May 2009 Black Hole CAse Study

As the government’s bills mount higher, with no end in sight, it might be instructive to take a look at what our new Chief Executive brings to the fiscal table, galactically speaking.

Every president brings challenges to the office, his personal nativity playing out on an international scale while he heads the administration that represents us. George W. Bush’s Black Hole Mars brought us foreign wars and torture, not only creating huge expenditures, waste and loss of life, but also remaking and perverting our international image—all Black Hole manifestations. Bill Clinton’s combined Mars and Venus, in tandem with both Black Hole and Quasar energies, brought us highly visible (Quasar) sex scandals that absorbed the focus (Black Hole) of the nation for years.

And as the massive increase in governmental spending indicates, Obama’s case is no different. Among other things, Venus indicates financial matters in the chart, and Obama’s natal Venus at 1 Cancer is not only within the event horizon (orb of influence) of the Black Hole at 4 Cancer, it’s also exactly squared the supermassive Black Hole center of Galaxy M-87 at 1 Libra, the largest anomaly of its type of which we are aware, with a mass in excess of 3 billion suns, holding more than 100 subsidiary galaxies in its gravitational thrall. Obama has an innate ability both to attract vast amounts of money, and to accrue huge expenditures. When this personal trait is taken to the national level, it has truly disturbing implications. Add to this the fact that at 1 Cancer, Obama’s Venus conjoins both the USA’s Venus at 3 Cancer and its Jupiter at 5 Cancer (both straddling that 4 Cancer Black Hole), stimulating our collective tendency to overextend ourselves financially and spend too much, and we have a potentially dire situation.

Black Holes function as points of both energy drain and energy attraction, often each in turn. They create an unstable, unpredictable atmosphere, making firm foundations difficult to achieve, and commonly require huge amounts of energy, focus and resources to manage. The singularity, or center, of the Black Hole connects with parallel universes, nonphysical realms where things exist in potential, and act as cosmic conduits to birth these into our reality. Thus they are often active when record-breaking events occur, as establishing a new status quo or benchmark to be equaled or surpassed.

The positive, acquisitive side of Obama’s Black Hole Venus was well in evidence in last year’s never-ending election season. Long-shot Obama came out of the gate with an astounding $25 million raised for his presidential campaign in the first quarter of 2007, when he formally announced his candidacy. This total was just $1 million behind apparent frontrunner Hillary Clinton for the same period, and should have been a wake-up call for her campaign. Instead, they hit the snooze button until nine months later when Obama took Iowa.

The Illinois senator went on to raise an unprecedented $410 million in the primary season, then $335 million more for the general election, an astounding, record-smashing total of $745 million, garnered mostly from small donors, contributions of $100 and under. Compare this staggering amount to the 2004 election, where George W. Bush and John Kerry combined raised only $650 million! As is often the case with Black Hole Venus, income and expenses almost balance. After the rigorous expenditure of the 21-month campaign and a $170 million TV ad blitz in its last two months, Obama successfully retired from the field with a mere $30 million surplus, less than 5% of the total raised.

The flip side of this equation is less attractive. Within seven weeks of his inauguration, Obama had approved almost $1.2 trillion in emergency and stopgap spending, and proposed a 2010 fiscal budget of $3.5 trillion, a new record. Not only does Obama himself own a Black Hole Venus, so does his administration, born by constitutional fiat at noon on January 20, 2009.

Venus in this chart at 17 Pisces is squared the Black Hole at 18 Sagittarius, reiterating the fiscal issues of the president. Further, Venus also conjoins Uranus at 19 Pisces, indicating galactic-sized “sticker shock” and controversial, possibly erratic, but definitely forward-thinking economic policies. The administration’s Venus also opposes Saturn at 21 Virgo retrograde, suggestive of tough financial times ahead, and a need to get serious about money (Obama’s proposed fix of the Pentagon’s procurement protocols is a much-needed step in this direction). Not to be outdone, Pluto, which has affinities with both vast wealth and the shared resources of the Eighth House, which it co-rules, lies at 1 Capricorn in the chart for the administration, exactly opposed Obama’s natal Venus, and bringing out a Galactic T-Square with an exact square to the 1 Libra Black Hole.

In Obama’s natal chart, the Black Hole at 1 Libra which Venus squares falls in the Eighth House of unearned income and shared resources, appropriate for both the campaign contributions, which cannot be said to have been “earned” in any normal sense, and for government spending, which by definition concerns resources shared in common by all of us.

On Friday the 13th of February, the Senate passed the 1,073-page “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” which attempts to disburse some $787 billion in federal funds to buy our way out of the economic downturn which has gripped the nation. The bill passed both Houses on highly partisan lines, with a vote of 246-183 in the House of Representatives, garnering no GOP support whatsoever. A sprinkling of 3 Republican senators contributed to the narrow margin of 60-38 in the Senate, the filibuster-proof 60 votes only acquired after extending the floor vote a precedent-breaking 5 hours and 17 minutes, allowing Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to fly back from attending his mother’s funeral to cast the deciding ballot.

This occurred at 10:47 PM EST, providing a chart with Black Holes at three of four angles (excluding the IC), and a loaded Fourth House, denoting an emphasis on foundational matters. Venus at 8 Aries is exactly squared the Quasar at 8 Cancer, an anomaly noted for providing a high profile and enhanced visibility, and often resulting in an inflated or magnified result. Venus is also trine Black Holes at 9 Leo and 10 Sagittarius, forming a Galactic Grand Trine which reinforces the huge financial outlays.  Jupiter, another indicator of Big Money, is sextile Venus and exactly opposes the 9 Leo Black Hole from 9 Aquarius, forming a Kite from the basic pattern, focused on expansion, increase and excess.

When the proposed $3.5 trillion federal budget for fiscal 2010 was released on February 26, 2009, the Sun and Venus opposed Black Holes, with Jupiter exactly conjoined a third. This figure builds on the previous high-water mark of the Bush administration, which for 2009 proposed a budget totaling $3.1 trillion. But that budget was never passed in its entirety, and funding for most of the government’s departments was only secured through the first half of the fiscal year, until March 31 of this year.

Enter the Omnibus Appropriations Act, a supplemental spending bill passed by the Senate on March 10, 2009, which provides an additional $410 billion to carry government through the balance of the fiscal year, until September 30. Please note that this sum does not include any funding for the Department of Defense, by far the most costly division, nor for Homeland Security, which comes in second in overall expenditures. Nor does it include the costs of the Iraq War, which are always computed “off budget” with accounting gimmicks, and merely added directly to the national debt. When the Senate passed this bill at 7:09 PM EDT, Venus at 15 Aries was still at its retrograde station degree, exactly opposing the Quasar at 15 Libra. With Jupiter at 14 Aquarius, itself conjoined a Black Hole at 13, Venus formed a Yod with an exact Moon/Saturn conjunction at 18 Virgo, indicating the financial (Venus/Jupiter) pinch (Saturn) for the American people (Moon).

This expenditure may be necessary; it may even perform the intended outcome, and provide economic relief for the country. But it adds considerably to the already staggering $11 trillion national debt, much of it owned by actual or potential global competitors like China. And someday, somehow, it will have to be repaid.

Obama’s Black Hole Venus manifests in a variety of other ways as well. Venus also rules values, desires, romantic and intimate relationships, and women in general. Women have always played a major role in Obama’s life; his father abandoned the family when Obama was just two, leaving his mother as the responsible parent. She in turn did her own Black Hole fade eight years later, leaving Barack in the care of his grandparents from age 10. His American grandmother became a leading light in Obama’s life, supporting and guiding him until her death just days before the 2008 election. Michelle, too, fits the profile of a strong, independent woman such as Black Hole Venus can manifest, and the domestic environment is dominated by females; with the addition of their daughters Malia and Sasha, Obama is seriously outnumbered at home. Black Hole Venus can produce widely disparate manifestations in relationships. Often long-term union is difficult to achieve, and the native careens from one partner to the next in unpredictable and erratic fashion. But the combination can also result in union with a soul mate, someone to whom the native is inextricably bound. While it’s very difficult to assess any relationship from the outside, Michelle and Barack Obama’s seems to be closer to the latter variety than the former.

But it is in the realm of values where Venus’ Black Hole affiliations were most strongly seen in the issues raised in the campaign itself, issues which at one point threatened to derail his candidacy. Obama’s difference, his virtual alien-ness, became an issue—just who was he, and what was he about? Past associations with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and current associations with pastor Jeremiah Wright were dissected and analyzed in an attempt to determine where Obama’s true loyalties lay.

Of the two, Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright was the more controversial, as the candidate had spent 20 years in Wright’s congregation. When clips surfaced on YouTube of Obama’s pastor declaiming, “God Damn America!” and accusing the government of spreading AIDS in the black community, serious doubts began to be expressed about both Obama’s spiritual mindset and his political opinions. The furor erupted over the period from early March to late April 2008, just as transit Pluto came to form its retrograde station at 1 Capricorn, in exact opposition to Obama’s natal Venus and squaring the 1 Libra Black Hole, calling into question his values, and probing beneath the apparent surface reality to reveal the hidden truths beneath. Obama’s response was deft, the candidate crafting a well-received speech on race relations the likes of which hadn’t been seen in this country for 40 years, and eventually denouncing his pastor’s views and withdrawing the family’s membership in Wright’s church. But Black Hole Venus had opened that window into the alternate reality of Obama’s otherness, adding a sense of being currently out of the religious mainstream to prior concerns regarding his half-Muslim parentage and early education in Malaysian public schools, where Islam was taught.

Further incidents marred this period—bowling (badly) in Altoona, Pennsylvania didn’t negate Obama’s caustic comments about the “bitterness” of rural American voters “clinging” to guns and religion, at a fundraiser in San Francisco that same month. Once again, Obama’s values became the issue. Was he the latte-swilling, arugula-munching, professorial liberal elitist with the Ivy League education, or the lower middle class, up-by-his-bootstraps, hard-working community organizer from the single-parent family that had been on food stamps? Preconceived notions and prejudices largely determined which side of the Obama fence you came down on, but the disconnect between these disparate views of the values that formed him resonated throughout the spring and into the early summer, creating a voter backlash that saw Hillary Clinton sweeping several important blue collar Democratic strongholds at the end of the primary season, despite a numerical superiority which all but guaranteed Obama’s ultimate victory. People were spooked by the revelations, and wary of a display of solidarity with the working class belied by the glimpse into Obama’s potentially radical, elitist values.

Ironically, in the final analysis, it was Black Hole Venus that assured his campaign’s success, after providing the most serious stumbling block Obama had to negotiate. Buoyed by the incredible fundraising windfall it supplied, his message of change reinforced by the looming financial crisis it obligingly furnished that autumn, (which distracted voters from more personal, values-based Venusian concerns), Obama’s Black Hole Venus was largely responsible for sweeping him into the White House. Once there, it wasted no time in racking up huge expenditures and debt, perhaps just the tip of the fiscal iceberg the administration seems to be steering the ship of state toward.

How will it all turn out? Black Hole Venus provides a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting panorama of potential outcomes and future realities, and predicting which manifestation pops up when Fortune spins her wheel is a fool’s errand. But wherever this nation is headed, Obama’s Venus will have a lot to say about it.

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