MONETARY METAPHYSICS, JANUARY 2009

There are three houses of 'wealth' in any horoscope: the 4th (native house of Cancer), the 8th (native to Scorpio) and the 12th (native house of Pisces).

The 4th house (and Cancer) embraces real estate, 'real' property and the wealth (advantage) which comes with an established family name. The 8th (and Scorpio) symbolizes investment, inheritance, credit, debt (owed or owed to you) and taxes—all of which we might sum up as being transactional wealth. The wealth of the 12th house and Pisces involves all forms of passive income, meaning monies which are generally neither under one's direct control nor worked on actively in a day-to-day manner: royalties, annuities, pensions (etc.).

Whether we look at the chart of a person, corporation, product release, nation—or whatever else—these houses and signs retain their meanings. So if we look at a chart erected for the inauguration scheduled for January 20, 2009 (12 noon) in Washington, DC we should get a picture of the Obama administration, right? Well, almost. Inauguration procedures may start on schedule, but we don't yet know the exact time at which Barack Obama will actually take the oath of office.

Yet even without knowing that, the noon chart is greatly instructive, as it tells us the state of the nation going into this new administration and the attitudes of its citizenry. (To view the Inauguration Chart, click here.)

With Taurus rising and Scorpio on the Descendant, the nation is intensely concerned about debt. With the Ascendant ruler (Venus: attraction, materialism, concrete gains) conjunct Uranus (disruption, change, anarchy, innovation, unpredictability) in Pisces in the 11th house of income and corporations, the business sector is in disarray and the citizenry is in a sort of manic-depression about what to do, or not do. Given the positions of Pisces' rulers (Jupiter and Neptune), jobs are melting away and some will never return, requiring workers to be retrained. The positions of this pairing also strongly indicate activity in the world of business which the people know nothing about, suggesting that a substantial portion of bailout money is being misappropriated through accounting sleight-of-hand and transactions of a highly questionable moral nature.

The process involved here dates back six months. At the beginning of the crisis, business demonstrated a willingness to start behaving for the benefit of the many, rather than the relative few. But one month later, the lack of government regulation (as indicated by the Virgo Saturn in a Leo ruled 5th house) became so tempting (imaged by asteroid Tantalus at 4 Aquarius) that, after seeing handwriting on the wall (which read 'the gravy train is over'), business leaders opted to get what they could while the getting was good, assuaging their collective consciousness with tales of elitist contractual entitlement.  

Unfortunately for the common person, the distance between the Sun at 0 Aquarius and the North Node at 9 Aquarius indicates it will take nine months for the government to begin getting hold of this runaway train, a fact which will neither sit well with the people nor bode well for their personal situations. The citizenry of the United States is hoping that incentives and assistance are in the offing; unfortunately with Pluto conjunct the calculated Lilith in the 8th house, such assistance will be limited (if available at all). Measures instigated by the outgoing Bush administration will force Obama's team to go through undoing a lot of things before the government, banking system and commercial marketplace can be taken in a different direction, and this spells difficulties for the people.

With the Part of Fortune positioned just ahead of Venus in the house of income, the economy (read: personal income) is plainly not favored. Trust in the government is justifiably in question, as the people have seen their government be hoodwinked by (and in collusion with) private concerns, aiding and abetting personal greed on a scale which the people plainly aren't yet sure they know the full extent of. Neither are they sure they want to know the full extent of it.

This unwillingness on the part of the US citizenry is in part a reflection of its own irresponsible consumerism and an insistence on families and lifestyles which bear little relationship to financial responsibility. With the Pluto/Lilith 8th house combination as the secondary ruler of this chart's 29 Scorpio Moon, what is going on now is the karmic manifestation of a greater mechanism meant to teach every generation alive today the need for considering matters beyond those which concern one's personal satisfaction.

But as pictured by the highest figure in this chart (Juno at 29 Capricorn), the people are plainly hoping to still avoid the karmic boomerang by appealing to the new administration for leadership and (at least short-term) solutions to problems. With Juno the figure of a mother protector of hearth, home and family, this chart plainly says that the people want the incoming administration to act as a national parent and get them out of credit/debt jail, while still allowing them to live the lifestyle of their choice.

Because Juno's negative energy draws from the story of a wronged wife, certain basic female psychological precepts apply. The government and its people are married to the morals upon which a nation is founded, and in this marriage, the citizenry is the yin/female/receptive side of the equation. Given that the primary/critical ingredient generally required to trigger female forgiveness is the owning up to what exactly what one did in moral terms (i.e., I did wrong), the Obama administration is really being put in a bind: not only do the people want to be taken by the hand and led from danger, but the citizenry (which in its collective form has a yin/female aspect) also really does want a full disclosure.

The great founding principle that America promises equal justice for all means that the people want their needs taken care of first. With that Moon at 29 degrees of Scorpio, Pluto/Lilith in the 8th house and Mars in Capricorn in the 9th house of justice, the darker emotions among the people also call for indictments, convictions and punishment for those who have perpetrated what amounts to fiduciary treason against the whole of the world. With this Moon in opposition to Pallas, the people know all about legal tricks and don't care about the niceties—they want fiscal blood. In this case the government would do well to recognize that the principle of fairness requires that the first thing one requires of any robber is that they return the stolen goods. In this case that's money, and the people want all the bonuses, bank accounts and mansions of perpetrators seized whether or not it's the letter of the law.

Can this be done? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the people are angry. As imaged by the critical Scorpio Moon and Pluto/Lilith in the 8th house, the fact that the perpetrators of the broken economy are in essence shielded by an outgoing administration seen as guilty of 'prior bad acts' makes the populace something of a tinder keg (Uranian Vulkanis in Cancer at the IC of the chart).

As to their own spending habits, the same Ascendant-Venus-Uranus-Jupiter-Neptune indications which speak so eloquently to matters of executive greed, job outsourcing and the climate of corporate entitlement unfortunately also picture the American public as still in denial about what their future holds. Two months after inauguration, events will unfold which tip the balance towards dissolution of this avoidance. At that point a lot of people are going to have to face the music—and that this date coincides with the projected point at which the Big 3 auto makers (and the UAW) are supposed to have reorganization plans in hand is telling.

Not that what happens then is likely to be confined to the auto makers. Though life isn't going to end, the idealized image of life as some giant party where everyone can afford to care more about private pleasures and personal standards is the thing which is going to fall. This will—after much pain and agony—give the people the level playing field they say they want. That's something to contemplate in the longer term. But first come the basics of housing, food and health care. As pictured by Chiron at 29 Aquarius and Neptune at 23 Aquarius, the people know a very serious wake-up call is in the works; that they will remain hopeful until the storm hits is inevitable and that their faith in themselves and society will carry them through is the proverbial rainbow on a distant horizon. But first will come hard times.

Home prices, which have taken a beating in nearly every market and which are not yet stabilized are another concern of the public and something very much on their mind. Imaged by asteroids Ixion and House at 15 Sagittarius also in the 8th house of this chart, the people have not yet recognized the error of their ways in housing and will not recognize it until they are forgiven and go amuck once again. Pictured by Cancer on the 3rd and 4th house, the ruling factor is the 29 Scorpio Moon, a Moon image which suggests not only tenacity and bull-headedness (meaning people are unlikely to willingly downsize) but that beyond the basics of the housing credit markets, the equity in houses people have been tapping into now comes into question. With Sagittarius on the 8th house of transactional wealth and Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius in the 10th house of governance at 3 Aquarius between the Sun and North Node, the people are tensely waiting for the government to do something—and they're going to have to keep waiting at least until around March-April, when another round of financial examinations are going to force an increasingly chilly does of hard-core clarity into individual minds bent on the coziness of a status quo.

With TNO Quaoar and asteroid Asclepius also conjunct in the 8th, the financial burdens connected to health care are also on the people's docket. While the people hold the doctors as highly culpable in this question, what they want is a new system of health care. And while the people don't care what the changeover will do to private industry, the 10th house elevation of the rulers of the 6th and 12th houses indicate that the people are willing (in theory) to make cutbacks and work with the concepts of preventative health providing they get health care which offers equal access to legal citizens.

Yet plainly the health system itself is in a state where doctors can't practice and patients can't get the health care they need. Pensions and health plans have become burdensome bureaucracies bent on income instead of care-giving and doctors rightly argue that they deserve a proper modicum of compensation for their time and expertise. What constitutes profit thus becomes a conversation the Obama administration will have to take up, particularly when it comes to institutions which have abused the right to make a profit by dancing on the diseases of human beings. With Jupiter in Aquarius, the people understand that what constitutes necessity is a concept they don't like grappling with but have to. Just like everything else, fair has to be fair and this means Americans must get realistic about right to life, fertility, and ultimately, the morality of human mortality.

Linked to this is the subject of illegal immigration, which pits the word 'right' against 'legal.' As pictured by a Capricorn Mars square a Libra Vertex intercepted in the 6th, the people want justice to indeed be justice for all as an American citizen's right. To play tricks with the system is what is wrong with the system from top to bottom, and immigration is just one of several dozen subjects which Americans—sadly, even begrudgingly—know have to be brought back into line. The government has cloaked corporate profitability in the guise of sentimental 'freedom' rhetoric the people plainly see as a hoax, as imaged by the Uranian figure Vulkanis at the IC of this inauguration chart. The people prize their liberty and are willing to demand justice, and though they hate the idea that it's going to disrupt their lives, they get that the country is near a perilous brink. With stellium of Aquarian planets in the 10th house, they are plainly willing to do their part if the government does theirs in an open and honest way.

In the end however, the people know they are also at the behest and mercy of those who lead them—a fact plainly stated in the Moon of this chart being positioned at 29 Scorpio, a position known as 'Void of Course' which states that the issues being held in trust by the Moon go unanswered and thus ultimately come to naught. This tells us that no matter what the people go into this inauguration with, what they get will not be exactly what they expect, hope or anticipate.

FDR's inaugural address, 1933

And what will they get? Well, if Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office before 12:29 pm (EST), the Moon is still Void of Course, telling us that all the wishes, needs and willingness of the people will go through a period of disillusionment and feeling powerless before they reformulate based on issues we don't yet know. If, however, Barack Obama takes the Oath after 12:29 pm, the Moon will have moved into Sagittarius, clearly indicating the inauguration of a new era, one built on precepts of learning and knowing better. The details of that administration will be determined by the exact time he takes the Oath, so watch the clock.

And check in next month, when we'll all know a lot more.   

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