CHAPTER THREE:
America's Place in the Cosmic Process - 4

The Declaration of Independence was signed toward the end of the "long trine" of Neptune and Pluto, Neptune being at Virgo 23°25' and Pluto at Capricorn 27°22'. Neptune was then moving faster than Pluto, and in 1789 (the date of the Constitution) this long trine aspect was practically ending. Neptune was then at Libra 22°40' and Pluto at 16 l/2° Aquarius; the angular distance between the two planets was therefore some six degrees less than an exact trine. That distance became progressively smaller during the nineteenth century until the new conjunction was reached in 1891, marking the beginning of a new 500-year cycle.
      The fact that Neptune and Pluto formed a long trine during the time when the United States was gradually taking form as a national entity, and that now, at this critical point in our history, we are under a long sextile of these planets is, in my opinion, most significant. The trine is an aspect referring to the possibility of an idealistic and inspired vision, or else to the concepts of the abstract mind. Theoretically it can bring contact with the realm of great symbols, archetypal realities, myths especially when Neptune and Pluto (the great symbols of total transformation) are involved. On the other hand, the sextile indicates that a process of practical organization, or reorganization, is taking place after a crisis. The eighteenth century was called the "century of the lights," and this was at least relatively suggested in that during this time the most progressive minds were intent on throwing light upon new ideas, and revealing a new vision of man, society and the universe — even though this vision proved too abstract and utopian for practical application. At the time, great dreamers were needed who dreamed of a New Order of the centuries (Novus Ordo Seclorum, the motto on the reverse side of the U.S. Seal, which is now displayed, interestingly enough, on one-dollar bills).
      Today we also need men with a great, transforming vision, but the principles of an envisionable state of human affairs have already been formulated. What is essential is to discover ways and means to make of them concrete realities in terms of, first, interpersonal, then social and global relationships. America should exemplify, first, a new quality of togetherness in all fields — from marriage and family to interracial and intercultural groupings; then it should make possible a new type of practically effective organization based on all-inclusive and no longer exclusivistic modes of association. This task fits perfectly the possibilities opened up by the sextile of Neptune and Pluto.
      Under such a long sextile, from around 1450 to 1540, the men of the Renaissance not only circumnavigated the globe and began to settle the American continent, but also developed a new humanistic attitude which resurrected some of the great ideas of the Greek period two thousand years earlier. Today, two millennia after the birth of the Roman Empire, will we strive for an American Empire, with the one Ocean of the globe as our mare nostrum, or will we try to implement, renew and adjust to the coming New Age, the dream of the great visionaries of the eighteenth century, a dream which has been all but totally obscured?
      Plutocracy means government by the wealthy, and as we will see, the planet Pluto occupies a most important position in the birth chart of the United States. What is more, Pluto came into the spotlight during the last electoral campaign in a rather spectacular way, as the natal Pluto of the chart reached an opposition to the natal Sun by secondary progression just when the transiting Pluto was moving back and forth across the Mid Heaven. From the usual astrological point of view, the Mid Heaven refers to the Executive in the government and, more generally, to the direction, character and quality of a person's public or professional life. Though not as yet discovered in 1776, Pluto nevertheless indicated a focusing of potential decisions and socioeconomic attitudes. These became more obvious and powerful around the time Pluto — was sighted and its existence made public early in 1930; at that time the Great Depression was about to impel the government to build an increasingly vast and overpowering bureaucracy to make concrete the presidential will.