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THE ASTROLOGY
OF AMERICA'S DESTINY

A Birth-Chart for the USA
by Dane Rudhyar, 1974





THE ASTROLOGY
OF AMERICA'S DESTINY


Table of Contents










CHAPTER FIVE:
Two Hundred Years of Growth Through Crisis
- 9

The cycles outlined by the successive conjunctions of Uranus and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and Uranus and Pluto are worth studying as they may be considered intermediaries between the Jupiter-Saturn and the Neptune-Pluto periods. Those involving Jupiter and the three trans-Satumian planets also provide significant information, but they are a good deal shorter — the most interesting one being the cycle of relationship between Jupiter, and Neptune, which lasts about thirteen years. The Uranus-Saturn cycle lasts on an average 45 1/3 years. Such a conjunction occurred in 1942 during the darkest period of the war in the Pacific, and it led to the opposition of 1965, a year already mentioned as a crucial turning point. The next conjunction (thrice repeated) will highlight the year 1988 and will occur on the last degrees of Sagittarius.
      Conjunctions of Uranus and Neptune are separated by about 171 years. The last one occurred in 1822 on Capricorn 3°, before Neptune was discovered; the next one will take place in 1993 on Capricorn 19°, and it should be very important. Conjunctions of Uranus and Pluto are separated by about 115 years; there was one in 1850 on Aries 29°. The last one, in 1965, focused a great deal of cathartic, transforming energy upon the ninth House of the U.S. chart. It can be related to the student unrest and the development of the counter-culture, especially the hippie movement and the use of psychedelic drugs to reach a tradition-transcending state of consciousness and freedom from the rigid patterns of an ever more unsatisfying and alienating socioeconomic "rat race."
      The Neptune-Pluto cycle lasts about 492 years. I have already mentioned some of its unusual characteristics, and I shall return to them in the last chapter of this book. The United States was born as a nation and built its Constitution at the close of the "long trine" of these two planets that followed their opposition in the seventeenth century. They formed 90° aspects (square) during the years 1813 to 1825, and this square, was emphasized by the above-mentioned conjunction of Uranus and Neptune during much of the period. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1821 squared from Aries the conjunction of Uranus and Neptune, making this period a very significant one, astrologically speaking. This period saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the post-Napoleonic era in Europe, during which reactionary forces built up sociopolitical and cultural pressures which exploded in 1831 and again in 1848. The relatively brief period of the sextile of Neptune in Aquarius to Pluto in Aries began in 1841-1842 at the time of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (the "Great Mutation"). From then on Neptune and Pluto came increasingly close to each other, until they were conjunct in 1891-1892 and up to 1895. Their heliocentric conjunction occurred early in 1892, and their "long sextile" — which I will discuss later on — can be said to have begun when Neptune entered Libra at the time of the first controlled atomic reaction (in December 1942 in Chicago). At that time Neptune was crossing the Mid Heaven of the U.S. birth chart. Pluto moved over this same extremely important point in the first week of October 1972, just before the elections, and again in early May and July 1973, during the height of the Senate Watergate hearings.
      The transits of the slower planets over the four Angles of a natal chart normally time changes in the relationship between a person and his environment, whether it is his familial, his sociocultural, his psychic or his cosmic environment. The Ascendant in a chart represents the intuitive function, by means of which, as a result of inner unfoldment or outer events, a person actually experiences or intuitively apprehends the character of his essential being. During the period marked by the War of 1812, Neptune, and then Uranus, crossed the United States Ascendant, putting the very identity of the nation in question. Saturn had crossed this Ascendant in 1810 when the relationship between Britain (and Europe in general) and the new American state was becoming increasingly critical.
      In 1898-1899, Saturn was also crossing the U.S. Ascendant, followed soon afterward by Uranus in 1901. This was the period of the Spanish-American War. In the United States it marked a growing sense of what the nation should be in the world community, along with the growth of the Populist movement and of the Socialist Party. In 1976-1977 Neptune will return to the degree of the United States Ascendant in Sagittarius for the second time; this will be followed by Uranus in 1984 and Sun in December 1986. These conjunctions bring with them the possibility of a period of critical self-examination and national reorientation.
      Pluto moved over the Imum Coeli (fourth House cusp) of the U.S. chart in 1823-1824, at the time the Monroe Doctrine was instituted. This Angle, the Imum Coeli, refers to the concrete roots of an individual personality, and also of a national type. There is a definite connection between roots and flowers, the latter symbolized by the Mid Heaven which refers to the collective will and power represented by the executive function. We might notice a connection between what America has achieved by taking the stance implied by the Monroe Doctrine — i.e., imperialism in a disguised form applied to the Western Hemisphere — and the notion of "policing" the world, which took concrete form in Vietnam. Between the fourth and tenth House Angles we find the seventh House Angle (Descendant), which refers to all matters born of relationship — including the fear of or refusal of relationship. Neptune and Pluto crossed the Descendant in 1895-1897, then were opposed by Uranus after it crossed the Ascendant. This was a very crucial period. An imperialism of big business was polarizing and orienting America's consciousness of her relationship to other nations. The power of the trusts was almost, unchecked until President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to control this "hidden government" — an attempt which, to say the least, was not very successful.
      When in 1927 Uranus crossed the fourth House cusp (Aries 2°), Saturn was about to cross the Ascendant. The structure of our national life was about to be deeply transformed by the Great Depression and its aftermath. Pluto was moving through Cancer and revealing itself to the collective consciousness of mankind. Since 1955 it had been passing over the natal Venus, Jupiter and Sun of the United States, which can be related to the great boom in America's wealth and power produced by World War II. Saturn's last crossing of the United States Ascendant occurred in 1957, during the Eisenhower Administration, when Russia's launching of Sputnik I induced a sober reexamination of America's status and achievements. The problem of school integration came sharply to focus in the Little Rock incident (September 1957). At the time of the Watergate break-in (June 17, 1972) Saturn was transiting the U.S. Descendant — a transit that can be considered either sobering or depressing.




By permission of Leyla Rudhyar Hill
Copyright © 1974 by Dane Rudhyar
and Copyright © 2001 by Leyla Rudhyar Hill
All Rights Reserved.



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