Why Charlottesville?

Friday August 18th 2017

Charlottesville Unite the Right March

Angry faces reddened by torchlight, mouths agape spewing hatred. The sight of those men — and they were almost all men — scarring the beautiful campus of the University of Virginia was stomach churning, horrible, familiar — even on the small screen of this laptop,

You’ve seen that same anger in other groups of men, waving banners, chanting. Maybe the images were in fuzzy black and white, maybe in sharp focus on your TV screen, maybe the language was one you couldn’t understand. The intention and the energy are the same.

We know these people: they are haters. “Purification” is their motivation. Violence is their solution.

But this is in the United States now.

And Americans are responding to this horrible irruption magnificently — with satire and solidarity, with town hall meetings, legal action, vigils, media madness and demonstrations … Americans are active, galvanised, aware, shocked — electrified.

The words of their Uranian President shocked them again — and again — this week. Donald Trump is like a one-man cattle prod. He let the far right out of the box — but he also woke up everyone else.

Over the past few years, since Uranus went into Aries and Pluto went into Capricorn, the whole human population of this planet seems to have had its consciousness raised about inequality and the flaws in our current political and economic systems. In the States this manifested as #blacklivesmatter and Occupy. Remember that the last great wave of civil rights in the US was in the 1960s under the Uranus-Pluto conjunction. We’ve only just had the opening square of that conjunction, which is a flowering of what was seeded then (both good and bad).

The other expression of discontent was the election of Donald Trump — a man who appears to be the physical personification of almost everything that’s wrong with America wrapped up in one neat package. America’s shadow has become flesh, as Pluto, the Dark Lord of the Underworld, opposed the US Sun for the first time in history. This manifestation makes it much easier to identify and confront. That is the purpose of the Donald. See him and see inequality, racism, amorality, hypocrisy, kleptocracy, greed, and blindness. (Could he not see or hear that the chanters in Charlottesville were talking about his own grandchildren? “Jews will not replace us.”)

He is a priest of Mammon, with his golden temple and his halo of golden hair — and Mammon is an American god.

But why Charlottesville?

Monticello

Charlottesville has one of the loveliest universities in the world at its centre — the University of Virginia founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence, a framer of the Constitution, inventor, polymath, Renaissance Man — also Southern aristocrat, and owner of hundreds of slaves.

Jefferson was the best American — smart, imaginative, creative, innovative, inspiring, hard-working, unconventional, generous, idealistic. Jefferson was the worst American — racist, hypocritical, unkind, elitist, greedy. He may not have been personally violent, but he allowed his overseers to be violent for him.

The magnificent house he designed, Monticello, stands on a bluff outside Charlottesville, overlooking the university and town — a reminder of the power, the idealism and the hypocrisy at the heart of the American project. It’s Jefferson’s mind rendered in brick and stone and plaster.

Monticello’s gracious portico is in the neo-Classical style that he deemed appropriate for the new republic. Its reception rooms are grand, as befitted a sophisticated, cultured host. Its library was large. Stuffed down the side of Jefferson’s sleeping quarters is the windowless room where slept Sally Hemings, concubine and mother of Jefferson’s children — it is said, six of them. Down the hill a little, are the slave quarters, humble houses of rough-hewn wood.

Jefferson wrote these words. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

The powerful preamble to the Declaration of Independence, which still stirs the heart 250 years after it was written, was conceived by Jefferson on that bluff above Charlottesville. From Monticello’s high perch, Jefferson spent the rest of his life working to make America great — by creating a university, making the Louisiana Purchase, strengthening the US dollar, making alliances, writing laws that worked and showing the rest of the world some American can-do.

But of he never abolished slavery (and freed exactly two of his own slaves) — even as it was being abolished in Europe and the rest of the Americas.

The alt-right may have done everyone a favour by coming out and marching in Charlottesville. For they have forced the people to look in the mirror.  On that weekend, one of the most precise aspects to the US chart was Neptune’s perfect trine to the US Sun. Neptune is a mirror, and on that night, the Moon crossed Neptune, activating the sea god. This trine is a useful aspect, allowing vision without obscurity.

Those Nazis made ideas that have been circulating for decades manifest. They personified Pluto — armed and dangerous — purification and violence.

There are two Americas regarding each other now — and they have opposite views of what it means to be American, what American values actually are, what words like freedom, individualism and patriotism mean.

In the US natal chart, the Moon in Aquarius represents “the people”. And in Charlottesville there was the best of America that day — peacefully standing up for justice and equality. There was Heather Heyer. This is the Aquarian Moon at its best — a sense of common humanity, of equality.

The Moon is at 27°, opposite the coming eclipse and opposite Trump’s Ascendant and Mars. The symbolism is clear: already the people watch the President eclipse himself. However, an eclipse is a dangerous time, and people are right to be alert. The President will not simply shrug and walk away. Uranus sends a perfect trine to this eclipse. He is here to call up the wolf that swallows the Sun, like the high priest that he is. He has already performed his Uranian work as an awakener, waking up his country to the things that need to change, but will he leave it there? Lure the wolf out and you maybe you can tame it — or maybe not. It’s clear even if Trump goes, there’s much more to worry about.

At Charlottesville, we saw the best America — and what will need to be exorcised.

 

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  1. George H Brock says:

    Christina, Your analysis of Charlottesville and Trump as American’s shadow is so beautifully expressed. And your heart-felt comments about Jefferson are so perceptive. Thanks.

  2. soab says:

    Its a total exaggeration to claim that Donald Trump is everything that is wrong with America (in one neat package). Why should he be? He is just a point of view, that many Americans who are sick of the status quo and what they have done with the country rally around and share. To many Americans he is hope; the very thing that was sold by the previous president.

    I must also say that you must almost excursively read the liberal press, who by-the-way hate Trump for what he stands for and by extension hate half of America for what they stand for.

    The liberals have allowed many thousands if not millions of jobs to leave America, in the false narrative of ‘spreading wealth’ and how that is good for the economy. You ask the average lower class American if they are feeling wealthier. Even the middle class American is increasingly a thing of the past.

    And the way they sell their liberal lies. Using phrases such as ‘trickle down’, but of course completely forgetting to mention ‘gully sucked up’.

    The liberals use statistics to lie. Here is one. We are all richer. Why are we all richer ? Because certain individuals have been allowed to amass large sums of money. Then the statisticians spread that wealth around: hence if Bill Gates walked into a bar, everyone in that bar is now a multi-millionaire if you use the same reasoning as a state statistician.

    So what if some people want to stick their right hand into the air to find out how high the ceiling is? The liberals should allow this without complaint; after all they are liberal and everything that entails. But not really because as soon as something comes along to threaten the ideology you see how intolerant liberals really are.

    And again I have to say this, as I have done on another post of yours. Where do you get your information from? Were you there? To repeat what Joseph Goebbels said ‘if I can repeat a lie enough times, eventually it will be believed’. Well change that slightly, if I hear/see a lie enough times, eventually I will believe it’. The media is mainly controlled by six people, who are all pushing an agenda, based on an outcome that they want; repeated and circulated over the air waves constantly; picking up on anything to undermine.

    Christine, are you really as tolerant as you believe you are?

    • Isy says:

      Recasting “trickle-down” as a Liberal idea is a terrific example of the Janus-faced transformations of information and ideas my country has been churning with for 30 years. My Dad was an economic developer, and when Reagan’s economic proposals were first aired, he was deeply disturbed, because he foresaw the financial stagnation and economic destruction it would lead to. He really understood the flow of money.

      So, yes, America is splitting itself, as completely as a eukaryotic cell but without the interior structure that makes it survivable. Sadly, much as people on both sides would like to think “it takes two to tango,” it only takes two to get together — it only takes the actions of one side to split apart. And, if the members on that side think they can’t be wrong, the split is inevitable, because refusing to accept compromise means there’s no way forward together.

      They can blame the “liberals” (which, to them, encompasses the middle and the moderate right) all they want, but it doesn’t mean they’re right, and it doesn’t mean their hands are innocent when they are dripping with blood.

      Cracked me up when the armored camo-fashionistas waved their ballistic weapons righteously and declared they were scared of the kids in soft black hoodies with baseball bats. I can’t make that shit up. Sadly, it’s a justification for their urge to use that superior weaponry for a total slaughter — as soab’s horrifying off-the-cuff remark implies.

      And this person scolds you for not being tolerant… Too funny. If I put that in a book, half my readers would throw it down in disgust at such heavy-handed, amateurish irony.

    • Christina says:

      Who says Americans are richer? Not me, nor the “liberal” media. What statistics are you talking about? Not used here.

      “So what if some people want to stick their right hand into the air to find out how high the ceiling is? “ I hope you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.

  3. Peter Holmes says:

    Look, it was that ‘great hero’ of the American right, Reagan, who really took America along its present path of income inequality.

  4. aqua says:

    Youre attracting flies 😉

  5. Christina says:

    Quite a few people have emailed to say they can’t comment on the site right now. This has been a bit of an ongoing issue — and I can’t figure it out. However with Merc Rx in Virgo, I am hoping to solve the problem!

    Meanwhile I wanted to pass on this wonderful link sent to me by Blaine. This is a podcast, an interview with Ruby Sales — civil rights icon, called Where Does It Hurt on onbeing.org.
    https://onbeing.org/programs/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt-aug2017/

  6. romanz says:

    Just read The big Lie Exposing the Nazi roots of the American Left by Dinesh D Souza check it out your not seeking the full picture Neptune /Lilith close to MC
    in US chart …deception,Take your time look deeper the truth is out their.

    • Isy says:

      Then American left? The American LEFT?? Oh man, I should read more alt-right conspiracy fiction — er, I mean, thinking. Nah, can’t say that with a straight face.

      Cheney, Koch, Bush, on and on — it’s a matter of record that these were Nazi co-conspirators. Gee whiz, people, check some primary sources, all right? /sigh/

    • aqua says:

      D Souza is a conspiracy theorist of the first order, and a fraudster.

      Eitherway this is not that kind of site, methinks you would be happier at Darkstar Astrology where they worship both Trump and tin foil – and where the quality of the astrology reflects that.

  7. Isy says:

    The past year has been like descending into a fun-house mirror where the images themselves become real. The nightmare distortions are harrowing. Was so much hatred and self-serving rage really so close to the surface? Well done, corporatist oligarchy — you got what you wanted: a society of mental slaves, capable of any outrage with a sense of total justice.

    Historically, it gets much worse before it gets better.

    While this nation may not deserve to survive its seizures of hatred and filth, I’m not keen to contemplate the long-term outcome if other branches of the corporatist oligarchy don’t also get their wings clipped. The whole world needs a total eclipse — death to all tyrants. Let’s get back to independent city-states.

    • aqua says:

      ‘a fun-house mirror ‘
      Neptune in Pisces, aided and abetted by Saturn in Sagittarius, and a sprinkle of Chiron.

    • Christina says:

      Indeed — down with tyranny! Up with jollity!

      • aqua says:

        Yes, lets create a new dance, we can call it the Alt soft shoe shuffle, saying that three times fast will get the little darlings swinging that tempo, rather than ropes…

        ‘You put your right foot in
        You take your right foot out
        You put your right foot in
        And you shake it all about
        You do the hokey pokey
        And you turn yourself around
        That’s what it’s all about’

  8. mike says:

    We in the USA have a demagogue with ADHD. Charlottesville removed us from the Trump-travesties of the previous week, as assuredly the coming week will transcend Charlottesville, moving us all into his next cerebral zeitgeist. The number of his sycophants has decreased to distinctly minority status, yet the internet lengthens their shadow, constantly fed by their wizard’s acrid stream-of-consciousness.

    Tremendous resonance with transiting Saturn stationing at 21* Sag forming a T-square with Sibly Mars square Neptune…Trump’s Sun-Uranus-N Node opposed Moon-S Node.

    BTW – no problem posting comments, but your home page’s boxes pile-up, some on top the other. Your last two posts were under the eclipse box. Sometimes the boxes are vertical only, most times they fill the page correctly, but not always.

    • aqua says:

      ‘ your home page’s boxes pile-up, some on top the other. Your last two posts were under the eclipse box. Sometimes the boxes are vertical only, most times they fill the page correctly, but not always.’
      Im having a similar issue.