by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
When you go to school, you learn about a subject in incremental lessons. In order to evaluate your comprehension, there are periodic tests. Life seems to be that way as well, whether you are an individual, a corporation or a country. Rarely are we completely prepared for jobs or experiences that launch us into a new learning paradigm or curve. Sometimes we struggle a bit as our “knowns” are challenged and new skills are developed. But when we persevere and give ourselves a chance to find our new footing, we succeed. Sometimes we find ourselves over our heads and the Peter Principle comes to mind: we rise to the level of our own incompetence. It does not matter whether you are a new employee, first day on a job in a low-level position, or an incoming president of a corporation or a country. Unless you’ve already held the job, you have a lot to learn and also a lot to which to you must acclimate. This is a heck of a time to discover you have risen to the level of your own incompetence. There is no back-up or do-over. Considering this possibility, in the instance of a country, it would be a wise idea to make a very careful selection as to who is nominated, elected, and eventually inaugurated as our fearless leader.
What happens when you open the door and step inside your new position? Will everything be as you thought it would be? Is what you anticipated waiting for you or is it completely different than presented? Were the basic facts distorted, hidden, untrue? Is it as simple as it seemed or is it more complicated? Is it volatile (in your face right now with no time to get up to speed) or can you take a moment to understand it before you have to decide its fate? If you are accepting the job as the head of your local carwash, that is one level of competency and responsibility. If you are the president of a country and, in our instance, the de facto head of the free world, there is a whole different level of competency and responsibility. Go back to the last sentence of the first paragraph – careful selection is mandatory on the part of the citizenry.
What about those periodic tests mentioned above? How many, how frequently, how vital, how critical, and too many more values to mention are the subject of those tests. For an individual with a limited life span of let’s say eighty years, there will be times when you feel like the target when the tests come fast and furious…and in multiples. At other moments, the testing is a natural progression of growth and development of an individual, reasonably comfortable in experience. For a corporation or a country, which has the potential of living far longer than an individual, those tests enlarge in impact and sheer number and can extend over a much longer period of time. In the instance of our country, the USA, we were 233 years old on the 4th of July, 2009. So far, that is over three times the lifespan of an individual. Lots more lessons, lots more testing. How do we know the overall lesson plan, isolated or specific lessons, and the scheduled tests? Astrology.
The natal positions of any chart give you the general game plan for the life (regardless of whether it is an animal, a human, a corporation or a country) and its overall purpose and direction, strengths, weaknesses, areas to be tested. The natal chart lists the positions (signs and degrees) of sensitivity to that entity and the natural activations that occur because life is cyclical in nature can be timed. Does that mean that the universe selects and enforces our experience and that free will is a myth? Is everything fated? Or does it mean that the universe cycles naturally and normally and we are affected and activated by natural cycles? What we do with each experience requires the use of our free will. What activators does the astrologer turn to? Myriad possibilities exist. Astrologers gravitate towards those techniques and activations that are comfortable and familiar as do most humans. Transits (including lunar phases and eclipses), progressions, directions, solar and planetary returns, diurnals, asteroids, the list goes on and on; I use three, sometimes four. You may use more or less or others. We all have our pet systems, hopefully selected by valid experience.
Most astrologers start with people charting, only a few branch out into mundane or political astrology. This article is about our country. What would a learning curve and a test look like for the USA? A current example might be the Saturn/Uranus opposition (cycle) that repeats itself every 45 years, and which is plaguing our nation and the world at the moment. This is the aspect that pits conformity against change, the past against the future, hope and change against non-productive repetition… habit against realization. We are in the middle of one of those testing periods, so I think we are all paying attention. We can see very clearly that what we have been doing is not working. That is why we, as a citizenry, voted in hope and change, to face the future, and to correct our observable errors. It is very hard to fix something if you are not aware that something is wrong. First we get to recognize it, then we get to fix it, and it can take as long to fix as it did to break. This is the equivalent of a sine wave cycle with equal upper and lower curves. See the logic?
That aspect did not “cause” our problem – we caused our problem. All the universe did was supply the energy to bring the problem to our attention and give us the opposition (awareness) as a tool to learn and to fix what was wrong. It is a 21-month aspect from beginning to end. It started November 4, 2008, Election Day. The 2nd of five passes (yes, five passes) occurred on February 5, 2009, within two weeks of Inauguration Day (January 20th). The 3rd pass occurred September 15, 2009, two weeks ago as I write this article. The 4th pass will be April 26, 2010 and the 5th and final pass will be July 26, 2010. A 21-month transiting lesson and testing of a Saturn opposition Uranus nature that has occurred in our USA Virgo rising chart in our 1st/7th house axis has hit us where we engage in-your-face experience (1st) and alliances (7th), and this dance is taking place conjunct the USA natal Neptune, our spiritual essence and motivation. Does that sound anything like what has been, or is, happening? These patterns have a beginning, a middle and an end. What was initiated has a process and will reach a conclusion.
Our country and what it holds dear are badly in need of repair. The country and its needs called for a fix-it president. We the citizens voted our best choice (majority rules) and a man named Barack Obama was inaugurated. President Obama has done his best to find good people to help him fix things. So far, he has completed less than a year of specific effort. He has already done more than most presidents have done upon entering office. As I recall, there are usually a lot of campaign promises, but very little in the way of delivery, and that is why the American public gets so jaded in its outlook. We do know the difference between most campaign promises and reality and they do not usually match up. President Obama ran on a platform of change. This is not surprising with his Aquarius rising.
As I look around, I do not see anyone else who has the vision, the capability and the courage to do the impossible, which is what we are asking. The current pundits and opponents talk a good game, or throw stones, or play big rock in the middle of the road, or spread fear and panic, but they offer no real solutions that I have seen. After the inauguration, there was a politician with a blue folder holding a blank piece of paper as a solution, as if I, or anyone who understands the nature and metaphor of a blank piece of paper would buy into that.
The solution just can’t be the actions that caused the problem in the first place. When you ask such politicians to verbalize or show their better idea, they do a verbal tap dance much as Richard Gere did in the movie “Chicago”. Go past the entertainment value – the skit was very informative regarding human manipulation. Politicians keep tap dancing verbally, hoping we won’t notice they are not performing in reality. This time, campaign promises are actually being worked on. Surprisingly, several promises have already been kept. What a novel political idea – a promise kept. The pundits and fact-checking organizations are keeping tab. You will never satisfy all of the people all of the time, but there appears to be at least an honest attempt. Right or wrong is always in the eye of the beholder, personal perspective.
At this point it is important to emphasize one point. President Obama has repeatedly stated that he intends to lead by looking forward. Let us not distract the man by making him look back while he walks forward (leading). Try doing that yourself – it just doesn’t work well. There should be a time to right the wrongs. Right now, President Obama’s eye must be on the present as he moves us toward our future.
The astrological research and backup that went into this article and my book will be made available on the www.marilynmuir.net website as quickly as I can get it all loaded.
Published on EZine online October 2009, republished with slight editing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.