The Aquarian Interview
BY DIANA SHAW &
JOHN DELANEY
PURPOSE:
Saturn entered Aquarius recently in March 2020 for a brief transit before Saturn transits Aquarius in its entirety from December 17, 2020 to March 6, 2023. Simultaneously, Pluto, which entered Capricorn in November 2008, will leave Capricorn to enter Aquarius, first tentatively in 2023, then for a full transit of Aquarius from November 2024 to March 2043. Pluto will also spend a few months of 2043 and 2044 on the 29th degree of Aquarius.
I see Saturn’s current transit of Aquarius as a blueprint for the long-term transit of Pluto in Aquarius. I wanted to write a manuscript – with another astrologer, specifically a female astrologer, and specifically Diana Shaw, whom I met and discussed current astrological issues on Zane Stein’s Yahoo! e-group “Centaurs” – to write this blueprint so as to help predict upcoming trends based on it.
Diana and I will use a variety of methods, discussing anecdotes, executing case studies, analyzing the various important transits and aspects of 2020, including Saturn conjunct Pluto in Capricorn, Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Capricorn and Jupiter conjunct Saturn in Aquarius, as well as the U.S.A. Pluto Return, and some historical analysis of Pluto’s previous transit through Aquarius from January 1778 to December 1798.
John Delaney
Astroscope
BIOGRAPHY:
Diana Shaw – Born in Detroit, Diana has lived in the Los Angeles area since high school. Diana earned a B.A. from U.C.L.A., and a J.D. from Loyola Law School. A recently retired entertainment attorney, Diana served as counsel for Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild and Universal Studios, before striking out on her own. With a South Node in Sagittarius and a Gemini North Node in the 9th house, Diana loves learning and expanding intellectual horizons. Diana is married to a former actor (a Leo, of course) who is now a digital artist with whom together they have two grown sons. Enchanted by astrology throughout her adult years, Diana's astrology articles have appeared in Mountain Astrologer Magazine, including "A Visit from Pholus" in April 2007 and "Trump & Putin: A True Bromance?" in June 2017. Diana is a proud member of Zane Stein's Yahoo! E-Group "Centaurs" as well as the Yahoo! E-group "Political Astrology". Diana has a certificate of completion from Steven Forrest's Apprentice Program, and now does the occasional chart while studying evolutionary astrology with Rose Marcus.
John Delaney – A lifelong resident of Jersey City, New Jersey, John earned a B.A. in Studio Art from Hamilton College. John has written THE ASTROSCOPE since 1995, a weekly astrology column with a specific focus on interpreting recently discovered and recently named centaur planets. At its peak, up to sixteen different weekly, biweekly, monthly and seasonal newspapers and magazines published THE ASTROSCOPE in each issue. Newspapers across North America have published John’s astrological analyses of various contemporary topics, including the astrology of Minnesota, Alberta, Calgary, Edmonton, Savannah, Regina and Halifax, as well as the World Trade Center Bombing, the Halifax Explosion, the Albertan Provincial Elections of 2004 and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Like Diana, John is also a proud member of Zane Stein's Yahoo! E-Group "Centaurs," amongst whom John learned significant lessons about astrological research into recently discovered unnamed planets from the Costa Rican astrologer Juan Antonio Revilla. In “The New Solar System” by Steven Forrest in The Mountain Astrologer’s August 2007 issue:
https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/astrology/the-new-solar-system
Steven lists John as one of only five astrologers who named planets – John named both Crantor and Amycus – before the Minor Planet Center changed the parameters for planet naming in 2006. .
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The Aquarian Interview
by
DIANA SHAW
& JOHN
DELANEY
Volume I, Number 1
I. Consequences of Mark Lerner’s Analysis
of
the U.S.A. Mars in the Secondary
Progressed
Sibley and 4:47 P.M. Charts .
JD: You know, Diana, in the Nineties, every day until they dropped him, the first thing I read in the morning was Mark Lerner’s Daily Cosmic Calendar on Yahoo!. Only after I read Mark Lerner did I read Holiday Mathis, Georgia Nicols and Sally Brompton – in that order.
After Yahoo! dropped him, I never read his website, Earth Aquarius News. I didn’t go crazy for everything he wrote but I knew one day he would hit the Bull Eye.
So one day I’m talking with a long-term client about astrology. This long-term client mentioned to me that Mark Lerner wrote an article about Mars turning Retrograde in the Secondary Progressed Chart of the United States! Indeed, the Secondary Progressed U.S.A. Mars will remain Retrograde through 2088. During this time, Pluto will transit through the entire signs of Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces and will transit through 22 degrees of Aries.
Mark Lerner shot the arrow through the Bull’s Eye all the way to the next target just like Eugen Herrigel’s Zen and the Art of Archery!
DS: I read that when Mark published it – he truly made an astounding discovery!
When did it start?
JD: Don’t know.
DS: Let me look.
Apparently, the Secondary Progressed U.S. Mars stationed from Direct to Retrograde Motion soon after July 4, 2006.
JD: Okay. Now, using an ephemeris, I see that Mars stationed from Direct to Retrograde Motion in the evening on February 19, 1777.
DS: You use an ephemeris to run Secondary Progressions?
JD: I match the Secondary Progression with an ephemeris which I run from Jon Dunn’s website.
Sometimes I just use Jon’s ephemeris if I don’t actually want to run a chart using software. Of course, it is always wise to confirm your calculations with the software. Anyway, because each day in an ephemeris represents one year in the progressed chart, one can analyze the development of the progression over the next twenty years using just twenty lines of data from an ephemeris.
DS: Very useful!
JD: Anyway, I didn’t read Mark Lerner’s article, so I don’t really know what he said.
DS: Why not?
JD: I worry that I would unconsciously plagiarize him. It is the same reason I don’t read Phil Sedgwick, who can also be way ahead of the curve. Now that I’m writing about his discovery with you, however, I can read what Mark said – if it is available.
DS: Maybe we should interview Mark. After all, this is ‘The Aquarian Interview.’
JD: It is indeed. But until Mark shows up, how do you see the unfolding of the placement of the Secondary Progressed U.S.A. Mars in Libra for the rest of the century?
DS: Should I do that in twenty-five words or less?
JD: That would give you one word per three years.
Okay. Given that the basic point of all this, relative to the purpose of The Aquarian Interview –
DS: – to use Saturn’s current transit of Aquarius as a blueprint for the long-term transit of Pluto in Aquarius –
JD: – how do you see the unfolding of the placement of the Secondary Progressed U.S.A. Mars in Libra from where we stand right now?
DS: I don’t know where I read it but I read it somewhere – and the whole idea is so logical that one really doesn’t need to read it anywhere at all to understand it. First and most important: The U.S. will not – cannot! – win a war until the Secondary Progressed Mars goes direct. If they do win a war, there will be extenuating circumstances, and the U.S. will still have an extremely difficult time doing it.
JD: You’re saying military difficulty until 2088!?
DS: Think about it. Mars is the root word for martial. Our martial impact is theoretically diminished. Retrograde Mars as frustrated will. Look at our recent history, we have had a string of what looks like stalemates from Iraq to Afghanistan to Somalia. These conflicts started earlier, but American troops seem to be stuck in quicksand in these locations.
JD: I usually don’t think of military initiatives in astrological terms. To do so reminds me too much of the Bush family.
DS: Which Bushes?
JD: Keeping it simple, both President George Bushes. However, the Bushes considered military initiatives not in purely astrological terms but more in astronomical terms.
President H.W. launched Operation Desert Storm by a missile strike starting during Saturn conjunct the New Capricorn Moon and Solar Eclipse on January 16, 1991 – not for astrological reasons, leveraging the eclipse, but for astronomical reasons, utilizing the dark of the moon.
President W. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom officially by missile strikes late in the day on March 19, 2003, but had been using light of the Full Virgo Moon on March 18, 2003 for the deployment of specialized ground troops across the border of Jordan.
DS: I’m not an expert on the art of warfare, but wouldn’t using the phases of the Moon have been basic to any winning military strategy throughout history? For instance, in planning the Invasion of Normandy. In addition to political and military advisers, General Eisenhower had a team of astronomers and meteorologists. Paratroopers would need light to see what they were doing, but flashlights or spotlights would have ruined the stealth nature of the attack. They had to take tides, ruled by the Moon, into account also. So, the invasion famously ended up by the light of the Full Moon. Of course, while the Moon may have literally contributed to planning specific battles throughout history, we’re addressing a much broader concept when discussing retrograde Mars.
JD: Probably so. However, for myself, considering Retrograde Mars in Libra, I focus upon Mars in its detriment in Libra. With Mars dignified in Aries, the hat of the Aries General seems to fit. Not that the hat of a Libran General will not fit – Eisenhower was a Libra.
DS: Even that ten-gallon Texan hat seemed to fit Ike’s head!
JD: Ike was a politician as well as a general. One could argue that Eisenhower looked more natural in a suit as a civilian.
But all that is a Martian emphasis. Emphasizing Libra over Mars, I see, in the U.S., some unpleasant yet healthy, and some unpleasant yet very unhealthy, trends.
DS: Okay. Let’s start. What’s unpleasant and healthy?
JD: MeToo movement.
DS: What’s unpleasant about that?
JD: I take it personally. I think most men do. It makes me realize what a jerk I have been to women in the past.
DS: I’m sure you must have felt that before the MeToo movement launched.
JD: I did. It took me awhile to come to terms with it – I’d say, the entire middle of the Nineties. By the end of the Nineties, I had come to terms with the fact first that I had mistreated women, then I came to terms with the fact that, if I hadn’t mistreated women, I simply wasn’t nice to women.
DS: Whenever a person growing up does anything new – including interactions with the opposite gender – that person is going to make mistakes.
JD: To a degree. Anyway, the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.
DS: Forget the personal. How do you feel about how this plays out in the workplace?
JD: I started in the workplace in the late Eighties. I have always been confused about this phenomenon about women and men getting different salaries for the same job. I have always thought that a job – whatever job – is worth X. If you do whatever job, you get X. End of story. I have never thought that a person doing whatever job gets either X if that person is a man or X-Y if that person is a woman.
DS: Of course.
JD: It doesn’t make any sense.
DS: It does make sense, a twisted, delusional kind of sense. Heads of corporations always want to save money to give their investors bigger profits or to reinvest. They were under the impression, based upon twisted cultural myth, that women, hanging around the house washing dishes, or whatever they were supposed to be doing, always got to share the men’s salaries. So, by paying women less, corporations prevented the men from double dipping.
JD: I understand your explanation, find it plausible – not in all cases but in most. As public policy, it doesn’t make any sense. It is self-serving based upon cynicism.
DS: I worked for a U.K. corporation that had rates of pay for men, women and married women in descending order. Forget about the many instances of men leaving women upon the break-up of a marriage, or simply getting ill or dying. It was a self-serving myth, and companies were convinced that they were upholding a fine and ancient tradition. But the fantasy wasn’t based upon fact, rather wishful thinking.
JD: Cynical wishes.
DS: Old habits die hard. From a 21st Century perspective, it is beyond reason, discriminatory.
JD: Now, from a 21st Century perspective it certainly is discriminatory. But historically: It shocked me to find that Saskia Sassen addressed the issue directly in The Global City.
DS: What does she say?
JD: I haven’t read the book in fourteen years, so my memory is rusty. Moreover, as a book describing economic globalization, The Global City has become more of a historical tome on a past phase of economic development. Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the 21st Century, which I have not yet read, dominates amongst economists today.
In a nutshell, Sassen describes the development of globalization amongst Japan, the United States and Great Britain as a result of the innovative liberalization of the financial services industries across Tokyo, New York and London during the late Seventies and the early Eighties. One precursor to such liberalization, which occurred because the economies of those three cities (as microcosms) and three countries (as macrocosms) had stagnated, lay in the saturation of Fordism in the American middle class. Put curtly, Ford hired the workers so that the workers could buy what Ford hired them to produce. It is that simple – and it goes beyond Henry Ford.
When the automobile labor unions became too strong and demanded more concessions in the Seventies, it bespoke the need for what Sassen describes as “capital mobility” – in one sense of the term, moving automobile manufacturing from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. to León, Guanajuato, Mexico. As a result, Fordism died in America and the aristocracy of labor had matured.
Sassen asserts that Fordism underwrote the middle-class family in the United States. The workplace, with men, produced and the family home, led by women, consumed. The export of Fordism to Mexico ejected those men from the workplace which underwrote the women working at home, as it ejected those women from the home into the workplace.
Thereupon, women entered the workplace in droves during the liberalization of the financial services industries, concurrent with many other industries throughout the late industrial and post-industrial economy, without any historical role within it.
DS: As a long time working single mother, I have a different perspective, and this fantasy about what women did doesn’t sit right with what I know about the world in which I grew up in both Detroit and Los Angeles, and that of my parents and grandparents.
A childhood friend of mine came from a family who lived above their small grocery store. Her Grandma stuffed pillows upstairs. I was only 6 at the time, but I still recall with being amazed that feathers went into pillows. My immigrant grandmother worked in the clothing industry. My mother was a claims representative for the Social Security. My step mother was a medical technician at a major Detroit hospital. Women worked in laundries, in family restaurants, as teachers, you name it. But, most worked, and they worked hard.
I’m not saying Fordism didn’t exist. I’m saying it wasn’t all encompassing to the extent that the world turned upside down when Ford moved a plant to Mexico simply because women were no longer being supported by auto workers in Detroit. Maybe if they were middle class and lucky they had a male breadwinner.
JD: It doesn’t sound like any of these women had any relationship to this Fordism model. Really, your stepmother sounds like she is professional class.
Were any of the husbands union guys? Union guys at automobile manufacturers?
DS: No. Not that I know of. They were entrepreneurs, small time and struggling. During the Depression my paternal grandfather sold eggs, I think. My paternal grandmother, I learned just before my father died, read cards for the neighborhood women.
JD: Same kind of feeling one feels about the characters in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. Poor and street savvy. Aspiring ambitions might connote bootlegging, criminality. Funky origins of an unpolished Greektown.
DS: My paternal grandfather was an English merchant seaman who met my paternal grandmother when the ship docked in Montreal. They immigrated to the U.S. because Ford was hiring. But,I don't think he worked for Ford.
JD: Funny thing about Henry Ford – as is proven following the egress of the automobile manufacturers from Detroit, in the beginning, Ford probably could have located his factories anywhere. But Ford was from Michigan. Why not Detroit? Test those ideas here.
Then you take a look at Henry Ford’s chart. (July 30, 1863; 7:00 A.M., Greenfield Township, later incorporated into Detroit, Michigan.)
Source: https://astro-charts.com/persons/chart/henry-ford/)
Henry Ford
July 30, 1863; 7:00 A.M. LMT;
Greenfield
Township, Michigan
Born during a Full Aquarius Moon, Ford’s Sun and Moon cross over the North Node-South Node axis of the United States – within one degree of the U.S.A. North Node in control freak Leo and within two degrees of the U.S.A. South Node erratic unpredictable freedom-loving Aquarius.
To me, this begs the question: Is Fordism inherently American?
DS: No se, Señor. Best to take it on the surface. Ford's model just created prosperity. Too bad Ford got into trouble with the unions. The unions simply wanted more, including wanting him to stop controlling their lives.
JD: Eugenides mentioned that the same problem existed right in the beginning, long before the unions. “At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaption has been passed down.”
It’s a thorny rosebush.
Looking back at the apocalyptic self-destruction of Detroit, one can claim, “Ford Right – Unions Wrong.” Discipline brings prosperity and security. Freedom fosters irresponsibility and poverty.
In Journey to the End of the Night, Céline clearly does not like Fordism and Detroit. One sacrifices one’s potential, “’Let me give you a piece of advice. Never mention your intelligence again! We’ll think for you, my boy!’” The pleasure principle is absent, “It’s sickening to watch the workers bent over their machines . . . You give into noise as you give into war.” But, in the end, Céline favored Hitler.
This in itself is strange, because Hitler deeply admired Ford – apparently Hitler kept a life-size portrait of Ford next to his desk. Not because of Ford’s anti-Semitism, but because he admired Ford’s idea of the assembly line which he deployed for the Volkswagen.
DS: Godwin’s Law. Let’s move on.
JD: Remember: Sassen is writing about the sociology of finance across three global cities – Tokyo, New York, London – and how they affect the nation state. Sassen briefly mentions Detroit by citing that the federal governments of both Japan and England protect its manufacturing sector. Sassen doesn’t actually analyze labor. Sassen analyzes from the perspective of management.
Sassen is adamant from this management perspective, “The institutionalization of the family wage was closely interlinked with the rise of powerful manufacturing-based unions and a male-dominated ‘labor aristocracy.’ The family wage is – or, rather, was – the institutionalized principle that a man’s wage should be high enough to support his family.”
Further, tellingly, Sassen’s analysis of Fordism yielded an insight pregnant with self-destructive sexism against both genders, “Confinement of women to housework created full-time workers for the organization and management of the consumption of goods and services by the household.” Women control the household budget. This implies, from a negative man, that women spend too much money, and, from a negative woman, that men do not know how to handle money.
That being said, Sassen writes that women’s new role in the workplace had nothing to do with her old role under Fordism. Under Fordism, man worked at the workplace and women spent money to manage the home. Under the new model of globalization, women worked in service positions to facilitate capital mobility across clients internationally.
But none of this went out in a memo! Management would simply cite the notion of the male as the breadwinner of the family for the reason for paying a woman less – despite the fact that the presence of the woman in the workplace in and of itself bespoke the fact that the family had lost its economic significance in American life.
DS: Don’t you see this as dishonest?
JD: What you ultimately assert is that these corporate executives succumb to what C. Wright Mills calls, “The Higher Immorality” at the end of The Power Elite. In some cases, sure. Some corporate executives in management are visionary and intellectually inclined. Overall, however, many Western men in positions of power were and are blind to sociological trends.
As for women in the Fordism model: Nobody in the Fordism model needed a college degree. Now, college is an absolute necessity and exorbitantly expensive.
DS: What Saskia Sassen says about women working in service positions to facilitate capital mobility is the worst thing that can happen to women.
JD: The changes Sassen discusses are broad. The elimination of the family wage, or, rather, the normalization of the individual’s wage, has consequences on other sectors of the economy which Sassen describes, including retail and consumption and especially housing.
But, ultimately, in response to what you assert about women and capital mobility, I think that what Saskia Sassen is saying that the end of Fordism in Detroit as a result of labor union strife is the worst thing that can happen to women. The end of Fordism in Detroit bifurcated the family economy into two genders and destabilized women’s economies, leaving them with a big, fat zero.
As a result of the end of Fordism, women joined men to work in service positions to facilitate capital mobility. Many women experienced an exponential increase in their salaries, even if many of them made less than their male peers. Many women are, however, in a better long-term position to negotiate better salaries. They are also subject to more acute levels of harassment and discrimination because the stakes are higher.
Me? I see women as “personal planets.” I see men as “outer planets.” Personal planets value unconditional love and men value conditional love. On that note, no human can serve as “personal planets” offering unconditional love to unlimited number of people – which is what women working as social workers often do. For women to be truly effective, their social circles should be small. Otherwise, women become impersonal – which is fine logistically for tasks, but not as a lifestyle.
DS: Honestly, you are speaking like a man. As I am a woman, I perceive that taking care of household duties, which Sassen’s Fordism theory seems to require women to do, has nothing to do with love, conditional or unconditional. It has everything to do with survival.
JD: Saskia Sassen did not discuss love. I discussed love. Saskia Sassen discussed economics and sociology. I do not believe she ever discusses love.
Also, this is not Sassen’s theory that women take care of household duties. Ford did that as a strategy. Ford paid high wages to men. It was not a theory.
Further, the rise of Fordism occurred at the beginning of the 20th century when a considerable amount of domestic labor still existed. I remember writing in my astrology column around 2002 advising feminists to develop a greater understanding of Marx. In the summer of 2003, while working at a law firm in Midtown Manhattan, I was having a discussion with three summer interns in the library, when one of the female interns mentioned that Marx stated that, eventually, mechanical engineers would turn their attention to automating domestic labor. I felt simultaneously chastised and vindicated.
Finally, it does not bother me that I sound like a man. Confucius stated in Line Two of Chia Jên, Hexagram 37 of the I Ching that woman’s sole role in society lays in the preparation of the food for the family. In this role involves the development of education, religion, social conduct, ethics, morals and discipline. Confucius was male but honored these sectors of the human experience. The rise of corporate capitalism dishonored them. It bespeaks that Xi Jingping may not be a better man than George Washington but is certainly superior to Donald Trump.
DS: There are other societal models, and there are many more men in the world both alive and dead besides Xi Jingping who are better men than Donald Trump.
I have a friend who worked for years in Non-Governmental Aid organizations. Traditionally in many African tribes, women raised the crops while men hunted. Then, with the best of self-serving political intentions, the U.S. gave the villages shiny new tractors.
JD: Western man’s deification of technology.
DS: The men wanted to putter around with the new toys. They took over the agricultural duties so they could play with the tractors, and did less hunting. They took the important tribal agricultural duty that gave women’s lives meaning, purpose and respect in the villages from them. Marriages broke down. Rage and chaos divided the sexes. The society where my friend worked was upended leading to many problems in African nations.
Those tractors undermined the nature of men and women and their shared primal economic equality. The system was balanced (Libra); the system worked fine. When everything became imbalanced, very bad behavior dominated shared economic relations.
JD: Technology, Western man’s Verschlimmbesserung, disrupted organic evolution.
DS: Verschlimmbesserung?
JD: German. It means, “The improvement which makes things worse.”
DS: For real! Now think about it for a second. Fordism really was about splitting duties.
JD: To Henry Ford’s advantage.
DS: That’s open to debate. But, in ancient communities, women’s obligations were not limited to home and producing children and spending resources created by men. The women had just as much importance as the men, but in different spheres.
JD: I’m aware of this. Demetra George’s Asteroid Goddess often gives worthwhile glimpses of this. I particularly remember, in her discussion of the asteroid Vesta, how the vestal virgins had very specific privileges in society. For instance, if the state was preparing to execute a criminal, the vestal virgin would pardon him, up until the scaffold.
DS: Therefore, the nature of retrograde Mars in Libra in the U.S. chart may simply be a slow manifestation of this retrograde Mars in Libra male/female cultural realignment.
JD: There is no more excuse. It has been forty years since the release of that Human League song in 1980, right before the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 5 Libra during the Hylonome Incarnation of July 24, 1981. It has been forty years since the equalization of the American workplace with the ingress of women into it. Women have a history in the American workplace now. Change is more than possible – change is overdue.
DS: What song?
JD: “Don’t You Want Me, Baby?”
DS: I remember. She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.
JD: That much is true.
DS: Anything else?
JD: The only other thing on my mind is really in your wheelhouse: The corruption of the judiciary since McConnell refused to have a vote for Merrick Garland.
DS: McConnell is a Master Manipulator, born February 20, 1942 (no time available). What I find most interesting about this chart, given his corrupt behavior, is his Sun in Pisces as the Apex of a Yod, or Finger of God, with one leg created by Pluto and the other leg created by Neptune.
JD: A Yod, really? An ugly Yod, too. So, the Sun winds up being the expression . . . of extremely negative forces?
DS: Deception (Neptune) in the service of his will to power, and his will to corrupt power (Pluto) via his own personage (the Sun). Surely there are some people born with a similar Pluto/Neptune Yod who don’t behave this way! There are a lot of ways one can interpret aspects. But I look at what I see, and then look at the chart, and its right there.
Now, Merrick Garland. President Barack Obama nominated Garland for the Supreme Court on March 16, 2016 with Mercury conjunct Chiron conjunct the South Node in Pisces. It was a good day for Mitch McConnell, in warrior mode, Mercury conjunct Chiron conjunct the South Node were transiting almost exactly sextile McConnell’s intransigent, focused natal Mars conjunct natal Saturn in Taurus.
JD: Okay – another pure and simple corrupt power play. Scorpio, Pluto, 8th house, pure and simple. He could get away with it. so he did.
And this continues?
DS: I have to show you that? Trump and McConnell are making every effort to stack the court system with Republicans.
JD: Let’s say you get your Christmas present: Trump and McConnell are elected out of office. Will this stacking of the court system continue with Biden and the Democrats? In an ideal world, what exactly should happen?
DS: Here's the problem. The deed has been done. All presidents put their ideal candidates up for the Supreme Court. McConnell didn't let Merrick Garland get a hearing. That was without precedent. One of those seats on the Court is rightfully his. Do you know he is a moderate? He was Kavanaugh's boss on the 11th Circuit. So, now, the Supreme Court, already the highest arbiter in the land, is lopsided.
While McConnell and Trump are gleeful over their ruthless victory, in the long term a nation can't be governed if the people don't believe in the process. As the country is having its Pluto Return, it appears that many people's lack of belief in the system is valid. McConnell packs the courts all the way down, so that Appellate and District Courts are crawling with white male judges rushed through without adequate vetting, many of whom wouldn't pass muster were it not for a Republican majority. This is not secret.
The American Constitution Society says "nearly 76 percent of the judicial confirmations under Trump are men compared with 58 percent during President Barack Obama’s tenure.”
According to a study by NBC News, the racial disparity has also grown under Trump as well. Eighty-five percent of his confirmations have been white compared with sixty-four percent under Obama. Eighteen percent of Obama’s confirmations were Black compared to four percent under Trump. Wikipedia says Trump has nominated over 200 judges, 9 of whom were actually ranked unqualified by the ABA - 7 of these were confirmed anyway.
McConnell's now suggesting older Republican judges retire so he can ensure younger Republicans take their place. This was always the plan. This was why McConnell refused to allow confirmation of Obama appointments to fill vacancies during Obama's tenure. There are NO open Appellate seats left now. A President Biden will have few opportunities.
JD: Since McConnell's refusal to honor President Obama's nomination was without precedent, I personally feel that this gives Joe Biden – if it happens, President Joe Biden – liberty to act without precedent to seek to overturn it and to vacate Neil Gorsuch's seat. Particularly if Democratic candidate Amy McGrath defeats Mitch McConnell to become Kentucky's junior Senator. Vacating Gorsuch's seat would bring no censure upon Gorsuch but instead upon the policies of Senator McConnell that lead to this travesty so that it will never happen again.
There is no excuse, legal or political or otherwise, for this not to happen. McConnell should never have obstructed Merrick Garland in the first place. Besides, Senator Biden, an OO67 Incarnate, may seem like a moderate Democrat, but anybody with 2000-OO67 conjunct the Sun is at root some seriously far-out cat!
DS: For those who think they know Joe Biden, 2000-OO67 is a scattered-disc object (SDO) whose perihelion, the closest approach to Earth, resides just outside of Uranus, but whose aphelion, its furthest transit from Earth, is more than twenty-times the aphelion of Pluto!
JD: There you have it Progressed Retrograde Mars and COVID-19.
DS: Hold it! One more thing. Mark Lerner did use the Sibley Chart – yes?
JD: The Sibley Chart? That’s a good question. I don’t know. I assumed that he used the 4:47 P.M. LMT chart for July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia. Like I said, I didn’t read the article.
DS: Most likely he was. The Sibley Chart is the most widely used chart by astrologers for the U.S.A.. However, many different astrologers insist they have found another chart that more accurately reflects the birth of the United States.
U.S.A. Sibley Chart
July 4, 1776; 5:10 P.M. LMT; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
JD: I guess my mentor falls in that category. I don’t know if he read about the 4:47 P.M. LMT chart from Dell Horoscopes or some other article. I use the 4:47 P.M. chart myself.
U.S.A. 4:47 P.M. Chart
July 4, 1776; 4:47 P.M. LMT;
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Long story short, my mentor told me that Thomas Jefferson was late for a meeting at Independence Hall during Retrograde Mercury. Jefferson carried the necessary paperwork for the meeting, including the Declaration of Independence, on his person. Jefferson arrived on horseback at Independence Hall at 4:47 P.M.
DS: Interesting. The time given for the Sibley Chart is 5:10 P.M.
JD: What happened at 5:10 P.M.?
DS: According to the English astrologer/physician, Dr. Ebenezer Sibley, who lived in England, 5:10 P.M. meshes with the Philadelphia records, like when the document went to the printer.
JD: Good enough reason to have 5:10 P.M.
DS: Of course, if Jefferson arrived late at 4:47 P.M., he had to walk into the building and grab a feathered quill and find some ink, before he signed.
JD: After a trip to the latrine and setting up some water and feed for his horse, I imagine.
DS: Even so, we both may be right.
JD: Both the Sibley and the 4:47 P.M. involve the same timeframe for the same event.
DS: There are quite a few different charts, and all of them are backed by proponents with other ‘facts’. I like the Sibley Chart for a few reasons. First of all, it has the mutable sign Sagittarius Rising. Sag represents travelers and immigrants. The U.S. has from the start been a nation of wave after wave of immigrants. Our Declaration of Independence is, if nothing else, a ‘belief’ in our ‘Manifest Destiny, a Sag concept.
A friend of mine has been in the foreign service for years. She noted that she could always tell when Americans were in port because they had docked the biggest, showiest boats. Sag is ruled by Jupiter, the King of the Gods, the biggest, showiest of planets.
I practice Evolutionary Astrology (“EA”) whose chief proponent was Jeffrey Wolf Green. We examine a chart to determine how past lives might affect present day behavior. EA astrologers use the 7 Gemini 14 Rising chart. One of many reasons, say EA astrologers, is that it has Uranus Rising and the US was born of revolution against Great Britain.
JD: What data do EA astrologers use to arrive at this ascendant? July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia at something like 2 in the morning?
DS: I really know nothing more than what I’ve discovered through online research. Maybe they thought the Founding Fathers pulled an all-nighter.
Then there is the Scorpio Rising chart enthusiastically espoused by many including Michael Wolfstar, who runs the website Neptune Café. Wolfstar points to the fact that the U.S. economy was built on the backs of slaves. Some people champion Virgo and Libra Rising charts. I don’t have any data on those.
JD: Maybe we’ll pull an all-nighter and find it another time.
As for the 4:47 P.M. Chart, it is also Sagittarius Rising. Sagittarius Rising is exactly trine the North Node in Leo in the 8th house. To me, this is the central strength of the 4:47 P.M. chart. Ultimately, it is an argument for American Exceptionalism, “the shining city on the hill.” The North Node in Leo in the 8th house demands that America transform from partisan politicians to become and to be a hero or heroine, in all senses of the word, both deep in the soul and on its face and in its eyes at first glance to everybody looking at it.
Also, in the 4:47 P.M. Chart, Uranus is conjunct the Descendant in the 7th house rather than 4 degrees off in the 6th house, as Uranus sextiles the North Node in the 8th house. Open partnership with all other nations on earth. Very elegant relationship amongst Ascendant, Descendant and North Node.
Also, unlike the Sibley Chart, which has a Libra Midheaven and a Pisces/Virgo interception across the 4th and 10th houses, the 4:47 P.M. Chart has a Virgo Midheaven conjunct Neptune within 2 degrees.
Most importantly, Saturn in Libra square the Sun in Cancer, which falls across the 10th and the 7th houses in the Sibley, falls across the 10th and the 8th house in the 4:47 P.M. Chart. Saturn square the Sun in both charts clearly involves the role of women in the American government, amongst many other things. In the Sibley, the issue of gender partnership is open and above-board while in the in the 4:47 P.M. Chart it is kept in the dark and is much more treacherous.
DS: My bottom line is that the Sibley Sag chart has always worked for me. Pluto in the 9/11 chart (September 11, 2001; 8:42 A.M. EDT; New York City) fell exactly on the Sibley Sag Ascendant! Transiting Pluto in Sag Rising in the Sibley chart at 9/11 attack signified an attack by foreigners. Maybe each chart works well with regard to particular types of events, sort of like a horary chart defines the nature of a time.
JD: The 9/11 attack as represented by Pluto Rising in the Sibley chart is only one argument – even if it is one really good argument!
For myself, however, I prefer the elegance of the 4:47 chart. Uranus on the Descendant sextile the North Node bespeaks clarity. The North Node’s exact trine to the Ascendant is highly unusual and extremely poetic. Furthermore, you don’t have to stretch logic in order to sustain this elegance. The data of the event provides it, and, in fact, refines all the strengths of the Sibley chart.
Then again, I never heard of the Sibley chart until I joined Zane Stein’s Centaurs. I learned the 4:47 P.M. chart as the natal horoscope of the United States of America.
I have my own reasons for believing in the accuracy of the 4:47 chart. My primary argument involves the U.S.A. placement of 2002-GZ32 at 7 to 8 degrees Virgo, square the Ascendant/Descendant, while conjunct the Sun of the city of Houston, Texas, founded August 30, 1836. Untoward national events regarding Houston – Apollo 13, Enron, Astro sign-stealing scandal – occur over time and suggest a structural issue between the two charts. I am also very comfortable with the fact that Canada’s natal 1996-GQ21 conjuncts the U.S.A. 4:47 Natal Uranus conjunct the U.S.A. 4:47 Natal Descendant.
DS: Like I said before, all these charts have their proponents with ‘facts’ and ‘arguments’.
JD: Yes, they do. But some arguments are useful – even and especially if they do not prove one’s point.
DS: The 4:47 P.M. LMT Chart may be off a few minutes from the Sibley Chart, because, really, nobody seems to know the exact moment of consensus when the new raison d’être was born. But Mark Lerner’s progressed Sag Rising Sibley Chart has enough correlations to our history to close the deal for me.
JD: Well, Mark Lerner’s Secondary Progressed Mars Analysis works for both the 4:47 P.M. LMT Chart and the Sibley Chart.
DS: So Mark Lerner is right!
JD: Mark Lerner is a great astrologer.
So does the Secondary Progressed Retrograde Mars in Libra show us anything about COVID-19?
DS: In the Sibley Chart or in the 4:47 LMT Chart?
JD: You like working with the Sibley Chart – why don’t you use that? I’ll check to see if what you see in the Sibley Chart correlates to the 4:47 LMT Chart.
DS: As a matter of fact, I did – and it does! Mars and Chiron, the Wounded Healer are flashing Emergency! Emergency! In the Sibley and 4:47 Progressed U.S.A. charts, by 2019, Chiron had moved to the 8th house, from which Mars opposes it from the 2nd house.
JD: I’m sorry, one second, Diana. We as astrologers have interpreted Chiron for many years, but many in the general public have never heard of Chiron.
DS: It is easy for astrologers to forget.
JD: News organizations do not expound too deeply upon astronomy. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at the Percival Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff in February 1930, astronomers immediately classified it as a planet. By contrast, astronomers have never classified Chiron, discovered in 1977, as a planet, but only as a centaur planet. Mythologically, the centaur, half man and half horse, symbolizes the conflict between man’s rational and animal natures. Astronomically, the centaur, a body whose elliptical orbits cross the orbits of planets in the traditional Ptolemaic solar system.
Chiron holds the honor of being the first centaur planet discovered – astronomers discovered Pholus and Nessus, the second and third centaur planets, in 1992 and 1993, respectively – which astrologers, including Zane Stein, Barbara Hand Clow, Melanie Reinhart and Richard Nolle, have studied more deeply and closely other centaur planet.
DS: Chiron’s placement in a chart signifies a wound. Mythological Chiron was a healer who could not heal himself. When I see a prominent Chiron in a natal chart, sometimes the person is an actual healer, or medical practitioner of some kind. But, often – unfortunately, too often – the person represented by Chiron sets an example for others of how not to be. Chironic illness of some type is often a manifestation of something gone awry in the body.
JD: Returning to what you said, Diana, Chiron in the 8th might represent somebody or something that is wounded without the wherewithal to heal itself or anybody else.
I recall Barbara Hand Clow discussing Chiron in the 8th in her book Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets, Barbara asserts that “Chiron’s presence in the 8th house signifies a titanic struggle with the early desires: sex, money, power and immortality.”
DS: I’m pretty sure with COVID-19 deaths mounting to incomprehensible numbers, a struggle with mortality is manifesting. A struggle with immortality can’t exist when mortality rears its ugly head.
JD: It can when one deals with Donald Trump. Furthermore, despite COVID-19, struggles with money and power certainly can exist.
DS: Donald Trump notwithstanding, and regardless of any power struggle, with the slow U.S. response to the coronavirus and explosion in people infected by the coronavirus, the U.S. has not been living up to its near mythological strength.
JD: True, but the U.S. was already failing on many fronts before the coronavirus. What about how Trump’s impeachment hearings proceeded and came to a dead end?
DS: No question! That Mars-Chiron opposition has been in effect for quite some time.
JD: I definitely see the Mars-Chiron opposition across the U.S. Progressed Charts as indicative of the travesty of the impeachment trials. How Mitch McConnell predetermined the directed and duration of trials contradicted everything that I understand about courtrooms – including that, as a rule, you hear evidence until you are finished. McConnell setting time limits on the impeachment turned time into currency – Mars in the 2nd house. Not allowing a key figure like John Bolton to testify – “key” is another keyword for Chiron, “sine qua non,” “without which . . . .nothing.”
DS: But the Mars-Chiron opposition across the U.S. Progressed Charts also still represents the slow U.S. response and explosion in people infected by coronavirus. No matter how often President Donald Trump wants to blame China for their slow response, he had no intention of responding to that crisis, ever! Progressed Retrograde Mars in the 2nd house represents that delay. Libra rules response – President Trump did not respond. Because President Trump did not respond, the situation, the sickness of people dying by coronavirus represented by Progressed Chiron in the 8th house, got much worse, very fast.
JD: Actually . . . that’s true.
DS: Of course it’s true!
JD: McConnell used time as currency during the Impeachment Hearings and because of an inability, or a lack of will, time became currency in the absence of a timely response to the coronavirus.
DS: Saturn, associated with Time – Father Time – confirms your observations. I think Trump saw COVID as a news cycle problem during Sun conjunct Mercury during the Eclipse and Saturn conjunct Pluto from January 10 to-12. His strategy backfired.
JD: Just another example of either Trump or McConnell using time as currency. If they can control the clock, they can control the agenda.
DS: I think you’re right. Especially, when one adds the fact that, as we’ve said before, that the U.S.A.’s Secondary Progressed Mars is retrograde! The will is slowed or missing. Further, Trump is a Gemini, so Mercury rules Trump. Mercury, of the short attention span. Unfortunately, Mercury may be the only planet of the zodiac Trump understands. Fleeting moments. Saturn and Pluto? Please – Trump is incapable of seeing thirty or fifty years ahead. Trump is incapable of vision.
JD: Let’s just get on the same page for a second. The Sibley secondary progressed chart to which you refer is dated July 4, 2019 for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?
DS: Yes.
JD: And the time you have on July 4, 2019 Sibley progressed chart is the same time as the Sibley natal chart – 5:10 P.M.?
DS: The 5:10 P.M. time in 2019 is Local Mean Time – as is the ‘natal’ Sibley chart.
JD: Okay, good. Well, I have the July 4, 2019 4:47 progressed chart, using 4:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight time for the 2019 date. In the 4:47 progressed chart, just like the Sibley progressed chart, Chiron has now moved to the 8th house and Mars is in opposition from the 2nd house. DS: Okay.
JD: Besides the movement of the placements –
DS: Which placements?
JD: Ascendant, descendant, midheaven, nadir, Part of Fortune, Vertex.
DS: Okay.
JD: The main difference that I see is an interception across Sagittarius and Gemini across the 4th and 10th houses in the U.S.A. Progressed 4:47 P.M. Chart whereas the U.S.A. Progressed Sibley Chart does not contain such in interception. That interception would involve a crisis with the media and the international media which would need to be resolved between July 4, 2019 and July 4, 2020.
DS: We can always argue about that later. Let’s get back to COVID-19.
JD: One more thing. I also ran both progressed charts for 2020.
The main difference that I saw between the U.S.A. Progressed 4:47 P.M. Chart and the U.S.A. Progressed Sibley Chart is the same: The interception across Sagittarius and Gemini across the 4th and 10th houses in the U.S.A. Progressed 4:47 P.M. That interception involves the same crisis. In reality, because it is the same interception, the same crisis simply continues. We can disregard the interceptions in this context.
I see two significant changes between the 2019 progressed charts:
First, Venus at 29 Aries, which squared Pluto at 29 Aries, in both 2019 charts, entered Taurus in both 2020 charts.
Second, the Moon in Capricorn moved from 12 degrees Capricorn in both 2019 charts to 25 degrees Capricorn, conjunct the secondary progressed South Node in Capricorn, in both 2020 charts. The Moon alone makes July 4, 2020 to July 4, 2021 a very negative timeframe for the U.S.A.
DS: Moon conjunct the South Node? That can’t be good. And Moon’s ruler Cancer is on the cusp of the U.S. Sibley and 4:47 8th.
But your observation about Venus changing signs is huge. Taurus is about resources, basic food supply and survival. I went to the pharmacy the other day (with my mask on, of course) and was struck by how empty the shelves were.
JD: I also think Venus at 29 degree Aries until July 4, 2020 is also very important.
I really don’t like Cancer in the 8th house. Fast track to skid row.
DS: Further, right about now, transiting Pluto resides around 25 degrees Capricorn opposite the Sibley and 4:47 Natal U.S.A. Mercury at 24 Cancer 11. Transiting Retrograde Pluto will continue to oppose this U.S.A. Progressed Mercury until it stations from Retrograde to Direct Motion on October 3, 2020. Expect more news (natal Mercury) of death (transiting Pluto) – but perhaps forced transformation (Pluto) of schools (Mercury), too. Hopefully not death in schools.
JD: Who knows what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might or might not do?
But interesting observation on the forced transformation of schools. My sister and brother-in-law both teach in New Jersey, and recently conducted classes in Zoom. I mentioned to my sister that she should write, and my brother-in-law should write, articles on their experiences and post them on their Facebook pages.
DS: I think so! Somebody would be bound to see it.
JD: Zoom might become a much more prevalent tool than anticipated.
DS: Absolutely. And, given that Aquarius rules, among other things, computers and, of course, lack of intimacy, we may have discovered that the regularizing of Zoom in our social interactions will be one facet of the New Age inaugurated by Jupiter conjunct Saturn in Aquarius at the end of December.
JD: Zoom could be big in our future.
One last quick question.
DS: Okay.
JD: In the U.S.A. Progressed Sibley and the U.S.A. Progressed 4:47 charts, Retrograde Jupiter in Cancer in the 11th house lies within three degrees of the Retrograde Mars/Chiron opposition. Do you find this significant?
DS: Yes. Because Jupiter rules the Sibley and the 4:47 Ascendants, anything Jupiter does is significant for that reason alone. This means that the ruler of the natal Ascendant is weak. Or, the progressed chart as a whole has Sagittarius on the 4th house cusp, the IC, the foundation. That point too is weakened. Mars and Chiron have been in a T-square with Jupiter for some time now.
Now, in any T-square, three planets take up three corners, and the fourth corner remains empty. Traditionally, the empty corner in the T-square represents the point of resolution. Retrograde Jupiter in Cancer resides in the 11th. The resolution to this lies in Capricorn in the 5th, directly opposite Retrograde Jupiter in Cancer in the 11th, The 11th, amongst other things represents groups.
JD: And Cancer, amongst other things, represents alcohol and bars.
DS: Cancer is bars? I think of Cancer as mother, family, home, and emotions. For bars, I look to Neptune and Bacchus and Poseidon and Dionysus.
JD: Fifth house of Cancer is Scorpio. Alcohol represents a drug Cancer thinks it is allowed to have.
DS: But, if you’ve brought your family to a bar for a rowdy old party, then OK, Cancer.
JD: I’m single, remember? I don’t drink with my family. They love Mexican restaurants which serve strong margaritas. Especially my mom and my sisters. I drink alone.
DS: Anyway, the 5th represents the individual. Therefore, while Mars opposes Chiron by progression, Americans should stay away from groups! Actually, it looks like this is exactly what COVID is forcing them to do.
JD: Never thought about the 5th house as “individual.” Always thought it represented desire. What one wants. Climb a mountain! Star in a homemade video! Paint a masterpiece!
DS: I see desire as a Plutonian, 8th house concept. One step short of lust. The 11th is groups, and its polarity point, the 5th, is aligned in meaning with the Sun, the ego, and, of course affairs of the heart and children and creative projects. You rely upon others if you have an 11th house placement. You create your own destiny in the 5th. All I’m saying is, as they pursue whatever it is they want to pursue from a creative perspective, Americans should stay away from groups whether they are drinking in the bar or not!
JD: Okay, no groups, no drinking. Back to quarantine! Masks on.
Contact Diana Shaw or John Delaney at delaneyastroscope@delaneyastroscope.com.