Starlight News Blog

The past several months have been relatively good ones for President Obama. His poll numbers have steadily risen, and his fiery speeches have been especially effective in framing the narrative. Meanwhile, with the economic recovery continuing to gather steam, the president’s Republican opponents have been busy tripping over each other to appeal to the most bizarre, right-wing fringe elements of their party. Steeped in the pervasive and unrelenting attitude of outrage and disdain they need to attract their base, these GOP candidates have sounded more like crotchety, complaining old scolds than statesmen. In their world, Morning in America has morphed into the Dark Night of the American Soul.

The president, on the other hand, has repeatedly given us his vision for America: a place where we support one another and attempt to level the playing field, thus enabling everyone the possibility of pursuing his or her goals. This stands as a counterpoint to the retro-frontier ideal favored by the Republicans, the “you are on your own” strategy where each of us succeeds or fails by our own choices, irrespective of income or education or opportunity. President Obama has appropriately called this a form of Social Darwinism, ironically brought to us by the party that rejects evolution.

With his progressed Sun square to natal Venus from later 2011 through June 2012, Obama’s support and popularity have been rising in recent months despite lingering unemployment and a rather anemic recovery. This aspect has given him a certain amount of Teflon protection and high likeability quotient despite the serial uproar of the news cycle. At the same time, many of his initiatives in the past two years have been thwarted by the Republicans in Congress – by abuse of the filibuster in the Senate and by the hyper-ideological Majority in the House.

The Republicans’ aim has been to kill any potential successes of the president shortly after conception (irony intended). Their ability to do this has been mirrored by the progression of Obama’s Mars square to his natal Saturn (25Capricorn20) which began in January 2011 and peaked in the first days of April 2012. This aspect, which describes the strong push to frustrate (Saturn) the president’s efforts (Mars) and his need to compromise significantly to get even small things accomplished is finally separating and thus diminishing in power. It will, however, be briefly strengthened by a square from transiting Saturn (25Libra) from April 14 to April 27, a time when we are likely to see his initiatives severely impeded in both domestic and foreign policy matters.

The president is now shifting into the heightened energy of his solar arc Mars square to natal Sun (12Leo33) which waxes in strength from April 2012 through April 2013 and will be joined by converse progressed Sun square natal Mars (22Virgo20) from late November 2012 through November 2013. These configurations suggest an increasingly muscular nineteen-month period that is less restrained by the political machinations of the president’s adversaries and more indicative of assertive and effective leadership. They also suggest a combative campaign and a potent beginning to a second term.

At present, the US is entering a difficult month, roughly from April 11 through May 15, during which the collective anxiety and upset are likely to rise, including fears that the recovery is stalling and that the world is increasingly dangerous. In the US chart, the progressed Moon will be moving into a conjunction with natal Saturn (14Libra48). This suggests a build-up of worry and possibly some grief over a particular circumstance. Already in the past week, we have seen the Stock Market go down and the jobs numbers disappoint. This trend may continue through mid-May. In addition, transiting Saturn will be making its second square to US Mercury (24Cancer12) from April 28 through May 13, pointing to some complications with transportation, communications, and trade during the first half of May.

The first half of May also brings with it the transit of Mars quincunx transiting Uranus (5/2 to 5/9) simultaneous to Mars’ last crossing of Obama’s Pluto (6Virgo59), as well as Mars squaring US natal and progressed Uranus (7 to 8Gemini55) from May 4 to May 15. These aspects suggest some kind of heightened aggression or highly volatile event that will coincide with some element of upset or grief in the US (pr US Moon conjunct Saturn and transiting Saturn square natal US Mercury). With the long Saturn station from May through July 2012 adversely impacting the charts of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (Venus at 23Capricorn52), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Moon at 22Pisces50), and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon (Venus at 24Aries05 and the Sun at 23Taurus04), we can expect some kind of aggravated national security/diplomatic concern that continues for a few months, although the highly-stressed national dialogue about it may diminish considerably after mid-May.

The long, drawn out war over health care that we were subjected to before the passage of the Affordable Care Act has been resurrected. One might think we were having a collective relapse of the flu: our fever has spiked, our irritability has increased, and misery abounds. Unfortunately, there is no treatment for this pre-existing condition.

Early last week, the Supreme Court spent three days tackling the constitutionality of the new Health Care law. Or at least that is what we were told. In reality, it was yet another proxy war in the right-wing’s attempt to discredit and ultimately unseat our first African American president, as well as retrieve their vision of a White Christian nation imbued with a screechingly triumphal self-absorption.  Once again, a policy that was created by and largely supported by Republicans for years – in this case the individual mandate – morphed into a dire, almost treasonous threat to the future of America when espoused by Barrack Obama. With characteristic shamelessness, the Republicans tossed integrity to the wind and twisted both fact and rationality to align with a power-hungry political agenda.

The pundits, of course, are like rabid, hungry wolves circling this story. With gleeful abandon, they discuss how President Obama’s most significant legislative victory will be declared unconstitutional and torn asunder, rendering him weak and vulnerable in the fall campaign. They examine every utterance of the justices to add fuel to their hyperbolic bonfire.

The astrological indicators on this issue, however, tell a different tale. At the end of March, the president was just coming out of a progression of his Moon quincunx natal Pluto, activating his natal Moon/Pluto square, and bringing him the subjective experience of an intense struggle against potent and intractable foes. In addition, the last six days of March brought a Uranus/Mars quincunx which added to the general level of agitation and anger, thus contributing to the irritable national mood around the resurrected health care debate.

If we look at the chart for the Affordable Care Act, things become even more interesting. This legislation was signed into law on March 23, 2010, at 11:55 AM. In it, we find a grand cross that also falls on the horizon line of the chart. This describes legislation that was profoundly transformative (Pluto) but, at the same time, conscientiously kept within the tight the restrictive bounds (Saturn) of what was possible, as well as struggling to maintain the delicate balance of including the people’s needs (the Moon) and the president’s objectives (the Sun).

In progressing the chart, we find that the progressed health Care Sun (5Aries) has moved to an exact square with natal Pluto (5Capricorn21) from September 2011 through most of September 2012. This indicates the pitched battle for survival that this law is now undergoing.  Moreover, the huge power struggle described by the Sun/Pluto square has been activated by transiting Uranus (5Aries) conjunct progressed Sun and square natal Pluto from March 21 through April 8, and was further triggered by transiting Mars (5Virgo) trine natal Pluto during the days of the Supreme Court hearings. Furthermore, the progressed health care Moon (5Leo) will be quincunx natal Pluto from April 7 through May 4, suggesting that the shrill intensity of the debate will continue for the next month.

A look at the planets during the end of June suggests that the majority Supreme Court opinion that will emerge from this beleaguered process is likely to be largely in the president’s favor. Certainly, the period from June 20 through early June 26, during which transiting Jupiter will be conjunct Obama’s Moon (3Gemini21), looks extremely uplifting and successful for him. Friday, June 22, should the decision come on that day, is particularly positive with the transiting Sun conjunct the president’s Venus (1Cancer47), just as his progressed Sun culminates in its square to that point. If the opinion comes in the final few days of the month, there is still nothing in President Obama’s chart to point to an upset.

Rather significantly, the progressed Health Care Sun (5Aries) will continue to be square Health Care Pluto (5Capricorn21) through September 2012, and transiting Uranus will return to square Health Care Pluto and conjunct progressed Health Care Sun during all of October and again from mid-December 2012 through January 2013. This prolongation of the power struggle inherent in the health care law suggests two things. The first is that the assault on this legislation will continue to be fiercely waged during the 2012 election campaign. The second is that the Supreme Court, in a game of political hot potato, may throw the law back to Congress for further refinement on at least a few points. The Uranus station on Health Care Pluto in December 2012 and January 2013 indicates that the health care battle may continue to be waged in the post-election Congress. Given the planetary lineup in December (to be discussed fully at a later date), this could develop into a huge confrontation.

One of the biggest shifts in the modern world, growing exponentially during the past year, has been the burgeoning potency of People Power. Of course, there have always been demonstrations, and sometimes even riots, to protest the unjust policies of the strong and well-connected. But these brief moments of citizen outrage only infrequently engendered real change. More commonly, a few paragraphs might be allotted in the local or even national newspapers, and then the story would vanish from the face of the Earth, as if it had never been.

With the advancements of recent communications technology, however, there has been a revolutionary tipping of the scales toward the masses, a sea-change in both reach and effectiveness when the many choose to push back against the agenda of the few. In numerous situations in the past year, twitter, Facebook, the blogs, and cable news were effectively harnessed by inspired citizens to generate huge protests of significant clout and duration. In the US, we have seen Bank of America back down from newly-instigated fees, Occupy Wall Street change the narrative about wealth in the country, hundreds of sponsors flee from Rush Limbaugh, recall elections take hold in Wisconsin, and, currently, a fury sweeping the nation that is forcing federal, state, and local investigations into the murder of Trayvon Martin. In Northern Africa and the Middle East, we have seen governments overthrown and dictators toppled because the people in those beleaguered nations were able to stay connected and support each other through twitter, cell phones, and Facebook. It seems clear that with these profound developments in social media and technology, the balance of power in our world will never be the same.

In astrology, Uranus is the planet of swift transformation, when a moment of awakening leads to an entirely new path forward. Traditionally, it is also known as the “higher octave of Mercury”, thus taking the realm of communication, Mercury’s domain, to the lightning speed of modern technology. Uranus, as the ruler of Aquarius, further signifies bringing diverse people together for a common purpose while based in the precepts of equality and freedom. It is not inconsequential that this planet was discovered in 1781, in synchronicity with the birth of the United States and the French Revolution.

Briefly, in the summer of 2010 and then fully as of March 2011, Uranus moved into Aries, the first sign of the zodiac. Thus began an entirely new 84-year cycle in how the Uranian energy would manifest, heralding a paradigm shift in the world of technology and communications and how people would work together for common cause.

But Uranus is not only in the early degrees of Aries. It is moving relentlessly into its first quarter square with Pluto, most potent from 2011 through 2015. This most recent chapter of the Uranus/Pluto cycle may be understood by a look back at its birth in the 1960’s, the time of the conjunction of these two behemoths and a period of great tumult and transformation throughout the world. In the US, this planetary configuration brought with it the Great Society of President Lyndon Johnson, which included the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation, as well as the birth of Medicare and Medicaid. Also born under the umbrella of the 1960’s Uranus/Pluto conjunction was the Women’s Movement, including the first widespread use of birth control pills (originally approved in 1960) and, towards the end of this time of ferment, the legalization of abortion (Roe v. Wade 1973). The politicization of an entire generation due to the anti-Vietnam War Movement was additionally of great significance in that era.

Almost all of these issues are being revisited today, but with the benefit of nearly 50 years of societal evolution, as the Uranus/Pluto cycle now builds into the high tension of its first quarter square. The voting rights of minorities, students, and the elderly have been challenged in numerous states with new voting laws;  conservative state governments have attempted to limit contraception and abortion;  House Republican legislators have passed budgets that would greatly weaken, if not dismantle, Medicaid and Medicare as we know it; and most recently,  the death of an innocent black teenager has sparked national outrage over racial profiling and callous police dismissiveness of the murder.

In every one of these circumstances, the equality and freedom-minded grass roots movements (Uranus), aided by the revolutionary advances in social media (Uranus in Aries), are vehemently pushing back against those who want to dominate and control (Pluto), using hidden reservoirs of money (Pluto), and often inspired by a fanatical agenda (Pluto). These and related stories will continue to swamp the national dialogue and create a massive public outcry during the coming four years as the epic struggle designated by the square between Uranus and Pluto continues to unfold.

While America is transfixed by the reality-show buffoonery of its own presidential primary season, there is another election drama unfolding across the Atlantic. In France, center-Right President Nicolas Sarkozy is running for reelection and is currently trailing the moderate Socialist candidate Francois Hollande. The first contest, in which several candidates will compete, will take place on April 25. The second round of voting, which will be a run-off between the top two contenders of the first round – expected to be Sarkozy and Hollande – will take place on May 5.

Sarkozy stands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, another center-Right politician, in promoting tough austerity measures to save the euro. Hollande, on the other hand, has argued that such budget slashing weakens growth in an already-frail economic climate. He calls for substantially higher taxes on the very rich and favors a generally more expansionist government. Much of this Left-Right framing transcends national boundaries and is pervasive throughout Europe. It is also quite familiar to Americans, although the more bizarre edges of modern US politics seem to be missing. The French, after all, are not arguing about contraception.

From what I can surmise looking at the astrological data, it seems very likely that Sarkozy will win another term, despite the current polling. Hollande will have transiting Saturn crossing his natal Neptune from election day throughout May, a sign of disappointment and loss. Sarkozy, on the other hand, will be under numerous Venus and Jupiter transits during May, which, taken together, suggest an ebullient mood and a feeling of success and contentment. In his chart (1/28/55, at 10 PM, Paris) during and just after the election, we find transiting Jupiter quincunx Venus, semisquare the Moon, and sextile Jupiter, with a slow-moving, transiting Venus sesquiquadrate the Sun and opposite Venus. His wife, Carla Bruni (12/23/67, at 6:10 PM, Turin, Italy) will also be enjoying both Venus and Jupiter in aspect to her natal Moon/Pluto conjunction during the same period.

Candidates who spew a cloud of gloomy complaining and criticism are usually a real turn off to voters, except to those who want to join in the angry misery.  And this is the conundrum for the current crop of GOP presidential aspirants. The base is addicted to outrage, needing to voraciously feed on a continual stream of infuriating grievance, no matter how nonsensical, to keep them involved. But the rest of the country, tired of governmental dysfunction, partisan flame wars, and an anemic economy, wants practical solutions and a vision of a hopeful, reachable future. The fear among Republican strategists, at least those still tied to reality, is that the champion of this feeding frenzy may well win the primaries but could doom himself in the general election.

Currently, the tediously sanctimonious Rick Santorum is building in momentum among the conservative fringe of the party. Were it not for the delusionally self-important Newt Gingrich siphoning off a big chunk of voters in every competition, Santorum would likely have won the all-important Ohio primary, as well as various other contests on Super Tuesday. This would have completely upended the trajectory of the race.

Even with Gingrich remaining on the ballot, however, Santorum continues to be a threat to Mitt Romney, if not in terms of the ultimate outcome, in forcing the continuation of a lengthy, costly, and damaging battle. Romney is being pushed further and further to the right, to the most extreme and belligerent positions possible, in order to compete in the primaries and ultimately close the deal.

Two of the next contests, on March 13, will take place on Southern turf, an area far more friendly to Gingrich than Romney or Santorum. At the moment, there is a three-way tie in the polls in Alabama, with Gingrich ahead in Mississippi.   Indications are that Gingrich is likely to do well, but not well enough. The Sun, Venus, and Jupiter will be aspecting his Moon (25Sagittarius11) for this contest, but this configuration will also be activating his progressed Saturn which is in a long opposition to his Moon, making any victory bittersweet at best. On the other hand, Santorum looks like he will do quite well on March 13, with a slow-moving Mercury crossing his Venus (5Aries44), the Sun quincunx his Jupiter (23Libra58), and Jupiter sextile his Mars (10Pisces00). Romney’s aspects hardly register.

Moving further into March, we begin to see the end of Gingrich, despite his current protestations to the contrary. After March 21, it will be increasingly downhill and pointless for him to continue. Perhaps his billionaire slush fund will give out around that time.

Santorum seems likely to keep up a strong fight through April 28. The first half of April, with Uranus conjunct his Venus (5Aries44) is likely to be quite dramatic, and perhaps the peak of his popularity.  April 24 through April 28 will also bring a brief burst of success with Jupiter conjunct his Sun (19Taurus31). By May, however, things will rapidly unravel for him. Saturn will oppose his Mercury (24Aries06) and conjunct his Jupiter (23Libra58). Nothing suggests he will come back into any real competition from then on, unless he is chosen as the vice presidential candidate, a possibility due to Uranus returning to his Venus in late September and October.

As for Romney, the worst is behind him now, until the campaign goes into full swing in late August and beyond. The Neptune square to his Ascendant (00Gemini43) has moved past exact, with its deleterious influence on the back burner until late August through mid-December.  This configuration highlights Romney’s shifting stances on issues, his chameleon-like character, and his bumbling, clueless gaffes. The long and frustrating two-month siege of Saturn sesquiquadrate his Mercury (13Pisces55) is now also past, as of March 3.

Although Santorum may keep the pressure on through April, with Romney’s tertiary Sun square natal Pluto that month, consolidation of the nomination seems quite likely in May, as Santorum’s star begins to fade and a slow-moving Venus aspects Romney’s Sun and Venus for much of the month. The sweep of Saturn transits in Romney’s chart (quincunx Ascendant, semisquare Uranus, square Saturn, quincunx Node, sesquiquadrate Sun, square MC, square Venus, and square Pluto)  from October 2012 through early March 2013, suggest a beleaguered and failed candidate during the height of election season and through the turn of the year.