CHAPTER FOUR:
A Birth Chart for the United States of America - 8

The addition of Neptune transforms the U.S. chart by linking Saturn to the main group of planets, and leaving the Moon in the second House as "singleton." The result is a Funnel pattern. Marc Jones called this pattern "Bucket" — the isolated planet being the handle of the bucket — but I believe that the concept of a funneling of energy from the main group of planets through the isolated and opposed one is more significant.
      In the U.S. chart for that period a very strong emphasis is placed on the Moon — the principle of adjustment to the environment and (in "mundane astrology") the common people and their collective feelings. The gold rush and the vast movement of people westward symbolizes the at least potential transformation of America from a republic — integrating eastern states with a European, quasi-aristocratic tradition — to a popular democracy, one of the main characteristics of which is the development of enormously increased resources and the preoccupation with possessions and money (Moon in the second House). The abolition of slavery (human beings used as "possessions") can also be related to this situation. Any mass movement — especially if based on an idealistic or utopian philosophy, or with religious glamour attached to it — can be related to Neptune. This is especially true here, because Neptune is in the ninth House of the chart, related to all forms of expansion and transcendent conceptualization.
      When Pluto was discovered in 1930, it too had to be placed in the second House of the U.S. chart. What had been latent in 1776 — or what people did not want consciously to admit and to face — was brought to a focus of consciousness at this time with the Great Depression, the Roosevelt era and the aftermath of World War II. The power of very large impersonal organizations and of a federal bureaucracy began to reveal itself, as modern technology developed along undreamt of lines. We might speak of the Electronic Revolution as the cause of what has come to be the menacing expansion of this power of big business, international combines and polarized groups of nations, especially since World War II; but in fact what this "revolution" has done is give us the means to deal with the new realities of a world in which billions of human beings are becoming more closely linked and more interdependent. In this world new and infinitely complex patterns of interrelationship and shared concern require an equally new approach to problems of human association, a complete revision of attitude, and a new orientation to the Earth, as the home of mankind, and to the universe as a whole.
      Because the representatives of the old patterns of Christian Euro-American civilization are frightened by the humanistic implications of this "global village," they fight to retain their privileges and fortify their positions. Two separate factors are now influencing the second House of the U.S. chart: on the one hand, the financial power of the government and the "military-industrial complex," which actually controls the conditions of life of the people; on the other, the increasing capacity to deal with, invest, spend and gamble with more and more money — a characteristic which has always been an important part of the American people. We will see that the opposition of Pluto to Mercury retrograde in the eighth House — a House dealing with "business" arising from sustained associations, contracts and the sharing of the profits of partnerships — characterizes not only the business life of America, but also the basic opposition between individual minds eager to have "their own" personal opinions and the power of a collective mentality which worships the impersonal dictates of the scientific Establishment.
      After Pluto has been placed in it, the U.S. chart belongs to the Seesaw type. Two uneven forces are seeking balance, and if possible integration at a higher level of understanding. But one of these forces (the one focused in the second House) has two very different aspects — the Moon and Pluto. As a result we can understand why the vast wealth produced by the Cancer planets in the field of interpersonal association and business is provided with two outlets: one of them refers to the big corporations, including the Federal Government and its many branches (especially the Pentagon), the other to the multitude of stock owners and the middle-class workingmen with their homes and saving accounts.
      Sooner or later, the new planet, Proserpine, may reveal how the Seesaw pattern can be transformed and transcended. But there can be no real transcending until the situation created by the dualistic pattern is understood and faced with all its implications. These refer largely to the management of resources and the mental attitude toward the use of whatever personal relationships and business partnerships (seventh House) are produced in the eighth House. In this connection, it is interesting to note that both Mercury and Pluto, which form the only opposition in the chart, are retrograde. This suggests that the harmonization of opposites is primarily to be effected through inner realization and a transcendent function. Moreover, we can see that this process involves dynamic intensity and presumably crises, because Uranus (the factor of transformation) forms a semisquare (45°) to Mercury, and a sesquiquadrate aspect (135°) to Pluto.