Asteroid-World Fall 1993
Zip Dobyns
This issue of Asteroid-World will be devoted to a “new” time for the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. As most of our readers know, our “Independence Day” chart is definitely “dirty data.” Historical records offer conflicting information. The Clerk’s recorded order of business listed the Declaration as the second item after a 9 A.M. opening and the time of 9:36 A.M. EST has given me good results when checked against the major events in our history and the major places in the world where events occurred. This morning time gives an Ascendant of 11 Virgo with Uranus on the MC. Marc Penfield has a chart with Scorpio rising, using a time soon after 2 P.M. which is given in a biography of John Hancock. The time of 2:25 P.M. LAT worked reasonably well for me, but not as well as the morning time.
As a third and conflicting option, a late afternoon or early evening time is described by Jefferson in his memoirs and by Elbridge Gerry in a letter. This general time period produces an Ascendant in Sagittarius and is favored by an increasing number of astrologers, but I had previously not been able to find a precise time in this period which fit our past events. I did not get good results with the popular charts which put Uranus on the Descendant or on the Ascendant.
I have worked intermittently on the Declaration chart for years. One of the possible times I tested put Mars exactly on the Descendant, but I worked with this possible time before I had the CCRS computer program with its rectification module. The computer makes it so easy to change possible birth times and to check the angles for different historical events, that calculations which used to take hours can be done in seconds. You can also flip to another module to get different locations for the historical events which occurred in other areas, and there is another module which lists the latitude and longitude where the planets and angles of the time being tested would be conjunct the local angles.
The “new” time which I am presenting here is only 3 degrees away from the one which put Mars on the Descendant, but it makes a stunning difference in the precision of the aspects involving both natal and progressed angles for our past events and in the aspects to the local angles in areas of the world where we have had major events. I have been working with what I call “local” charts since about 1958 when I discovered that the angles (Ascendant, MC, etc) in a new residence or the site of an event could be just as important as the angles for the birthplace. All of the aspects to the angles are part of the picture, though conjunctions are the most important aspect, showing an intense confrontation with the principle of the planet(s) forming the aspect.
The “new” time for our Declaration of Independence is 5:35 P.M. LAT or “local apparent time,” the time which would have been on a sundial. LAT was used into the 19th century when it was gradually replaced by LMT (local mean time) which was in turn replaced by our modern time zones. For astrologers who do not have the CCRS computer program and who lack the ability to calculate LAT, I would not quibble over a minute of longitude which is produced by a change of only seconds of time. You can just put 9 Libra on the MC for your own exploration of this chart. Any rectified chart remains questionable, so the more astrologers who test this one against both events and local angles, the better. The natal chart is set for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where the Continental Congress issued the Declaration. Local angles should always include Washington, DC after our government moved there, as well as any other place where we had major events.
My son, Mark, who wrote the CCRS program and who calculates the new asteroids, has provided a special set of asteroids for the early dates needed to include them in charts for our beginning; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington’s Inauguration as President, etc. Mark was hesitant about such calculations since the asteroids are tiny so they are very subject to perturbation, to having their orbits altered by the gravitational pull of other asteroids or planets. Since most of the new asteroids were discovered in this century and we only have observations for this period of time, their positions are increasingly questionable as we extend the calculations back for one to two hundred years. But, as you will see in this article, the work done so far seems to be validating both the accuracy and the relevance of the asteroids.
We can start with some of the dramatic planetary conjunctions using an orb of 3 degrees on angles calculated for other areas of the world with this time of 5:35 P.M. LAT. The corresponding UT is 22:39:42 which offers another option for astrologers with computer programs which can work with a birth time given in UT (universal time).
For close to 45 years, since the end of World War II, Moscow, U.S.S.R. was “the” enemy, the “other” superpower, the “evil empire” in Reagan’s words. This chart puts Pluto on the MC in Moscow, and for many years, P south lunar node was also there going over our MC in Moscow. If you follow the Moscow longitude line down, it crosses the Near East area so we also have Pluto on the local MCs in Beirut, Lebanon, in Damascus, Syria, and in Jerusalem, Israel. Baghdad, Iraq is farther east, putting the natal south lunar node on the MC, which fits a lesson for both countries. The south node is also on the MC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait City, Kuwait, in Mogadishu, Somalia, and in the capitals of two of the republics of the former U.S.S.R. which are currently engaged in civil war; Armenia and Georgia. Pluto symbolizes the challenge of learning to share possessions, pleasure and power with the “equal” others with whom we interact regularly. It shows where we need to learn to cooperate for mutual pleasure. There may be a few signs of progress in the world, but I suspect that if an outsider from a civilized galaxy were grading us, we would still rate a grade of “F” on our handling of the Pluto principle.
Throughout our early history, we were steadily killing off the native inhabitants of America or driving them into small portions of their original territory. Sometimes we purchased or conquered territory claimed by European nations who had taken it from the original inhabitants; Louisiana from France, Florida from Spain, Alaska from Russia, part of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico, and the northwest “Oregon” territory through negotiations with England. All of these expansions of U.S. territory were contiguous parts of North America. We began our overseas empire-building with the Spanish- American war in which we “liberated” Cuba from Spain and took the Philippine Islands from Spain. Since the Philippine people resisted, we engaged in an overseas war of conquest which started in Manila on February 4, 1899. This chart puts Pluto on the Descendant in Manila and it squares the MC. We later gave the Philippines back their freedom though we maintained military bases there until very recently when we no longer felt threatened by Russia.
A much more recent exercise of violence which remains less- well known by U.S. citizens occurred when President Nixon sent members of the U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) to help overthrow the democratically elected socialist government of Chile. President Allende was killed and General Pinochet held dictatorial power until very recently, maintaining his power with a liberal use of torture. In Santiago, Chile, the 5:35 P.M. time for the Declaration puts Pluto on the Ascendant.
As far as I know, we have escaped power struggles with Australia where Pluto is on the IC near Melbourne. But I haven’t had time to follow up some of the rumors that a bank in Australia had ties to our CIA and was centrally involved in laundering drug money throughout the world.
Turning to Saturn, it is on the Descendant in Berlin, Germany, capital of the country against whom we fought in two world wars. Saturn would be on the IC at 111 E longitude which does not touch any major capitals within three degrees. It runs down through Siberia, Mongolia, a few degrees west of Peking, China and east of the capitals of Kampuchea (Cambodia) and Vietnam, across Borneo and Indonesia and just west of Australia. In the Second World War we fought Japan across that line as we pushed them out of the Pacific islands which they had occupied. Brunei is a small, oil-rich kingdom on the north part of Borneo not far from 111 East longitude. Reagan turned to its Sultan who is one of the richest men in the world when he was looking for funds to support the Contras in Nicaragua. The Sultan is said to have provided a million dollar donation which disappeared into one of Ollie North’s Swiss bank accounts but was later traced and eventually returned to the Sultan. Much of that Iran-Contragate story is yet to be told, so we are left with tantalizing, unreliable fragments.
We were plunged into World War II by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii which destroyed a sizable part of our fleet. Saturn is exactly on the Ascendant in Honolulu square the Sun which is on the MC. Saturn is on the MC coming down through eastern Canada where we have had some minor arguments over fishing rights, after which it continues across Maine and down into the Caribbean Sea where it crosses the island which includes the Dominican Republic and Haiti, one of our current concerns.
Mars also has interesting positions. The Declaration was issued after we had already been at war with England for over a year so it is very appropriate to find Mars less than three degrees from the IC in London with close squares to the London East Point and Antivertex. Neptune is exactly on the West Point in London and within three degrees of the Vertex.
Mars is exactly on the Descendant in Havana, Cuba. Our first major war to be fought overseas (not counting the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli) was against Spain and was started in the Havana harbor when we blamed Spain for blowing up a U.S. ship which was probably destroyed by an accidental explosion that was totally unrelated to Spain. Since then, we have maintained a military base on Cuba and, for many years, Fidel Castro has joined Moscow as a favorite enemy.
Mars is on the Ascendant in Kabul, Afghanistan where the CIA under Reagan provided weapons and training to the Mujahedeen who were fighting the Communists. After Gorbachev pulled out the Russian troops, the Mujahedeen continued a civil war among themselves but, more recently, some of the training and weapons provided by our CIA may have returned to haunt us. One of the reports about the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York claimed that the bombers were assisted by militant Islamics who had developed their skills in Afghanistan.
New Zealand has fortunately escaped our military attention despite Mars on the MC in their North Island. I do have a vague recollection that it was near New Zealand that the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, was blown up by French commandos. The Greenpeace organization started in the U.S. and it continues to harass countries which are damaging the environment. Their running struggle with the French was over nuclear testing and nuclear dumping in the Pacific Ocean. I have not tracked down the precise islands involved in the French nuclear activity. The Mars-MC line continues up from New Zealand through Fiji past other south sea islands to finally reach the Aleutians, our outpost in the far north.
Uranus is on the Ascendant running down through several areas which are rich in oil, near Baku, Azerbaijan and across Iran. Its Descendant line slants across Canada and several mid-western and southern states, cuts across the Gulf of Mexico and passes over Mexico City within one degree. We have had a very mixed relationship with Mexico and they have no reason to trust us. Under President Polk, we seized about one third of Mexico’s territory, including part of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. We paid $15 million dollars for this huge territory, plus we agreed to settle some claims against Mexico. The treaty ending the Mexican war (which we had instigated) was signed on February 2, 1848. Just over one week earlier, gold had been discovered in California though the news did not reach the newspapers for some months.
Uranus is on the MC near several islands in the Pacific Ocean, including Wake Island which was garrisoned by U.S. Marines and was captured by the Japanese very soon after Pearl Harbor. Uranus is on the IC across Iceland, the Madeira and Canary Islands, and several countries on the western edge of Africa. I’m not sure which countries in Africa were the source of the majority of the slaves captured and brought to the U.S., mostly to work on the plantations of the south. The issue of slavery was a basic cause of the Civil War which came close to splintering our country.
As the old saying has it, the preceding material has hardly scratched the surface, but I want to move on to describe a few of the dramatic aspects associated with historical events using this birth time for the Declaration. I calculated charts for all of our wars, all of the deaths of our Presidents while in office, as well as the resignations of President Nixon and Vice President Agnew, and for many other major historical events. In every case, there were appropriate aspects involving the angles which, of course, depend on the birth time. The progressed Moon is also important, since it changes from 22 Aquarius in the morning chart to 27 Aquarius in the 5:35 P.M. chart. As an additional support for this time, P Moon was also conjunct an angle for a number of the events. But I think that the new asteroids were the most mind-blowing of the factors, especially since I had been quite hesitant to trust them.
The following examples are only a taste of the dozens of charts which could be mentioned. As indicated above, we were already at war when the Congress decided to “go for broke” and stop seeking any compromise with England. Initially, analyzing the chart as a natal horoscope, astrologers would allow wider orbs for the traditional planets, so the Ascendant at about 18 Sagittarius 28 is forming a T-square to Mars and Neptune. In Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, where the war began, the Ascendant would be 20 Sagittarius for an even closer opposition to Mars, and the 13 Libra MC would square the Sun exactly and be just over one degree from Saturn. The angles would be about the same in Boston, famous for its “tea party” and the source of many of the revolutionary leaders. Throughout the areas where the war was fought, and through most of the five years it lasted, the progressing angles would have continued through the exact opposition to Mars and square to Neptune. At one of the darkest times in the war, when Washington took his poorly equipped and ill-clothed troops into Valley Forge for the winter, P Moon was at 18 Pisces in a square to the Ascendant and just past Brita which was named for Britain. By the end of the winter when the fighting resumed, P Moon had moved on to square Mars.
P Ascendant had just ended the opposition to natal Mars when General Cornwallis surrendered his troops at Yorktown, Virginia which ended the war except for scattered skirmishes. P MC had moved to conjunct Saturn as the fledgling nation took control over its own destiny. But I was most delighted to find that Georgia (named for a King George of England but also suitable for George Washington) had progressed into a one degree orb conjunction with the MC in Yorktown on October 17, 1781. And I was further delighted to discover that P George had reached the natal (Philadelphia) MC by the time George Washington was inaugurated as President of the new nation in 1789. P MC was trine Mars by this time. P Antivertex was in a grand trine to Uranus and the natal MC. P East Point was opposite P Venus which is like having Venus on the Descendant, a usually happy sign. In addition to Georgia, we now also have an asteroid named George since the astronomers are no longer feminizing the names of minor planets which have “ordinary” orbits. Plus, we have Washingtonia, an earlier asteroid with the traditional feminized ending. When he was inaugurated as our first President, Washington’s namesake asteroids were certainly appropriate with P George sextile Venus and P Washingtonia sextile Jupiter. P Moon had just finished a trine to the Philadelphia Ascendant but it was still in orb of a trine to the N.Y. Ascendant where the inauguration took place and the new government functioned prior to the move to our present capital in 1800. President Washington chose the site for the future capital which was named in his honor, but he had finished his two terms of office before the move.
The U.S. fought once more with England in the War of 1812, and had much of our capital burned on August 24-25, 1814. P Mars at the time was quincunx the local (Washington, DC) Ascendant while the local MC opposed both P Washingtonia and P George. P Ascendant was quincunx natal Mars and P Moon was octile P Uranus and just two minutes of longitude short of an opposition to P Pluto. There are always many more aspects for each event, but I usually only mention a few of the most relevant ones.
Our Civil War was probably the most traumatic episode in our history. In February 1861, following the election of President Lincoln, seven southern states withdrew from the Union and formed a Confederacy to protect their right to slavery. Lincoln was the first president to be elected from the newly formed, anti-slavery Republican Party. The war started on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina when Lincoln sent troops to relieve the federal garrison. The southerners attacked and captured the fort. Lincoln called for militia from all of the states, leading to four other southern states joining the Confederacy.
At the start of the war, P Sun was on the midpoint of the MCs in Charleston and Washington, DC with P Moon in exact opposition and both Sun and Moon forming a T-square to natal Jupiter. The angles in Charleston included P MC square P Neptune, P Ascendant opposite natal Neptune, P East Point opposite P Neptune, and P Antivertex quincunx P Mercury. Neptune is a key to subconscious faith, to the search for infinite love and beauty which can produce artists, saviors, and victims including slaves. Other aspects to angles at the beginning of the war included the Philadelphia P MC octile to P Mars and conjunction with P Icarus. I have asteroids named for three of the war leaders; Lincoln for the President, Lee for the commander of the southern forces, and Grant for the eventual commander of the northern forces. The war started with P Lee conjunct Chiron opposite Juno, P Grant conjunct P Charleston Ascendant and opposite Neptune, and P Lincoln not far from its natal position with both of them opposite Venus. P Lincoln was also trioctile Vesta. P Winchester (guns) was square both the Charleston and Philadelphia Ascendants which were within a degree of each other though the MCs of the two cities were more than five degrees apart. P Hephaistos who made the weapons for the gods of Olympus was opposite both Ascendants. P Washingtonia was quincunx the natal Ascendant in Washington, DC.
The north won, with the help of its stronger industrial base. The main southern armies surrendered in April and May of 1865. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, only five days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. At his death, P Philadelphia MC was conjunct P Lincoln while P Washington MC was conjunct natal Lincoln! Five of the six “Ascendants” squared either natal or P Lincoln—all except the Philadelphia P Ascendant which was on the natal IC in Philadelphia. The six angles which I think have an equivalent meaning include the East Point and the Antivertex as auxiliary Ascendants and both the natal and the local positions. Many other aspects could be listed, but these angle aspects to Lincoln really blew me away. P Grant had stationed and gone direct while maintaining an opposition to Neptune and a quincunx to P Saturn. P Lee had moved less than a degree from a conjunction with natal Chiron to a conjunction with P Chiron.
Several of our presidents have been shot, including McKinley, Garfield, and Kennedy, but John Kennedy’s death had the most similarities to Lincoln’s. In both cases, a single man was accused of the crime but suppressed evidence pointed to the involvement of high government officials. An increasing amount of this evidence associated with the murder of JFK has emerged in recent years and I have written about some of it in The Mutable Dilemma. Calculating my new Declaration chart for November 11, 1963 in Dallas, Texas puts 4 Sagittarius on the Ascendant and 15 Virgo on the MC. Again, the positions of asteroid Lincoln were startling. P Moon had just reached a conjunction with natal Lincoln which is at 2 Capricorn 49 and an octile to P Lincoln which is at 17 Aquarius 27. The progressed angles in Dallas included P MC square Mars, P East Point conjunct Mars and square Neptune, P Antivertex octile P Winchester, and P Ascendant quincunx the south lunar node. P MC in Philadelphia was square the Sun and opposite Saturn. P Washington Ascendant opposed Pluto and P south lunar node. P Philadelphia Antivertex opposed P Juno which is like Pluto. P Philadelphia East Point was trioctile the Moon and Pallas.
Switching from presidential deaths to the big earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, I have been testing Anza, the name of the Spaniard who first spotted the area, as a key to the region. The chart for the quake calculated for San Francisco had appropriate angle aspects for a crisis involving faith. P Ascendant square Mars fit the fire which was started by the quake and was even more destructive. P Antivertex was opposite P Neptune and trioctile the Ascendant, P MC was on the Antivertex in Sagittarius and quincunx Jupiter, and P California was conjunct Neptune. Anza also came through! P Anza at 3 Leo was square natal Anza at 3 Taurus and P Mercury, P 8th house cusp, and P Gaea which were all at 3 Scorpio. P Philadelphia Antivertex at 4 Taurus was within my one-degree orb of the other factors in the fixed T-square and all of them were octile-trioctile the natal Ascendant in Philadelphia. P Richter, the name of the man who invented the scale used to measure the magnitude of earthquakes, was square Uranus and opposite Ceres. At the Loma Prieta quake in 1989, P Anza was conjunct the natal Sun and had just retrograded into a one-degree trioctile to the Moon. P Saturn is maintaining a very long opposition to natal Anza, though that can mean any number of different challenges including AIDS which hit San Francisco earlier than most U.S. cities.
I am testing the asteroid Angelina as a key to Los Angeles and hope to get the dates of past major earthquakes which did sizable damage in the area. The L.A. angles for the San Fernando Valley quake on February 10, 1971 had the P East Point conjunct Uranus and octile Mercury, P MC square Angelina but trine P Angelina, P Antivertex quincunx Saturn, but P Ascendant lacked a strong traditional aspect. It was semisextile Mercury and Libitina (death) at their midpoint, and square the midpoint of natal and P Neptune. I have not yet located the date of the big quake in Long Beach in the 1930s. I have looked at some future dates to see when the L.A. angles would again aspect Angelina, and the strongest aspects are in the late summer of 1997. At that time, P East point will conjunct P Angelina and P Venus while P MC and P Moon at 2 Aries are square P Angelina. P Gaea (earth) is holding a very long opposition to Uranus through most of this decade. Near the end of the decade, P Gaea will start a square to natal Gaea. Richter is holding a long square to the Philadelphia Ascendant while the P Ascendant is now conjunct the natal Sun, approaching a square to Saturn and a conjunction with natal Richter. California is holding a long trioctile to natal Moon-Pallas. There are certainly enough relevant asteroids to justify a quake almost any time, but until we see a general crisis in almost everyone’s personal chart, the problems are likely to be local, affecting a limited number of people like the recent fires.
Speaking of the fires which started on October 24, 1993 in some 14 separate areas ringing L.A., P Moon in this Declaration chart was in 6 Aquarius trioctile natal Mars, trine P Uranus, and quincunx Jupiter. That is a pretty good mixture for potential fires but obviously it could have signaled many other events. During the summer of floods in the Midwest, P Moon was 2 to 3 Aquarius with a square to P Saturn in Scorpio and a quincunx to Venus. The local angles shift, of course, as you move across the affected states. The P MC in late Aries shifts through a quincunx to Neptune to a square to Mercury to a square to Pluto and the P lunar nodes. The P Ascendant in early Leo ranged through an opposition to P Moon to a square to P Saturn to a quincunx to P Mercury and P Pallas to an octile to Neptune to a conjunction with the north lunar node. Most of the aspected factors are water; Moon, Neptune, Pluto, and the Moon’s nodes by their own nature, while natal Mercury is in Cancer, P Saturn is in Scorpio, and P Mercury and Pallas are in Pisces.
One of the interesting exercises I did with this new chart was to look up the dates when there was a progressed New Moon. We have another New Moon coming in the fall of 1994 which is theoretically the beginning of a new 30-year cycle, and I wondered whether a pattern could be discovered in the series of past New Moons.
In the first one, the P Moon reached P Sun at 23 Cancer 33 to form a conjunction with natal Mercury. It occurred on March 17, 1787 while delegates for a constitutional convention were being chosen by the states. Many government leaders had recognized the need to draft a more effective document than the Articles of Confederation. George Washington was chairman of the Constitutional Convention which began on May 25, 1787 in Philadelphia and which included delegates from every state except Rhode Island. I was pleased to note that P Georgia was conjunct the natal MC. P MC was opposite Chiron across the 4th and 10th houses which fits the effort to change the power of the government and the inevitable effect of such a change on the people. By the time the new constitution was completed and sent to the states for ratification on September 17, 1787, P MC had reached Juno. Like Pluto, Juno indicates the need for compromise to avoid a power struggle, to permit shared pleasure. During the months while the new constitution was being hammered out and then ratified, P Ascendant was semisextile Pluto to reinforce the message. When Letter 8 (Pluto, Juno, Scorpio, and the 8th house) is not handled with fairness, we are likely to end with power struggles and violence. It has been said that almost every sentence of the new document was the result of a compromise. Nevertheless, the new constitution greatly increased the power of the central government and it was obviously the major new start indicated by this first New Moon.
The second New Moon with the P Moon and P Sun in 21 Leo 53 came on October 20, 1816 when our second war with England was winding down. The war was declared by Congress on June 4, 1812 in protest against British actions which included the impressment of U.S. sailors, confiscation of U.S. ships and encouragement of Indians who were resisting settlers encroaching on their territory. The U.S. also wanted to absorb Florida which belonged to Spain, an ally of Britain in their ongoing war against Napoleon, and some hoped that the U.S. could take possession of Canada which remained loyal to England. However, in general the British were more successful in the war. A peace treaty was signed on December 24, 1814, with both sides accepting the prewar status of ownership of the land. Again, there was an obvious new start around the time of this New Moon. Following this confrontation, Great Britain and the United States became allies who continue to stand together in most issues with much talk of their “special relationship.”
A second important new start can also be associated with this 1816 New Moon. James Monroe was elected President, and in 1823 during his second term of office, he issued the famous Monroe Doctrine which told the rest of the world to stop trying to colonize the Americas. At the time, Europe paid little attention to the statement, but the issue was formalized. A third development during Monroe’s presidency was the increasing disintegration of the Federalist Party. The founders of the Party were the men who had called the 1787 constitutional convention associated with our first New Moon. The Federalists were replaced by the Whigs who, in the years leading up to the Civil War, were replaced by the Republicans.
Our next New Moon put the two lights in 20 Virgo 37 in a square to natal Mars. The conjunction occurred on June 22, 1846, the month after Congress had declared war on Mexico on May 13 at the request of President Polk. The Treaty of Guadalupe which ended the war (mentioned earlier in this Asteroid-World), gave the U.S. much of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Polk also negotiated our northern boundary with Great Britain, so he was responsible for adding more territory than any president except Jefferson. Polk also restated and enlarged the Monroe Doctrine which had followed the preceding New Moon. In Polk’s expansion of the Doctrine, he said that the U.S. was determined “that no future European colony or domination shall, with our consent, be planted or established on any part of the North American continent.” Some Latin American nations rightly saw this as a limitation on their sovereignty. The theme of expanded power for the U.S. government is becoming clear in these new phases of our history. Polk was also the first “dark horse” candidate for the presidency when the delegates to the Democratic convention were unable to agree on better known men.
The next New Moon came on March 8, 1876 with the Sun and Moon in 19 Libra 51. In the 1860s we had fought the Civil War, making sure that we would remain a single nation with far more power than would have been the case if we had split into two, potentially mutually hostile countries. The historic event most closely associated in time to this 1876 New Moon was not political. It was the granting of a patent for the telephone to Alexander Graham Bell on March 3. On March 10, the first complete sentence was spoken which sent a voice over a wire. Soon afterwards, Western Union hired Thomas Edison and he set up the world’s first research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The U.S. began its leadership role in modern technology.
There were also significant political events in the early months of the New Moon. The election in the fall of 1876 produced a three-way split of the votes so no candidate had the required number of votes though Tilden was only one vote short. However, the commission appointed to decide the matter had one additional Republican member, so they chose the Republican Hayes over the Democrat Tilden. Hayes did work to discourage the “spoils system” which rewarded supporters of the winning candidate with jobs for which they were often unqualified. But Hayes also was the first president to send the federal army into the states to break up strikes, thus enlarging the power of the central government.
The next New Moon brought the Sun-Moon conjunction to 19 Scorpio 34 and it occurred on November 27, 1905. Teddy Roosevelt had inherited the presidency after McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901. McKinley had actually presided over the beginning of empire-building by the U.S. in spite of some personal isolationist inclinations. McKinley’s support of high tariffs had helped business to prosper and new discoveries of gold had also helped the economy. It was public pressure, inflamed by newspapers owned by expansionists, which pushed McKinley into accepting involvement in the Cuban rebellion against Spain. Following our defeat of Spain, we acquired the Philippines, the military base we still hold in Cuba, and other overseas territories. We became a world power and saw the need for a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to shorten the time and cost of transporting goods from one coast to the other.
Teddy Roosevelt who presided over our 1905 New Moon was anything but isolationist. He believed that the U.S. had a great destiny. Would you believe that he also expanded the Monroe Doctrine? He jumped the gun, announcing his version of our obligation to manage the hemisphere in 1904, but early action is not surprising for one of our most macho presidents who kept his horoscope in his office and informed people that he had Mars rising. He issued his manifesto called the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904, stating that the U.S. had the right to intervene in Latin American affairs in order to forestall European intervention. Roosevelt, along with Presidents Taft and Wilson, used this principle to justify financial controls and interventions. In 1905, Roosevelt also enlarged our role in the affairs of nations outside of the Americas when he mediated the Russian war with Japan. In 1906, the U.S. began the excavation of the Panama Canal and the country (which we had encouraged to separate from Columbia so that we could build the canal) has been our de-facto possession ever since. Our path toward empire was certainly encouraged by Teddy Roosevelt who advised “speaking softly but carrying a big stick.”
The next New Moon came with the lights in 19 Sagittarius 39 on August 6, 1935. The world was in the middle of the great depression which had started in the U.S. with the stock market crash in the fall of 1929 while our P Sun was quincunx its natal position. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was trying a variety of government interventions to get the economy moving and/or to relieve some of the hardships of the people. One of his most momentous acts was the signing of the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. Some of his efforts like the National Recovery Act and a law on railroad pensions were declared unconstitutional by the conservative Supreme Court, but others like the Works Progress Administration which was also started in 1935 provided jobs to millions of laborers who built airports, schools, dams, libraries etc. FDR also reorganized the Federal Reserve, giving it increased power. As with other New Moons, the government and other large institutions were increasing in size and power.
The March 23, 1965 New Moon came at 19 Capricorn 51. President Lyndon Johnson had just won the biggest plurality ever achieved in the popular vote a year after the death of John Kennedy. Johnson is noted for both his escalation of the Vietnam war and for his “war on poverty.” His attempt to finance both military expansion and public programs without raising taxes started the U.S. on our present debt binge. The war was a fiasco; our first real military defeat though the War of 1812 was really a “draw.” The vote was hardly counted in November 1964 before the massive student protests began on December 3, 1964 at the University of California at Berkeley. Governor Pat Brown broke that revolt with the police making the biggest mass arrests in U.S. history, but in school after school, the resistance to the war was continued. It was only after Bush’s numerous military actions, especially Desert Storm against Iraq, that pundits began suggesting that the “Vietnam” mental block against wars had finally ended. However, the current ambivalence over Somalia and Bosnia shows that there are still deep divisions between the people who have to fight in and pay for our foreign adventures versus the elite who gain from them in both money and power.
Which brings us to the New Moon coming on October 6, 1994 with the lights at 19 Aquarius 51. Barring a crisis which we would rather not think about, Bill Clinton will still be in power in Washington. The Declaration chart included here is progressed to that date. Note that there are few traditional aspects to traditional planets by the Sun-Moon conjunction. It squares Vesta, suggesting continuing concern over jobs and health matters. The arguments over NAFTA and the new Health Plan are already in full swing. Also in 19 Aquarius is P Herberta which was named for Herbert Hoover, president at the onset of the great depression of the 1930s, reinforcing the idea that the economy will still be a concern to many people. NAFTA also relates to the theme of the U. S. increasing its power over Latin America which was noted in several past New Moons. My reading of information on NAFTA suggests that its passage would benefit the same elite who have expanded their power in our Past New Moons. Also, though Clinton is pushing for its passage, it was George Herbert Walker Bush who negotiated NAFTA, and he is obviously a member of the U.S. elite furthering the cause of his own class.
I had expected Bush to be elected in 1992, partly because of the prominence of asteroid Herberta which was conjunct the P Sun in the Declaration chart (regardless of the time we use on July 4) and conjunct the natal MC in our Constitution chart. But Herberta’s prominence can also be interpreted as a reference to Herbert Hoover who is associated with the great depression which defeated his bid for a second term as well as Bush’s effort for the same. Plus, Herberta could be pointing out the likelihood that actions taken by Bush during his one term will continue to have repercussions through future years.
Torrence is the only other asteroid of my limited number which have been calculated for the 1700s which is conjunct the P Sun and P Moon. It might work for Torrance, California which is an industrialized city south of L.A. near Long Beach. If the asteroid does work for the city, as commonly happens when the words sound alike even though they differ in one or two letters, its prominence in this chart might be related to issues involving industry or to the geologic fault which produced a major earthquake in Long Beach in the early 1930s, not too distant in time from a previous New Moon. But perhaps even more interesting than the conjunctions are some of the other aspects from the new asteroids. The most dramatic is a yod, a double quincunx, from the Sun-Moon to natal and P Williams which are respectively in 20 Cancer and 20 Virgo. P Makhaon, named for a healer, is also in 20 Virgo. What new path is William Clinton’s presidency going to bring us?
Even though a progressed New Moon represents the beginning of a new 30-year cycle, we do not always have a major event right at the time of the New Moon. Sometimes the theme of the new cycle is only apparent as we look back some years later. Also, there are often preliminary events which occur in the last years of the waning cycle and which foreshadow the new one. As in astrology, history offers us meaningful principles which have manifested in a few of many possible details. We are using inductive reasoning when we search for the guiding principles underlying the details. It is only when we understand these principles that we can effectively change future details, hopefully in positive directions.