Astrology Explored

October 7, 2008

With the U. S. Economy in first throes of a major recession, there is a good amount of finger pointing starting. Currently we are focusing on the huge bonuses that failed or failing financial institutions were paying their top executives, though this is symptom and not the disease. Our financial problems as a nation start with our own beginnings, the day the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.

It is rumored that some of the founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, used astrology to determine the “birthday” of the new nation. After all Franklin is well known as the publisher of Poor Richard’s Almanac and almanacs are based on astrology. For an astrologer of the day, it would have been a chart filled with the protective nature of Cancer, from the stellium of planets in Cancer, the humanitarian instincts of a Moon in Aquarius, and the love of justice and fairness in the legal system with Saturn, placed in the sign of Libra. Certainly these symbols describe our self-perception as a nation of laws that protects the hearth and home with liberty and justice for all. Had the founding fathers known about the discoveries to come after the birth of the nation, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, they might have reconsidered the choice.

There are many charts proposed as the “birth chart” of the United States, with the actual time undetermined/ Franklins notes the ratification of the Declaration of Independence at 2:20 PM but Jefferson writes that it occurred later in the afternoon. While the birth time itself doesn’t change the planets themselves it does determine the houses in which the planets rest. A commonly accepted chart among astrologers is the so called Sibly Chart, which proposes a 5:10 PM birth time.

In this chart, the planet of transformation, Pluto sits in the second house of finances, Neptune sits high in the chart, and Uranus, the planet of the unexpected sits on the cusp of the seventh house of partnerships. Neptune represents oil, the energy source we use to fuel our cars and our economy. It is interesting to note that the discovery of how to make kerosene from crude oil was made the same year that Neptune was discovered. It soon became a major fuel in which to light and heat homes. It represents the first time that oil products were used on a universal level. Pluto in financial astrology represents debt. Uranus forms an out of sign trine to Pluto. Uranus promotes volatility in the markets. So in our nation’s chart we have an economy driven by fuel oils, the acquisition of which leads to a debt driven economy, subject to the volatility of market pricing.

And why I am blaming fossil fuels as the source of our troubles when as a nation we are focusing on the bail outs of financial institutions? The power to run our factories and industries, to being able to turn the wheel of progress and burn the midnight oils, comes from the oil industry. When the price of gasoline goes up, it takes money out the pockets of the working classes, whose money fuels the health of our economy and locks in the hands of one industry. There is less money to pay bills, less leeway to take a financial hit from other sources. When the legions of the middle class bought homes with adjustable rate mortgages, they did not foresee the rise in oil prices that stole money out of their pockets. They were not protected against the volatility of the markets that is promised in the United States chart.

Pluto represents theft and bankruptcies, the rape of the economic system to reap underserved profits. With the trine from Neptune to Pluto in the natal chart of the United States, the oil companies have done just that. With the planet of limitations, Saturn moving to transit over this Neptune, and Jupiter by transit coming to sit on the natal Pluto, we’ve yet to feel the full effects of the oil industries rape of the economic system.

My astrological advice, if you can, sell, if you can’t, go long and get that second job.If you have a question you would like answered on these pages, send your question, birth time, birth date and birth place to starrynightastro@aol.com.