by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
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I have to laugh at the comments of the politicians and the pundits who are concerned that President Obama is taking on too much. He is damned that he tries to do too much and damned that he is not doing enough…the man could get whiplash. Thank goodness he ignores them all and does it his way. Can you imagine what would happen if the president could not handle more than one thing at a time? That must include big things. Let’s see, this president has a couple of wars, some maverick countries trying to develop nuclear bombs, a world economy disaster, health care about to break the bank, the list is enormous. What is supposed to be put on the back burner to wait its turn? Do you think that those who want to be first in line will slink back to the end of the line quietly?
ALL the presidents had to multi-task! A President with a one-track mind would be a disaster. Lincoln was a multi-tasker. Did you know that President Lincoln managed to avoid another war with Great Britain shortly after he took office? He was in office for one full term plus 38 days. While in office, he did what all the presidents do – he dealt with myriad national and international issues while the war and the politics as usual swirled around him. He was a war president with all that entails. We currently call this skill set “multi-tasking”. President Obama is a war president as well. The wars won’t wait until he has more time and attention to devote to them.
The whole of government and society is in constant flux; it never settles down so we can reasonably deal with one or two main issues at a time. Sound familiar? A leader deals with it all, all of the time. We had better hope our leaders have the skill set to manage it. Anyone who can only do one thing at a time is seriously handicapped and so is our country through such leadership. One-track minds do manage to get one thing done thoroughly, but running a country does not lend itself to one-track thinking. It is the nature of a one-track mind to do one thing. If you are talking about the person running a country, just who is doing the rest of it? That one-track mind must have help – delegate and have other key people running other pieces.
I am or was an individual/a wife/a mother/a taxi driver for my family / an office worker /a business woman /a minister/a writer and more. There was not a moment that I was not many things all at the same time, all equally important, all requiring my ability to multi-task. Just because I had to deal with a sick child, that had nothing to do with my job. It was expected and necessary that I do both; and I did, and so does just about every woman in society, as do millions of men, especially those who are rearing families as a single parent. Occasionally there comes a man or woman who, through special privilege or circumstance, is able to develop along one line, but that’s the exception not the rule. Sometimes we call those special people idiot savants. Sometimes we just call them idiots. It depends upon whether or not you are personally involved.
For the most part, people must multi-task. Most of us don’t have staffs. Multi-tasking is normal because life demands it. From Presidents Washington to Obama, most of these leaders were gifted and well able to handle multiple tasks. Thank God. I don’t doubt that President Obama can handle multiple things at once. He surrounds himself with very smart people to help him with certain parts. As close as I can tell, he is a master juggler.
What is the astrological explanation? The skill of multi-tasking is not a single thing, it is a complexity. I would look to the mental planets: Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune for the energy itself. I would also look to mental agility through the air signs: Gemini, Aquarius, and Libra and major aspects such as the conjunction, opposition or square. To me the trines tend to be a bit lazy, and that just won’t work in the presidency. I like sextiles better because they require attention and effort to evidence usefulness.
Of the two presidents mentioned as multi-taskers, Lincoln and Obama, the astrological signatures in common are:
- Aquarius rising and
- Mercury/Jupiter
- widely conjunct in Pisces for Lincoln (in a 3-planet grouping called a stellium) and
- the Mercury/Jupiter opposition for Obama, connecting (with stress) the forest and the trees, a mental agility concept.
That would be handy for a person who needs to multi-task. Reinforcing the Aquarian theme (affinity) is Obama’s Uranus angular (prominent) in his 7th house of others) and Lincoln’s Neptune trine (benefit) those Pisces planets. Reinforcing the Piscean theme is Obama’s Mercury/Jupiter opposition in challenge to (square) his Neptune (Pisces affinity), adding the flavor of imagination as well. I personally own a Mercury/Jupiter/Uranus T-square and it keeps me hopping!
As close as I can tell from 35 years of studying astrology, no one aspect is all good or all bad. Some are challenging, confrontive and truly annoying. Even the conjunctions can give you fits at moments. Supposedly what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
For anyone who wishes to look at charts and astrological research on this article, they will be found on my website: www.marilynmuir.net.
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.