America loves a pure, comely daddy figure as its president. He has to be someone who’s had sex only as many times as he has legitimate, handsome children. He must have two adorable dogs he loves very, very much, and one very cute little kitty cat who is slightly standoffish but ultimately gets along with her canine friends. He must have a beautiful, magnificently poised wife whom he married in a church where he worships the right God. And he must be ready to order the cluster bombing of civilian populations the moment his advisors tell him that’s the right thing to do.
Are we ever going to get past this kind of idiocy, and plant our feet in truth and our hearts in our highest potential? What does the astrology say? The astrology says something. But if we’re not careful, we need to consider revising the elementary school social studies curriculum. To wit, based on recent history, we need to tell kids that we live in a democracy, therefore, whoever gets the fewest votes takes office.
Also, I must mention that I’m writing this article on August 12 (pushing my deadline as usual), and as of this writing, neither of the nominating conventions have happened (though the Republican National Convention begins on the issue date of this magazine, September 1). That chart is somewhat interesting, but it’s nothing compared to the chart for the Democratic National Convention. The DNC chart makes me nervous, though. It reminds me too much of the chart for the September 11 incident, which in turn reminds me of the chart for the earthquake that caused the Asian tsunami.
The problem could be solved by waiting about four hours to begin the convention, allowing the Moon to change signs. You might think this is superstition, but astrology is about understanding the nature of time. You don’t think it’s superstitious if a pilot aims for the runway while landing an airplane. That’s a matter of time as much as it is of space. Plunk a 777 down five seconds too early and you end up on the freeway. Touch down on the runway and everything is great. Astrology is not that different. You use it to navigate actual space-time and, in the process, you access dimensions of meaning and causation. Those are indeed places we need to be poking around in right now.
I have to get technical to explain the DNC chart’s similarities to September 11 and the tsunami, but it’s not so complicated, really. The Moon, a key player in anyone’s astrology (and that of most events), takes one month to go around the Earth. It moves through the sky at a rate of about 12 degrees a day (on average) or one degree every two hours. So the Moon occupies each degree of the zodiac for about two hours a month. Now that you’ve heard the word “degree,” I’m about to introduce you to arc minutes, which are divisions of a single degree by 60 (we need to be that precise in order to appreciate the beauty of this synchronicity). Everybody put on your tinfoil thinking cap.
In the September 11, 2001 chart for the moment Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center, the Moon was at 28 Gemini and 5 arc minutes (abbreviated 28 Gemini 05). When the earthquake struck Indonesia and wiped out a quarter of a million people, the Moon was at 28 Gemini 11. This has boggled my mind for years. In astrology you see a lot of weird coincidences, but not this weird. The Moon was a mere 1/10th of a degree apart for those two global events—two of the most significant events of the 21st century so far, and it’s been quite a little century.
What does this say? I am, by the way, one of the few people willing to blame the tsunami on corporate behavior; specifically, the combination of global warming and air-pressure oil drilling in Tasmania a few days before, which I think set off a knock effect. So in that respect, the tsunami may be a conspiracy akin to September 11; in my view, both are about the oil business.
Looking at the chart for 4pm on Monday, August 25, 2008 in Denver, Colorado, when the DNC opens, we find the Moon at 28 Gemini 38, about half a degree in distance from both September 11 and the tsunami; and, notably, occupying the same degree, 28+ Gemini. This is stunning and ominous. Were we considering the chart for any other campaign, or for a theater performance, it might not be so noticeable, so strange and deserving of so much consideration. But this is a very important election.
Let’s zoom in a little more. In the DNC chart, the corresponding opposite degree in Sagittarius is rising, or the exact ascendant—the way you would say that is 28+ Sagg is rising. This does several things. One, it puts 28+ Gemini (and thus the Moon of all three events) on something called the descendent. The convention begins with the Moon on an exact angle (the western horizon) at the precise moment of moonset. When you place a planet on an exact angle, you crank up its emphasis by quite a lot; name a proportion—fivefold, tenfold, pick a number. It puts it in the cosmic spotlight. And that planet happens to be the September 11 and tsunami Moon, which is now the DNC 2008 Moon.
Next, it puts Pluto precisely in the ascendant—rising to one arc minute of exactitude. Pluto is 28 Sagittarius 33 and the ascendant is 28 Sagittarius 34. Pluto is rising to 1/60th of a degree. This verges on ridiculous and it makes you think they hired an astrologer to do the chart. That’s usually how you get a chart like this. But they probably did not—the convention started at 4pm in 2004 and it’s starting at 4pm in 2008.
The Moon is opposite Pluto to within 1/10th of a degree; its position is 28 Gemini 38 and Pluto is at 28 Sagittarius 33. I have not called up every astrologer I know, but I don’t think too many of them would rate this as a friendly arrangement, even subtracting the whole bizarre September 11/tsunami synch. If I had to describe this chart, it’s like the Democratic National Convention is a loaded gun pointed at itself, and consequently the public. If you had paid me a lot of money and I had venom in my heart, and I brought the full weight of my talent to the question, I could not have chosen a darker chart to commence the 2008 Democratic campaign.
The chart has a few saving graces. First, dark may be exactly what we need. Second is that it’s precise. That does not make it “good” per se, but it does make it a clean work of cosmic engineering. Not to subtract from my saving-grace theme here, but the last chart that came close to being this precise was the September 11 chart. And that chart was certainly “good” for whoever pulled it off. It was, however, more elegant and a little less in your face than the DNC 2008 chart. We, at least, have a clue that we’re dealing with some potent astrology. The September 11 chart is precise, but it’s slippery, just like 9/11 itself.
Next is that the Galactic Core is not only rising in the DNC chart, it’s in the ascendant to within about two degrees. This is the center of our Milky Way galaxy. If there is an astrological stand-in for the highest order of Divine consciousness, we can look for it in the Galactic Core. Whatever is there binds together our magnificent 300 billion-star, spiral-barred galaxy.
Given these facts, we have an occasion to take the highest possible interpretation of the chart. To paraphrase the poet Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t necessarily go into the future with the chart you want; you go with the chart you have. So—let’s go.
We live in dangerous times (which we prefer to zone out and deny), and those times are represented in this chart: reminders of the two enormous global disasters previously mentioned and often forgotten. The Moon opposite Pluto (which feels like a weapon pointed at the public, which happens to be a true fact of our world); a sharply divided public suggested by both the Gemini Moon and Pluto seeming to split it down the middle (let’s see which cool-minded liberals can’t quite bring themselves to vote for a black guy).
We are dealing with a mix of profound potential global threats, all of which seem to push the amazing potential of our era into the shadows. These threats, as we well know, include our perfect train wreck of an environmental crisis; fossil fuels running out; terrorism; false-flag terrorism (fake attacks coming from the inside and/or used for manipulative political purposes, such as September 11), oil men and arms brokers in charge of the government stealing from absolutely everyone, and killing a few people along the way; a stressed-out public that is conditioned to believe lies and to expect the government and corporations to lie; and so on.
Indeed, our moment of history is so precisely reflected in this chart that we could say that whatever or whoever it represents is dealing in reality—and that is Obama’s appeal. He not only speaks in sentences, what he says is worth thinking about. He does not look like his aura is in 151 pieces, rearranged like a bad copy of a Cubist painting. The public (Gemini Moon), divided though it may be, is precisely aligned with and looking straight into the power, the danger, and the sense of what, spiritually, is at stake (Pluto and Galactic Core rising).
To get anything done, that is, for us as a people, a country or a world, we need to confront our moment directly, with a sense of history, particularly recent history. And this chart does not skew the issues. It is shaped like a key that could unlock the incredible paradox of our moment in history, a paradox comprised of monumental problems, the opportunity to apply our technology and our minds toward evolutionary purposes, combined with dinosaurism that is eating away at the integrity of what precious little progress we have been able to make in recent years.
The DNC chart has a feeling of homeopathy—that like cures like. Not conducting ourselves like the people who have made these problems (to which we are all more or less party), but, rather, reflecting the ability to understand and bear witness to the real issues in order to do anything about them.
The Obama campaign, on the surface, is based on hope, but this chart says it’s based on a sober understanding that the human race and in particular the American public need to grow and make some difficult decisions. Part of that difficulty involves confronting people who don’t want the past to end, and who cannot drag themselves forward, and those who are quite literally violent toward any semblance of progress. To make progress, we have to face them, our problems and our own issues, and devise solutions, many or most of which will be spiritual, not political.
There is another dimension to this chart. We have all heard of 2012, and the evolutionary leap purported to be associated with it. This date is represented one way in Mayan astrology, but in the Western zodiac, 2012 takes place precisely on the Sagittarius/Capricorn cusp, where all these planets and the Galactic Core are so precisely aligned—along with the great disasters of our day.
The president we elect now will most likely be the one to serve until 2012 and maybe beyond. Suffice to say, this is a chance to take a leap forward, but it is indeed a chance. Do we have the guts to take it? We shall soon see.
