“The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heartbroken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master.”—Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
It’s now very close to the beginning of my granddaughters’ school year in Austin, Texas, so receiving texts from my son about the school issues he and his wife are facing was no surprise. What did surprise me—what jarred me, more accurately—was his announcement that my granddaughters’ schools would be teaching Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in their Science classes this year. In case you’re not familiar, YEC is the pseudoscientific theory that regards the Protestant Bible as the final, literal “authority” on how old the Earth is and how the lifeforms inhabiting it (including humans) came to be here. According to this theory, the Book of Genesis says all there is to say about creation—and not just of the Earth. Of the Universe.
So, it’s all approximately 6,000 years old and appeared out of nothing (“the Void”) in 6 very intense days, with everyone taking a break to take stock and praise Yahweh for a job well done on the 7th day. According to a somewhat snarky analysis by Chuck Easttom, YEC is:
“…essentially the position that all modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life…but one particular tribe of uneducated, Bronze Aged goat herders got it exactly right.”
Included in the YEC effort, of course, is the aim of suppressing in our schools any facts that might contradict those “Bronze Aged goat herders.” Like Charles Darwin’s monumental studies into the incredibly slow (over hundreds of millions of years) process of evolution—so basically dismissing the facts and evidence painstakingly collected by real scientists for the geological and biological records of this planet and its inhabitants.
A question that has always boggled my mind about so-called “creationism” is why bother to refute something that is so well documented and exhaustively researched and confirmed with physical records? What is so critically at stake for those who insist upon this, frankly, delusional stance?
Authority. Power. The hijacked authority to claim that THEY ALONE have the Truth, despite mountains of evidence that suggest the poetry of the scriptures reflects but falls short of describing the actual development of life in this universe.
Even so, the point is that THEY get to control the Big Story that explains everything there is to explain, not because they really have the truth, but because they (loudly and shamelessly) CLAIM they do. And because they have found ways to exploit our democratic freedoms and to twist our founding ideals as a nation--all so they can impose those beliefs on the rest of us from the cradle to the grave. Virgo Neptune does sit atop our founding Sibly chart (Chart 1 below), after all, tightly square Gemini Mars and trine Capricorn Pluto…where force (violent or otherwise) is needed to promote and protect the privileges of the Few (Nep-120-Plu), our so-called founding ideals of equality and justice for all can be easily “adapted” (twisted and exploited ideologically—Nep-90-Mars).
Which brings us to the overarching peril facing our democracy in these times and more specifically, this election year: Christian Nationalism. Which has nothing to do with religion in general and certainly nothing to do with Jesus and his actual teachings, but as religious leaders speaking at a recent Georgetown Center of Faith & Justice round table entitled “How White Christian Nationalism Threatens Democracy” pointed out, it’s about “…promoting white Christian ethno-culture and its institutionalization in American life.”
 |
| White supremacists gathered at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, NC. |
It’s about “a nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ when the ‘right’ people were in charge and ran everything. It’s about such an exclusionary ideology being “disguised as religion” and about adopting a “crusader” mentality that leans on the symbols and authority claimed by religion to legitimize their aims and ideology. It’s about systematically—and by any means necessary—entrenching white minority rule for all time and avoiding what white supremacists dread is becoming an increasingly “majority-minority” American population.
Bottom line, it’s the “use and abuse of religion” for
ideological purposes and it’s been simmering on the back burner of public
discourse for decades, only moving forward into greater visibility and greater
intensity once the nation had the audacity to elect a black president in
2008—more on that moment under Chart 2 below. Needless to say, this abuse of religion
involves disrespecting and even twisting true religious values and practice. As
Rev. Jim Wallis puts it in his brilliant, courageous new book, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith and Refounding Democracy:
“White Christian nationalists are white first and Christians second, and today right-wing Republicans first and Christians second. Selective theology has always provided the justification for upholding racial and political power—from chattel slavery to the continuing evolution of white supremacy.” [1]
Wallis also points out the so-called “Dominionist” theology at the heart of white Christian nationalist politics:
“As we read on in our Genesis text, we see that all human beings are called to have ‘dominion’ together over God’s creation. The better translation of the word is ‘stewardship,’ which has a very different meaning. But the white Christian nationalists want to bring the word ‘dominion’ back—in the worst sense of the word as control and dominance. What they mean is that some people—white Christian people—are called to have dominion over other peoples, which is a deep distortion and an absolute heresy of the Genesis text. A precursor to white Christian nationalism was actually called ‘dominionist theology.’” [2]
We shouldn’t think for a moment that all this talk about “dominion” is just talk: Christian nationalists have long had an aggressive to-do list for taking this control into their hands, and they have been working hand-in-glove with the Project 2025 framers for that purpose. And, as alluded to earlier, the possibility that the nation could be led by a President-of-Color (POC) once again—this time a woman—can’t help but set off all kinds of alarm bells for their intensely misogynist agenda. Their entire agenda rests upon a “biblical” autocracy preventing any true multiracial democracy, according to Rev. Wallis:
“...strong authoritarian leaders are welcomed as agents of God, appointed to defend against the ‘evil other’ and protect God’s chosen land and people by violent means if necessary. Sound familiar?” ‘[3]
In other words, when Trump recently told an audience of his “lovely Christians” that they only needed to get out the vote for him one more time and everything would be fixed for them after that, he wasn’t kidding.
The astrology
Our entire American history is shot through with this “original sin” of a strict racial hierarchy of social value—some people, by virtue of being God’s “elect” (white, male and especially wealthy) are assigned greater value, and some people (non-white and/or female) are “predestined” to serve the elect, their progress and continued wealth. The less say-so those in this servant class have over their own lives—in other words, the less access they have to a free and fair vote, the better.
Astrologically, our Sibly radix chart (Chart 1 below) tells the story: 8th house Cancer Mercury (disposed by our We the People Aquarius Moon and thus representing our collective Voice) opposes our 2nd house domineering, ruthlessly corporatist Capricorn Pluto (reflecting fundamental core values), setting up the dynamic that has always allowed our “1%” to draw upon and exploit Other People’s Value and co-opt their voice and their human resources (8th house Cancer Mercury).
Importantly for today’s topic, falling t-square that irredeemably oppositional axis of Values and Resources is our 5th house radix Chiron in mid-Aries, a point that has earlier this year been lit up by transiting Chiron’s return to this fiery position.
As you’re probably aware, a common, and at times positive response to the tension of a t-square is to project that tension out into its opposite realm for a sense of balance, healing or resolution: in the case of 5th house Sibly Chiron, that would be into the Sibly 10th, the home of our radix Saturn, ruling Congress and the Rule of Law (so the Justice Department and the Courts). So, each time our Original Wound of a racial hierarchy-based society is triggered more intensely (every 50-51 years, approximately), those types of issues—what we might consider our nation’s “karmic baggage”—tend to surface in our public discourse for yet another try at healing.
For the sake of historical context, what follows are the first exact dates for these Chironic passages thus far:
- May 30, 1825
- May 9, 1874
- June 8, 1923
- June 11, 1973
- April 20, 2024
Significantly, the Sibly chart’s recent Chiron return on April 20, 2024 has been our 6th such return as a nation, so it’s not surprising that we’ve already been witnessing yet another ripping open of the race-based wounds in our body politic with the whole Project 2025 discourse and the relentless racial dog-whistling campaign happening on the GOP “MAGA” side. Countering all that, however, is the lighter side and its amazing embrace of Kamala Harris by the Dems, and by her historic run as the nation’s potential first woman and woman of color as president.
We’re also—thankfully—seeing a strong healing impulse reflected in the support many prominent Republicans have courageously given Harris—many speaking at the DNC Convention this past week, despite all that means for their personal lives. There are times when “Country over Party” should compel us all—and this particular Chiron return is exactly such a time. It is, as Chiron returns always are, a “leaping off point” that will either re-invigorate our national Soul for the decades to come or will clinch our collective demise by putting healing more and more out of reach. As always, with Chiron, it’s up to us to follow our worthy mentors and to do the work of healing and reinvention.
For more thorough coverage of the nation’s history with Chiron returns, see the July 27, 2023 post on that topic here.
Chart 1. U.S. (Sibly) chart, July 4, 1776, 5:10 p.m. LMT, Philadelphia, PA. Source: Ebenezer Sibly, cited and documented by Nicholas Campion, The Book of World Horoscopes, Chart #370, pp. 363-4. All charts are cast by the author on Kepler 8.0 with Tropical Equal Houses, True Node and courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.
I mentioned earlier that the Christian Nationalism that had been simmering on our political back burner for a long time—probably since Reconstruction—only surfaced with more intensity and political impact in 2008, when America surprised itself by electing a young biracial (black father, white mother) senator from Illinois named Barack Obama president.
So, my question here is, what can astrology tell us about this 2008 moment that might help us deal with what’s left of our current presidential election? We know the path between now and November 5th is going to be dreadfully intense, even though the sheer joy generated by the nomination of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz might have left us feeling like a Dems victory in November will be a walk in the park.
The fact is, organizations like Democracy Docket know that the opposition has amassed networks of election challengers—many in positions of local power—who are willing to twist and/or ignore election laws to get what they want this time around. They know their anti-democracy agenda is not going to pass muster with voters, but they simply don’t care what voters have to say because their plan—which many pursue because they think God is on their side—is to overturn democracy and the Constitution as we know it, replacing them with a “biblical autocracy.”
On its own merits, the Trump/Vance ticket might even look easy to defeat, but when the delusions of America being (by definition) a “White Christian nation” are stirred into the political “Kool-Aid” right-wing extremists are peddling this election cycle, there’s no room for complacency.
Significantly, what remains of this election cycle is unfolding during the final 15 months of our current Saturn-Neptune cycle and about 5 months before Neptune finally exits Pisces and makes its first entrance (in our lifetimes) into Aries. This is an ingress we will be watching intently for a number of reasons—much more on that in future posts.
For now, however, let’s consider the most recent roots of the latest Christian Nationalist assault on our democracy in that fated 2008 election, pictured in Chart 2 below.
Chart 2. Election 2008, November 4, 2008, 6:39 a.m. (dawn) ST, Washington, D.C.
Whenever a chart suggests a major turning point in the society in question, it helps to examine the cyclical index numbers for hints about why the planetary cycles involved are pointing to such a transition. This exercise also provides us with important context and helps us to visualize the path we’ve been on between one point in time and today. So, with all this in mind, let’s consider the index numbers for the above chart in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Cyclical index, November 4, 2008.
|
Cycle |
Waxing* |
Waning* |
Cyc. Index total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jupiter-Saturn
|
118 |
|
|
|
Jupiter-Uranus
|
|
-298 |
|
|
Jupiter-Neptune
|
|
-326 |
|
|
Jupiter-Pluto
|
18 |
|
|
|
Saturn-Uranus
|
|
-180 (+.01)** |
|
|
Saturn-Neptune
|
|
-207 |
|
|
Saturn-Pluto
|
|
-260 |
|
|
Uranus-Neptune
|
28 |
|
|
|
Uranus-Pluto
|
80 |
|
|
|
Neptune-Pluto |
52 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sub-totals |
296 |
-1271 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cyclical Index total |
|
|
-975
|
*Cyclical numbers are rounded to the next degree for ease of calculation. ** Planetary oppositions are considered waxing if under 180°and waning if over the same.
If you’ve frequented this site, you’ll know that we arrive at the overall index number by totaling up the positive angular separation numbers of any waxing cycles and setting that total against the negative sum for any waning cycles. In this instance (Table 1 above), we see a balance of five waxing and five waning cycles, but this potentially balanced cyclical “turning point” actually calculates out to a solid negative total of 975.
So, despite the euphoria produced by an Obama victory, an undercurrent of negativity remained that would continue deepening over the course of his two terms in office, as the Jupiter-Saturn cycle tipped over into waning territory in 2010 and the Jupiter-Pluto cycle followed suit in 2014. It was an undercurrent that coincided, of course, with the incredibly tough economic realities Obama inherited from G.W. Bush in 2008 (most notably, a Wall Street-induced recession, housing crisis and the high unemployment that accompanied it all) and with two stubbornly lingering Middle East wars that had begun demoralizing our troops and military families.
Despite victories in the key realms of healthcare coverage, human rights and the environment, the nation seemed weighted down with growing cynicism about the role of government and—in retrospect, we can say—about democracy itself. By the time Trump glided down his golden escalator in June 2015 to vilify Mexicans at our border as rapists and criminals and to proclaim that he, as president, would protect us from that “invasion” where Obama (and the Dems, by extension) wouldn’t, those key Jupiter-Saturn and Jupiter-Pluto cycles pictured in Table 1 above had moved into waning territory, leaving only two cycles involving Jupiter in waxing condition (Jupiter-Uranus and Jupiter-Neptune).
All the cycles that included Saturn (with Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) were waning, reflecting the somewhat dour undercurrent of mistrust of and disappointment with government that plagued public discourse at the time. Little did we know at the time, but this dissatisfaction was beginning to target our Democracy as a viable constitutional system itself.
In practice, these cyclical shifts manifested as the inability to move forward with confidence and power (Jupiter-Pluto and Saturn-Pluto)—in its place was more and more obstructionism, political polarization and heaviness. Tea Party Republicans stubbornly refused to compromise on budget and government funding issues and actually closed the government down for a stretch in 2013. Then there was the killing of a robust Senate bill to reform our immigration system in 2013-14 and in 2016, then Speaker of the House Mitch McConnell refused to let Obama’s Supreme Court pick for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat to be considered by Senate members.
Returning to Chart 1 itself for a moment, we might miss the fact that Pluto—moving direct here in the final degree of Sagittarius—had actually ingressed Capricorn for the first time in January of that year and would re-enter that sign just days after the election. More Saturnian (Capricorn) energies were poised to flood the zone, in other words, suggesting that Big Finance, the fossil fuels industry and the deep-pocketed powers-that-be would be feeling empowered going forward.
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| The Citizens United v. FEC decision was unpopular from day one. |
This played out in technicolor with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, basically removing any obstacles for billionaires and corporations to buy elections out from under the people. And it played out with the rise of more obvious and aggressive Christian Nationalist rhetoric and organizing—felt at the time in reaction to the Obama administration’s support for gay marriage rights, affirmed by the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision in June, 2015, just days after Trump launched his first presidential campaign. Early talk was surfacing about which bathrooms transgender students could use, in what sports competitions they would be allowed and so on, yet the Obama administration stood firm for LGBTQ+ rights, including for those in the military.
And, even though it took until 2022 to overturn the reproductive rights of women in America (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), we shouldn’t overlook the relentless urgency with which the Christian right was pushing its anti-abortion agenda even during the Obama era; the opportunity to shepherd a case through the Supreme Court simply hadn’t presented itself yet, but the moment Trump was elected on the promise that he would overturn abortion rights—he began packing the Court with ultra-conservative justices who would eventually clinch the “deal.” This deal was a deep-pocketed, right-wing, openly religious coup (remember Pluto’s in Capricorn) and Trump’s new justices seemed to revel in the opportunity to roll back 50 years of precedent just because they could. In retrospect, I would argue that this moment (June 24, 2022) marked the tipping point at which our democracy was put on life support.
Notably, the Taurus-Scorpio Nodal axis was transiting t-square a harsh Aquarius Saturn Rx that day [2], reflecting a challenging trend towards authoritarian rule. The only recently launched Jupiter-Neptune cycle in Pisces was still in early New phase; in fact, these two were still conjunct when the Dobbs decision was first leaked in May 2022. On both dates, Jupiter and Neptune together signaled what Dobbs supporters celebrated as an ideological and religious victory.
In light of the growing menace of Project 2025-style Christian Nationalist ambitions, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that the use of religious beliefs to overturn American women’s ability to make health and family decisions for themselves should have been a “hair-on-fire” warning sign for our democracy in general going forward. As we’ve learned since then, this Supreme Court (especially key individuals within it) appears to answer to noone but the deep-pocketed billionaires who finance their vacations and ply them with lavish gifts.
Flashing forward to November 5, 2024
So now that all the Convention balloons have dropped and we’re in the final 70+ days of the this incredibly weighty presidential election, it might be helpful to dwell less on the personal pluses and minuses of the key candidates and to consider the astrological trends that will probably have more to do with who wins anyway. We’ve considered it before, but let’s take another quick look at a chart for the upcoming election with collective trends more in mind.
Chart 3. Election 2024, November 5, 2024, 6:40 a.m. (dawn) ST, Washington, D.C.
Even a cursory glance at this chart confirms that those who warn against taking anything for granted in the current joyful atmosphere around the Harris-Walz ticket probably have their fingers on the “pulse” of this election year. Harris herself has warned that this fight will rapidly devolve into an exercise in going low, very, very low, and she’s probably right. Pluto is shown here in direct motion, but this disguises the fact that it is in post-retrograde shadow phase, from which it will emerge in early February 2025 at 02° Aqu 06’.
We already have good reason to assume that this election will be challenged after the fact, but I have to admit that I’m wondering whether it will take until this February 2025 transition for a new president to take the Oath. Biden was inaugurated in a timely fashion in 2021, but not without a death-dealing battle at the Capitol fought earlier that month by, you got it, many, many Christian Nationalists.
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| A documentary about Christian Nationalism by Stephen Ujacki |
This fact is heavily featured, In fact, in Stephen Ujacki’s 2024 documentary, entitled Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, which says the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol was basically a “Christian Nationalist event.” Looking back, the trappings of right-wing religion—crosses, flags printed over with crosses, and an assortment of Confederate and “Appeal to God” flags—were everywhere that day. According to Ujacki, a majority of people storming the Capitol were motivated by so-called religious duty. As for the danger that we might experience one or more January 6th type events—in D.C. or even in local communities—between now and the election (or in its close aftermath), it’s hard to say, but I wouldn’t count any of these possibilities out. Taurus Uranus Rx does fall in a waxing trine to that shadowy, transitional Pluto discussed above— social unrest and even attempted regime change is entirely plausible in such an atmosphere.
All of this also evokes the Saturn-Neptune cycle as well—a major player in this election chart, being within the final 15° of completing its 1989 Capricorn cycle. Notably, the Saturn Rx/Neptune Rx (midpoint, Pisces) tightly t-squares the Gemini-Sagittarius Jupiter Rx-to-Sagittarius Venus-Pallas opposition in this chart. Midpoints expert Michael Munkasey points to some rather dreary choices for Saturn-Neptune midpoints in politics that sound particularly apt here:
“Thesis: Delusions among the real leadership; long-lived programs which have no real purpose; policies which restrict spies; misusing law officers; inefficient use of capable expert advice; mistaken religious leaders.
Anti-thesis: Leaders deceive about the exercise of control; deficient business practices exposed; respected persons involved in questionable practices; reliable equipment failures; a leader capitulates.” [4]
Especially relevant today are the comments regarding “delusions among the real leadership,” “mistaken religious leaders,” “respected persons involved in questionable practices,” “leaders deceive about the exercise of control,” and “a leader capitulates.” We’ve seen Biden pass the torch to Harris in late July—a laudable gesture, but a capitulation of sorts, too. All while Trump pretends that he’s not all in with the Project 2025 agenda and Vance makes himself less and less useful.
Thankfully, we’ve also seen religious leaders like Russell Moore, Jim Wallis and James Talarico come forward to dispute and condemn the use and abuse of Christianity for nationalistic and authoritarian purposes. We’ve seen GOP figures and leaders come forward to, as they put it, “put Country over Party,” as they endorse the Harris-Walz candidacy.
Bottom line, there’s an increasingly noticeable “shift” in the tone of today’s politics that may just carry our democracy forward, despite the threats that Trump and his Christian Nationalist legions pose. Could it be that the potent Sagittarius Venus-Moon conjunction t-square Pisces Neptune-opposite-Virgo Part of Fortune will stimulate a quest for more of this “Country over Party” idealism? Or that it will continue to support the Harris-Walz “joy” offensive? Time will tell, but joy always “trumps” apocalyptic dread in my book!
Final thoughts
Early in this post we considered the key role that Chiron is
playing in today’s politics, so it’s fitting that we wrap up this topic with
another glance at its renewed calls for us to heal our original Wounds as a
nation. Notice that in Chart 3 above (Election 2024), Chiron is again at
20°+Aries, so tightly
conjunct Sibly Chiron (Chart 1) and perpetuating this healing passage. The sheer significance of this current passage's timing can’t be overstated, of course:
in a matter of a couple months we will have our first viable chance to elect a woman president of the United States—and a
woman of color, at that. I suspect that she may even make a very capable president for us all, but we all have to make up our own minds about her and about how we choose to respond to this critical moment.
The question seems to be: what kind of nation do we want to inhabit going forward? A Christian Nationalist “Utopia” where white males reign supreme and everyone else puts up or shuts up and “never has to vote again?” Or a nation that acknowledges the divine dignity and worth of us all and recognizes with its Rule of Law that yes, we do possess those “inalienable rights” we’ve heard so much about.
Seems like a simple choice to me.
Notes
[1] Wallis, Jim. The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy, St. Martin's Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, p. 23.
[2] Wallis, Ibid., p. 84.
[3] Wallis, Ibid., pp. 23-24.
[4] Michael Munkasey, Midpoints: Unleashing the Power of the Planets, ACS Publications, San Diego, CA, 1991, p. 292.
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Raye Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and retired educator. A graduate of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (U.K.), Raye focuses on mundane, collective-oriented astrology, with a particular interest in current affairs, U.S. history, culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public concerns such as education and health. Her articles on these topics have appeared in several key astrology journals over the years, and she has authored three books on key mundane astrology topics that are currently available on Amazon Kindle. For information about individual chart readings, contact: robertsonraye@gmail.com.
© Raye Robertson 2024. All rights reserved.
