Where is the US as a nation headed as we approach the year 2012, a presidential election year and one long designated as signaling the end of the world as we know it? An astrological examination of the travels and travails of asteroid America (#916), may give us some clues.
In general, the times are trying, to say the least. This is borne out astrologically by asteroid America’s chosen traveling companions, asteroids Agita and Pandora, which have been running neck-and-neck with America during 2011 and will be within ten degrees of the heavenly body representing the US throughout most of 2012, until Agita finally forges ahead in August. As Main Belt asteroids with similar orbital periods, America and Agita have been conjoined since mid-2010. They made their only exact conjunction on October 27, 2010, just before the mid-term elections which swept Republicans back into a majority in the US House of Representatives, dividing the government and leading directly to the current political stagnation.
Asteroid Agita (#4392), while technically named for Agita Tarasova, a relatively obscure science worker and computer programmer at the Astronomical Observatory of the Latvian University, also works both for the medical definition of the term (basically, heartburn), and for its more colloquial usage as general upset, turmoil, agitation and anxiety. Bring the Agita and America together, as they will be for over two years in the sky, and you have a recipe for a disgruntled, stressed-out, anxious US population, with a strong, if undefinable, gut feeling that things are just not right.
And representing all those ills, real and imagined, is America’s other current celestial bedfellow, asteroid Pandora. Certainly, as housing prices continue to fall, as unemployment rises, as the stock market reacts with volatility to every nudge and impulse of the global economy, as new records for weather-related disaster are being set across the nation, and as political gridlock settles into becoming Washington’s “new normal,” Americans have a right to feel that all the evils of Pandora’s infamous box have been unleashed upon them. Pandora has been traveling with America, focusing the nation on its plethora of troubles, since March 2011, and will continue to release its barrage of body blows through December 2012. Their only exact conjunction during this period was July 15, 2011, as the debt ceiling debacle began to heat up, exposing the political impasse between the President and the GOP, so effective in ensuring that absolutely nothing whatsoever is accomplished in Washington.
Agita and Pandora have a somewhat inimical role to play in the US birth chart as well. With Agita at 24 Cancer natally, exactly conjunct the USA natal Mercury, the US population can be easily agitated, and the media can form a useful ally in this process. News, opinion and discourse (all Mercury) create a natural national response of unease and apprehension (Agita).
The punditry (Mercury) has a built-in affinity for agitation, whipping up popular sentiment and anxiety (Agita) with this combination, all the moreso as it opposes the nation’s 27 Capricorn Pluto, conjuring images of secret, hidden threats, conspiracies and enemies, and aiding and abetting manipulation and control of the populace, (represented by the US Moon at 26 Aquarius, tightly inconjunct Mercury/Agita). That Moon is also exactly squared by the US natal asteroid Pandora at 26 Taurus, which is semisquare the US natal Sun at 13 Cancer, indicating that the nation, in its populace (Moon) and at its essential core (Sun), is prone to besetting by a legion of troubles (Pandora), all of which feeds the national propensity to fevered agitation and mental stress (Mercury/Agita, in sextile to Pandora).
Asteroid America’s 2012 passage is problematic, to say the least. The year kicks off with America conjunct the Black Hole at 13 Libra, indicating sudden, major change, the waste of resources and loss of self-motivation and self-determination, which, just to drive the point home, is also exactly squared to the US natal Sun at 13 Cancer, providing a double-whammy of celestial impingement upon the US’ self-image. This initial passage (30 December 2011 through 3 January 2012) is repeated due to retrogradation, returning in exact aspect March 7 through 10, 2012, and August 5 through 7. These are periods rife with danger for the US, exposed to a high level of instability, turmoil and potential devastation, with much energy and focus expended to very little gain, and a sense of overwhelming force or threat pointed like a knife blade at the nation’s throat.
No sooner has this elapsed than asteroid America comes to conjoin the USA natal Saturn at 14 Libra, appropriately focusing the country on its chief executive. As this all-important election year progresses, transit America will conjoin the US Saturn three times during 2012 (effective dates 1/4-1/9, 3/1-3/6 and 8/8-8/10), reinforcing the choice Americans must make. Traveling in the wake of transit Saturn, itself fresh from its return to its natal degree in the US chart—a period of coming to terms with reality, facing up to challenges and learning from the prior cycle so as to move with confidence and maturity into the future—transit America will eventually overtake this celestial body which rules governmental structures and heads of state.
On 17 September 2012, America comes to exactly conjoin Saturn in the sky, marking a turning point in the nation’s relationship with its president. This conjunction occurs exactly atop the USA’s natal asteroid America at 27 Libra, exactly opposed the Black Hole at 27 Aries, and exactly squared the USA natal Pluto at 27 Capricorn. It also closely trines the USA natal Moon ( its populace) at 26 Aquarius, and squares the USA Mercury/Agita at 24 Cancer.
The opposition to a Black Hole, and the Grand Cross created by Pluto/Mercury/Agita, argue for change in the occupancy of the Oval Office, something radical, something unexpected, something resulting in dramatic reversal (all Black Hole) in the corridors of power (Pluto), but also something representing a mood of self-empowerment (also Pluto), borne from the nation’s (America) upcoming presidential (Saturn) decision (Mercury), made by the restless, fearful, anxiety-ridden (all Agita) American people (Moon), albeit a decision which may result in catastrophic self-destruction, from which comes rebirth (both Pluto, in its guise as the phoenix).
America continues its galactic journeys with heavy activation in the autumn, as the presidential race heats up to fever pitch. Just at Labor Day 2012, the unofficial kick-off of the campaign season, America conjoins the Black Hole at 22 Libra (9/2-9/3). Watch for volatility in the polls, with wild swings between the candidates, something which repeats later that month as America crosses the Black Hole at 29 Libra (9/21-9/22). First one contender has the upper hand, then the other, advantage shifts rapidly, and no one’s lead can be considered secure. The week of September 3 also coincides with the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC, suggesting that Obama may find his candidacy hampered, his message trapped within the gravitational confines of the Black Hole, unable to reach voters, his energies directed outward to no purpose.
A brief moment of clarity as America conjoins the Quasar at 5 Scorpio on October 6 through 8 may give us a glimpse of the eventual outcome, but destabilization sets in again with yet another Black Hole conjunction as America crosses the deep space anomaly at 7 Scorpio on October 11 and 12. A final media blitz is augured by asteroid America’s passage of the Pulsar at 15 Scorpio, a stellar remnant noted for its connection with information and data, the press and news, from October 31 through November 2, on the eve of the November 6 election.
America’s placement on Election Day is highly significant, and may be fraught with prescient meaning for the administration to come. At 17 Scorpio, America taps strongly into the day, in conjunction with the Sun at 14 Scorpio and still linked with Pandora at 12 Scorpio. It’s a day which has the potential to dramatically alter our destiny, as seen in the opposition to one Black Hole at 16 Taurus, and an exact square to another at 17 Aquarius, forming a Galactic T-Square. America is also semisquare to two more Black Holes (and on the midpoint between them), the supermassive Black Hole center of Galaxy M-87 at 1 Libra, the largest anomaly of its type of which we are aware, and the Black Hole at 3 Capricorn. So much transformative, destructive Black Hole energy directed at the asteroid representing the US is an indication of pervasive change on the way, a watershed moment which alchemically implodes all that has gone before, birthing a new entity from within the crucible of the Black Hole.
Asteroid America on Election Day is also squared Damocles at 18 Aquarius, the doom hanging unheeded overhead, while sesquiquadrate Uranus at 5 Aries, representing shocking disruption and revolutionary change, as well as semisquare to asteroids Sisyphus at 2 Libra and Nemesis at 1 Capricorn. Sisyphus suggests that whatever we do, we’re stuck in the mire we’re currently in, with no hope of progress or advancement, doomed to an endless, eternal struggle with inertia. Nemesis indicates a karmic comeuppance, the wreaking of a vengeance oft-deferred, a final reckoning for past misdeeds.
With these kinds of contacts, it may not much matter who Americans choose to lead them for the ensuing four years. Our future is a direct reflection of our past, and if 2012 doesn’t see the end of the world, we may well wish it had.
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