TO UNDERSTAND what's going on in the United States now, we need to begin with some old news, which is not really so old and still pretty interesting news. The day that George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were supposedly re-elected, Nov. 2, 2004, the progressed Sun of America's birthday chart changed signs from Aquarius to Pisces.

A progressed sign change of the Sun happens about once every 10,956 days (including in personal charts), and not only did it happen near a national election, which would have been interesting enough on its own, it occurred exactly ON a rather deeply significant election day -- a synchronicity so glaring I advise even insufferable, hardcore muggles to take note. America changed last Nov. 2, and a long, new era of history began.

A very fishy era. For the prior thirty years, the political and corporate structures were able to clank and clang and tinker and synthesize their way through Aquarius, a sign which lends itself fairly well to control apparatus, dramas and efforts, easily cloaked under the guise of run-o-the-mill technology, propriety and official business. The Internet was created, elections became things you hack, not win, and the media became a robot.

Then one day, Nov. 2, 2004, El Sol went into Pisces, a slippery, misty, mystical and mysterious energy that will even betray liars if they are not good at what they do -- and presently, we really do live in the Age of the Shitty Liar.

For them, the worst part of it is that nobody warned the poor administration that the Sun changed signs. Or, their fabled astrologer, who I say is out to get them, left the information out of the reading. Also, because Neptune has become such a prominent planet in all world charts, there is a corresponding increase in Pisces qualities in the world and this means we need to be looking out for them, but also using them well.

This sign has the power to change things, kind of like water melts salt. We just had better hope that the real foundations of the Republic are made of something besides sodium chloride.


The Sibley Chart

The USA chart in question, which just had this progression, is that for the Declaration of Independence, called the Sibley Chart: July 4, 1776. While the chart is apocryphal -- the data was scribbled in an old Raphael's Ephemeris contemporary with the event, but worse yet, the event itself seems to have taken place between July 2 and August 2 -- this is a chart that works, right down to the minute, as we can see from a progression like this or, for example, the precision with which the Sept. 11 incident aspected the angles.

Here is the progressed chart showing the Sun in Pisces.

But the chart is nothing compared to the Declaration of Independence itself. If I were the White House astrologer, I would recommend that all copies of this document immediately be shredded and given to the national gerbils. But since I am not, I will offer you this quote. I have added paragraph breaks for clarity.

May I ask you to read that a few times?  That is, if you're not concerned that the government is monitoring your Internet usage and is going to notice that you're reading seditious materials.

When we talk about "America's birthday," and light firecrackers, watch huge flags flying from military helicopters, stand up for the Star Spangled Banner played by Jimi Hendrix, and then have a barbecue, we're celebrating the anniversary of this statement, written by Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas stated clearly the position that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It follows that the horoscope for this document, the Sibley Chart, traces the progression of these ideals and that independence, which constitute the warrant for our national mission, and make the basis of the people's agreement with the United States government. Given that, we might want to consider what the implications of the Sun going into progressed Pisces are.

Pisces is the sign of All Things Must Pass (thank God we can count on something), and it's also the sign of Before the Beginning. It is the sign of the highest visions. Hollywood has co-opted it into mediocre visions, but those visions have power. There is a quality of things dissolving in Pisces, and yet an idealism so strong that most things in this world would be impossible without a serious dose of this energy. In the process of the old going away and the new being envisioned and born, Pisces is an energy that facilitates both.

In traditional astrology, the Sun is the planet significating the president or the king, who is the primary representative of the nation. So one way to look at this change is that the influence affecting the Bush administration has shifted into Pisces, where it may find it quite difficult to keep a grip. Pisces is not an easy energy to manage; not everybody can swim and not all swimmers can surf or scuba dive and not all water is friendly and not everyone respects the waves.

The progressed Sun makes some interesting patterns in this chart. For example, it changed from Capricorn to Aquarius shortly after the resignation of Richard M. Nixon and the end of the Vietnam War; the exact date is the spring equinox of 1975.

This is to say, the entire post-Nixon era in US history has been under the influence of the Sun in Aquarius, straight up to last November's "election." For the past 30 years, the Sibley Chart's progressed Sun has been in Aquarius, a sign that is much better suited to control, technological power, organization and order.

And this is precisely what we saw dawn on America between the late 70s and the early 21st century: a police state that was merged with the technology infrastructure to an extent that is just beginning to come to the surface now. Cameras, cameras everywhere. The NSA recording phone calls and cataloging emails by the millions. If you mumble it, it gets into Google.

At the same time, thanks to the hyperdrive American marketplace, technology has been put in the hands of the people like never before -- and that represents a serious, true and real power base for authentic democracy, perhaps the greatest in history. The computer I am typing on would make John Nash drool, and I bought it in a store down the block.

Looking at a couple of other solar progressions in recent history, we see that America fought WW II with its progressed Sun in idealistic and visionary Sagittarius, right up through the liberation of the German death camps in May of 1945. This Sagittarian vision is the America that we remember; the America of "My country right or wrong" and geezers who tearfully salute the flag on Veteran's Day. Yet with the Sun void-of-course in Sagittarius, that vision went insane and the United States dropped the bomb on Japan -- not once, but twice. Emphasis, I guess. Look, we really are nuts. Don't mess with us.

The progressed Sun in Capricorn lasted from right after The Bomb in late 1945 through the spring equinox of 1975. We lived through an extremely paranoid era known for McCarthyism and the Committee on Un-American Activities, the Red Scare, the Cold War, the nuclear arms race and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, which lasted straight through to the end of the Nixon administration.

Then the Sun progressed into Aquarius during the transitional Ford administration, and Jimmy Carter was the first president elected under the influence of Aquarius. But that moment of Aquarian idealism did not last for long. America became a technocracy.

Now America is a fishy place. It is a different era. You can just smell it; you can just tell.


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Here that whole story again, in forward order, so you can follow it.

1915-1945: Progressed Sun in Sagittarius

-- American intervenes in World War I and "wins"
-- Stock market Crash
-- Great Depression
-- Rise of Nazis, supported by American corporations including ITT, Dow Chemical, IBM and others
-- America enters World War II and "wins"
-- America drops atom bomb on Japan twice, end of era

1946-1975: Progressed Sun in Capricorn

-- Stalinist Russia takes over where Hitler left off
-- Cold War
-- Nuclear arms race
-- McCarthyism, Red Scare
-- Korean War
-- Vietnam War
-- Watergate, Nixon resignation, end of era

1975-2004: Progressed Sun in Aquarius


-- Jimmy Carter elected; nice guy responsible for atrocities such as East Timor and covert wars in Central America
-- PC goes on market, technology proliferating like mad
-- Iranian hostages taken, Bush-Reagan administration cuts arms for hostages deal to win election
-- US sponsored Contra war in Nicaragua
-- Iran-Contra scandal (incorporating prior two)
-- Clinton impeachment
-- Bush War I
-- Bush steals election
-- Sept. 11, 2001
-- Afghanistan War begins
-- Bush War II begins
-- Eve of 2004 election - end of era

2004-2034: Progressed Sun in Pisces

-- Bush approval rating plummets
-- Iraq going very badly
-- Scooter Libby indicted in connection with lies about Iraq war
-- Spying on Americans scandal emerges
-- Jack Abramoff, a Pisces, pleads guilty
-- Prediction: Dick Cheney implicated in Abramoff affair
-- Something goes pop in Washington, DC around March 29.

And the fun begins.