National Delusions of Grandeur

Aquarius New Moon on February 17 brings us a sobering message that our nation is in denial about what is about to be done in its name and is living in a Hollywood fantasy concerning its right to rule in order to control the resources of other countries.

We are positioned at an extraordinarily dangerous crossroads in time, and many of our citizens, like the US Congress, have abrogated their duty. Yes, citizens do have power, and as the late Molly Ivins reminded us before she recently passed, the people are in fact, the real fourth estate in our government.

Many of our citizens, however, at this important time, are choosing to play the role of the "good German," or the "Know Nothing" party that once took hold in the American countryside provinces in order to make it easier for the KKK to operate unhindered. Like the three monkeys who see, hear and say no evil, they aid and abet the imminent crimes against humanity about to be committed in the name of the United States and its people.

The plantation mentatality rules as Scarlett O'Hara, interested in nothing more than her own greedy and narcissistic self-image, dances foolishly before her mirror, while portents abound that the whole structure of violence and injunstice that supports her pretty little self is about to shatter and burn. "Fiddle-dee-dee," cries she.

Doing a mundane reading for the Capricorn Ingress or Winter Solstice chart and the February 17 Aquarius New Moon for 2007, we see first in the radix chart the square between the Sagittarius stellium in the fifth house (greedy pleasures) and the Pisces stellim in the eighth house (religiously inspired appropriation of the resources of others).

The New Moon at the anaretic degree of Aquarius gives us one last chance to reconsider our errant course in light of humanitarian ideals, and since Mercury now moves backwards, it looks as though such consideration is in fact taking place.

If Mercury were moving forward, it would take only four degrees or four weeks for the thought processes to coincide with the exact square between Uranus in Pisces in the 8th house and Mars in Sagittarius in the 5th house. This is a really evil square, indicating that somebody considers this to be a game, a kind of a thrill-kill, like something out of a Hollywood explosion movie. In this way of thinking, which is highly unrealistic, there are no consequences for violence, not even for nuclear war, which is insanely considered to be appropriate for a pre-emptive strike.

Luckily for all concerned, transiting Venus is at the North Node, protecting us with a loving compassion regarding other countries, at least until the next New Moon, which will be in the anaretic degree of Pisces -- at which time, things do not look so great for Iran, the next targeted Middle-Eastern country on Neocon hit list. Iran has a lot of Pisces energy in the 8th house.

Looking at this energy through a cultural lense, we see a certain reminiscence of the cultural flowering in the United States that was known as the Transcendentalist Movement. The latter decades of 19th Century confirmed the United States' national identity as a liberal construct that took the rights of man seriously enough to throw off slavery and the whole notion of civil disobedience was invented by writer Henry David Thoreau as he sat in jail, angrily refusing to pay taxes that would support an unjust war against Spain.

Our own peace movement is now planning a huge civil disobedience march which will mark the next lunation and Aries Ingress. The rites of spring this year promise to raise the social conscience of the nation.

At this lunation at the 29th degree of Aquarius, we see sweeping changes in the world. It looks a like somebody is taking a big fat gamble in the stock market (fifth house). The fifth house Sagittarius energy is acting like a swirling vortex, sucking up the energy from the second and eighth houses. The T-square looks like bankruptcy in the offing, and all the money goes into the stock market and the entertainment industry, which has manufactured this made-for-TV crisis, along with all the phoney think tanks and propoganda machines to soften up the public mind to accept the unthinkable. Pisces is the energy of insanity, or delusional states of mind when afflicted, and Pisces is afflicted greatly in this chart.

What's coming down here is really a matter of humanitarian ideals being seen as the enemy. Socialism is seen as the enemy of capital, and that is the real reason behind the animus towards Islam and Iran in particular: Islam is socialist in nature.

So the big picture doesn't look all that hopeful, unless, like this writer, you happen to be an incorrigible optimist where the voice of the people is concerned, a hopeless romantic who believes the people will somehow ultimately prevail.

The Transcendentalists believed in the good side of mankind and they defined our national identity in ways that have spread through time, reaching, for example, Mahatma Ghandi, who lead India to the nonviolent revolution by which it freed itself from bondage.

Miracles do happen, but sometimes they take a while to gestate and to be born.

On the personal level, this is a good time to go into mediation and help the vibration for world peace. Whichever house in which you have Pisces energy is where you should focus your subliminal vibrations to elevate the Oversoul to flow in the direction of humanitarian compassion. Venus now blesses us with with tenderness and kindness, like the Oriental goddess, Tara, the goddess of compassion.

As Isabel Hickey says in her classic work, Astrology, A Cosmic Science, Neptune (the ruler of Pisces) is a confusing energy to those who are materialists. Neptune, she says, is not of this earth.

Nevertheless, we do categorize Neptune as the water element, and with water, as with spirit, we remember the phrase, "Water seeks its own level." In other words, not everyone is at the same level of spiritual evolution. It is a mistake to believe we all have the same level of conscious awareness of the facts, a mistake to believe we are all actually capable of discerning right from wrong, good from evil. That is the nature of these times.

Article: Love and Greed, by Charles B.Shaw

The Trancendentalists

Bi-wheel chart for Capricorn Ingress, 2006 and Aquarius New Moon, 2007