 Prelude:
And Now It Begins
The warning signs were there.
We just missed their full implication.
Three Saturn-Uranus squares (in 2000) culminated in T-Square to warring Mars in house 7 of Bush's Inauguration chart. The USA's Solar Return Ascendant (July, 2001) was 1 Gemini, the position of Inauguration Jihad-Jupiter (retrograde) in house 1. Solar Return Venus at 29 Taurus (July, 2001) conjoined Alcyone, the fixed star of great tragedy and great grief. The USA's 225th birthday chart was jacked up by the Cancer Ingress, the eclipse of July 5th, and George W. Bush's Solar Return.
We thought early on that Bush would start a war with either China (2001's Spy Plane incident) or Iraq (legacy of Daddy Bush).
We saw the iconoclasm (Uranus-Saturn) of the Bush Administration's agenda:
- Get money out of Washington. Give most of it to the rich. Throw a bone to the poor.
- Appropriate the largest tax cut in USA history in order to cripple Congress's profligate spending.
- Decentralize the Federal Government's social program expenditures by creating the Faith-Based Inititative.
When the Taliban smashed 2,000 year-old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan this summer, Bush was busy burning the 1972 ABM Treaty.
In a supreme act of cognitive dissonance, America deemed Afghanistan a "pariah [or rogue] nation," but Bush funded the Taliban by giving it $132 million. Bush had already been deemed "pariah" by the EU for his efforts to drive the USA into a new isolationism. The Taliban continued to execute women (and men) publicly, while we executed our prisoners privately by lethal injection.
"The President is prepared to go it alone, " said Ari Fleischer at White House press briefings. The Kyoto accords were dead, as was the ABM Treaty. The California "energy crisis" spiked while gasoline prices reached unprecedented highs across the nation. Instead of advocating conservation, Fleischer announced at a White House Press briefing that, "The American way of life" (access to excess) was "blessed." Few paused to ponder why the Christian Right Wing advocated the deadly sin of greed while championing the demise of affirmative action.
And so America careened through the summer of 2001, still wounded by her worst fracture since the Civil War (Election 2000). Bush continued corner-cutting for God's Dollars and paybacks to big oil. Americans went to movies; fell in love; fell out of love; and grew weary of Gary Condit. America's split was so complete that she didn't realize that a collective force -- something huge, unbearable and outside herself -- would explode on September 11, 2001 forcing her to achieve "reunion."
The tables turned on America in 18 minutes. An 18 minutes far more critical than the 18 minutes missing from Nixon's Watergate tapes. An 18 minutes born at 18 degrees fixed -- the eclipse of August, 1999 -- a sheer terror of an eclipse that set the death train in motion -- choruses of "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie."
America's Shadows
America's credo of "manifest destiny" (which led to the phenomenon of the robber barons in the late 1800's through the early 20th Century) was the first espousal of "greed is good." It was repeated in the Reagan era and the newborn Bush era smacked of it. That America has become addicted to substance rather than the substantive; that she has been diverted from "first principles" by her own narcissism are not original observations. But what is terrifying is that a nation gone numb on "Survivor" and Gary Condit could only be awakened by a confrontation with "barbarians at the gate." Hence, the obvious allusions to the late epicurian era of ancient Rome.
But before that. America's own Talibanic regime against Native Americans. African Americans. A Declaration of Independence and a Constitution forged upon "The Virginia Compromise" is not freedom. The USA's Neptune at 22 Virgo demands a perfect vision, but Saturn in Libra demands perfect justice. Now America must balance her own rehabilitation with how she confronts regimes that are mirrors of her own past.
Reversal of Fortune
The Bush administration now sees the necessity for a strong, central Federal Government. One that is fully funded by the surplus dollars given away in tax rebates at an hour of high hubris.
The Bush administration now sees the necessity for a world coalition rather than "going it alone" by breaking treaties willy nilly.
The Bush administration now sees the necessity for protecting the rights and freedoms of all Americans. Not just those at the top.
The Bush administration is now forced to become the compassionate conservatives they swore to be.
George Bush is now forced to individuate. Transiting Pluto is currently quincunx his 12th house Sun. What gets adjusted here? Bush's destiny: he must get out of his father's shadow and redeem what his father started during the Gulf War. Hence, "the last shall become first." The Village Idiot must become whole.
We have no choice. We throw our lot in with his.
Shadows: The Dark Dance Begins
The aforementioned summations of America's cult of greed could be leveled by the Taliban and by the Islamic Jihad forces world-wide. While busy building a bridge back to the 7th Century, The Taliban engages in every bit as much hubris as does the United States. Although the Taliban may not use the same words as I, nor frame the argument within the same context, it appears that we are on the brink of "The Crusades Revisited." Yahweh vs. Allah. The Islamic pleasure garden meets the snake in the Garden of Eden. Cain slew Abel, and humanity has been at it ever since.
The Taliban's shadow is the hypocracy of the double standard run amok: women in veils. Women openly shot in the market place for real or imagined sexual exploration. Women begging in the streets for food because meaningful work is forbidden. The higher ups crave privacy, where, after prayer, they can look at pornography; indulge their sexual predilections; eat chocolate and drink Coca Cola. They want what we have but cannot admit it consciously.
On the other hand, the Pepsi Generation's shadow abhors the idea of limitation (Saturn) in any form. Hence, freedom in the Western World crosses the line of "first principles" (Declaration of Independence) only to meander down the tawdry lane of sex without feeling; the love of things at the expense of people; accumulation of great wealth to fill an inner poverty. The great hypocracy is where purity of vision (USA Neptune 22 Virgo) manifests as Right Wing politics and Christianity. Point the finger at sin (Clinton-Lewinsky) while doing it secretly yourself. (Jimmy Swaggert, Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich).
Pluto's transit through Jupiter ruled Sagittarius, now in the Aries (Mars-War decanate) is the culmination of Jihad. From here on out, it is the Crusades. And the Inquisition. Pluto in the USA's first house (the people's identity/belief in its mythical purpose) is also the 12th house of its second house: Saturn ruled Capricorn.* Saturn and Pluto will meet in Capricorn (the authoritarian) in 2020.** Hence, we are in a long Plutonic "shadow" period. What we think we are (first house identity) will be destroyed then reconstructed over a twenty year period once Pluto reaches early Capricorn in 2004. We do not know who or what we will become over the next four to twenty years, but suffice to say that at this moment, we face the Machiavellian choice:
Regardless of all evidence leading to stark revelations of global political corruption, which team do you want to play on? Saturn and Uranus are directly involved in how much restriction (Saturn) or freedom (Uranus) a nation allows its citizens. The potential more than exists for the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 to lead the globe (and the USA) into one of the most repressive regimes seen in modern history. Like it or not, we are powerless. Powerless over Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We cannot (yet) see the enemy because it is still lurking within, as symbolized by Transiting Neptune's conjunction to Bush's 7th house cusp.
Shiva: "I am Become Death. Destroyer of Worlds." [from the Bhagavad Gita]
This is the threshold moment. The moment of greatest contemplation. The moment of silent supplication before whatever Gods may be. The face of global history is about to be rewritten. This hour transcends considerations of when and how America will first strike her enemy. It soars above the question of whether we will be victorious by a date certain. It is this Plutonic shadow period, the period before Shiva-Kali (Pluto) meets itself again in 2020 that will redefine us. What we do now and how we do it will dictate how high the price. We cannot escape Shiva-Kali. We cannot run from Moira.
Tonight I wonder: what slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?***
September 18, 2001 -- Starcats.
Footnotes
*Counting from the second house, where the USA's natal Pluto resides at 27 Capricorn, in counterclockwise motion, makes the USA's first house (12 Sagittarius rising) the 12th house of natal Pluto.
** The USA's Pluto "Return" takes place in 2022. The next Jupiter-Saturn conjunction is in 2020, in Saturn ruled Capricorn.
*** An allusion to W.B. Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming."
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