldn’t care what the rest of the world thinks of our nation. Unfortunately, the sustenance of the U.S. position as a world superpower does depend on what the rest of the world thinks of our nation – it depends on our ability for form partnerships, and if no one want to partner with us, we’re in trouble. Being seen as a nation of ill-informed, progress-resistant, and self-absorbed people who refuse to take accountability for their choices and behaviors and the impact of those choices upon the rest of the world…it does not bode well for our road ahead.
So what do the U.S. do now? What can its people do now?
We can act from humility and compassion, self-responsibility and self-accountability. We can own up to what we have done in and to the world, and we own up to what needs to be owned up to here at home. We can look at ourselves in the mirror and admit that we may not be so proud of what we see…and then we do all we can to clean ourselves up so we can be proud of ourselves again.
The healing starts at home. We clean up and get clear about our own identity…then we go back into the world with a clear sense of who we are and where we’re going. Then we build truly balanced, and mutually purposeful partnerships with integrity.
The self-healing won’t be an easy endeavor – ego-driven pride will need to go out the window, and for many of us that pride is the cornerstone of being American. Yet what we need to understand is that change is happening in this world whether we like it or not. What we do have some say in is how we are going to embrace that change. Regardless of their campaign promises, the next U.S. president will have to pick up in the midst of course correction. Making the United States of America great “again” probably won’t happen in the way many U.S. citizens envision it anytime soon. However, we can take the first steps in making those changes so when the bigger shifts come in the early 2020s, we can be ready to face them at our best rather than at our worst. We have to be willing to do the necessary work to be ready, though…and if we are willing to apply our renewed passion and vision to seeking solutions that work for the majority of our people, if we are willing to to face what didn’t work in the past and root our next steps in the wisdom we’ve gained from those past experiences, we may find ourselves being in a better position later than we’ve ever been before.
I’ll be taking on a few more nations which are prominent in world events over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for the next installment.
Thanks for reading and sharing Signs and Numbers. Until next post…
~ Light, Love, and Blessings,
Grace
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