Dear Planet Waves friends around the world:
I am reclining on my pillow, an hour or so before the midnight of my 61st solar return. It’s so windy outside our house in Oakland I can hear tree branches scrawling the house on either side, as if they’re writing on the walls of the building. As my Santero friends would say, “Oya, goddess of winds and earthquakes is speaking. Change is coming.”
There’s a windstorm outside tonight, weather-wise and metaphorically. My trusty iPad is a fine friend to blog with, allowing me the comfort of writing while semi-horizontal and under warm blankets this late January night, waiting for what the day will bring tomorrow here in Oakland, California, or in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s hard to say.
It feels like we’re at an anaretic degree — if not astrologically, at least sociologically and politically. One thing is for certain, while the state of Ohio is the last indicator on election night of who is going to the White House in November, it’s the Iowa caucuses that click into place the first piece of the American presidential puzzle in February. It’s going to be a long nine months, and the seeds are being planted today.
For all of us around the world interested in the American elections, you can feel a sea change here. Whether we begin the nomination process of putting the first female Presidential candidate or the first Jewish Democratic socialist on the ticket, we are again — as in 2008 — doing something new. For this round, at least in the non-Trump party, we are by varying degrees pushing for change.
As a Democrat (as I have mentioned before), I remain outside the circle of participants for any candidate. I have elected to sit this one out to see how the process works its way through — at least until March and Super Tuesday. All my friends from previous campaigns are feeling the same way. Which way to go?
Do we change incrementally, as President Obama suggested we do, and move in a slower, more grinding pace to force the intractable — the government — to move? Or do we change more aggressively, following the path of resistance against the forces that still have a stranglehold on American politics?
The big decisions come with even greater factors — how much more do we want to watch an unyielding Congress hold yet another mindless fact-finding committee hearing, slowing government down to a halt? How much more of the middle class do we watch slip away as families struggle to make ends meet?
Our problems are based on an ongoing argument: How much government do we want and need? And where is it needed most? Democrats — the more progressive of the two parties — are asking that question while up against a Republican Party so hell-bent on destroying government, that our country would be unrecognizable as a republic should they prevail. Today, it’s that big a deal here.
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Many of us are scared, uncertain of where we’re going. That goes for both parties. Some of that fear has been coerced. Many of us know where it comes from, but also many don’t care — they just feel scared. That anxiety colors everyone’s feelings and thoughts this primary day in Iowa.
Yet, I also (foolishly perhaps) trust Iowans. At least for the primaries. It’s a community-based, consensus building, highly literate population. They don’t like being told how to think. They think for themselves.
So I am, like so many today in the other 49 states, waiting and watching for the clock to tick past the seconds leading to the final tally on this February 1st, my sixty-first solar return. Secretary of State Clinton and Senator Sanders are running in basically a dead heat, according to the Des Moines Register. Donald f*&%ing Trump is leading all other Republican candidates, and will likely be the Republican nominee.
We’re on the cusp of a story waiting to be told about the temperature, grit and sanity of our body politic. Today, our people begin to speak. How crazy are we going to get? Send us some good energy out there. We’re going to need it.
Happy solar return Fe! You know, you might just be one of those people I was looking for a year or so ago, someone with a planet at 11+ Aquarius, because all 3 outer planets had something important at 11+ Aquarius when they ingressed into their present signs. For Uranus into Aries it was Venus, for Neptune into Pisces it was Mercury and for Pluto into Capricorn it was Nessus and the North Node.
Funny thing too was that I was just looking at the solar return chart for the U.S. for its next birthday. I wanted to look for clues about the presidential election taking place 4 months later. There was this quincunx between Saturn at 10+ Sagittarius retrograde and Mercury at 10+ Cancer and I thought, if there was a transiting planet at either 10 to 12 Taurus or 10 to 12 Aquarius on Election Day it would make a Yod with either the solar return Saturn in Sagittarius or the Mercury in Cancer as the apex point, where all the action takes place.
Then it dawned on me about how the 3 outer planets ingress charts each had an important something at 11+ Aquarius and Bingo, that was it! All 3 of them, Mercury in the Neptune ingress, Venus in the Uranus ingress and Nessus + North Node in the Pluto ingress, working together will be sextile the U.S. 2016 Solar Return chart’s Saturn and they all will form a Yod with the Solar Return Mercury in Cancer. Hmmm. . .
So it’s like all the outer planets are offering up something to sextile the U.S. solar return Saturn, which in turn will be pushing the U.S. solar return Mercury to make adjustments during the solar return year between July 2016 and 2017. And here you are, you with your natal Sun at 10 to 12 Aquarius, already thinking, and thinking, and thinking . . .
be
B:
BOOM. Reviewing this year, it feels as though I have ridden over to the top of the first climactic peak of a roller coaster, getting ready to swiftly careen not down, but through. Its feels like an intense caffeine buzz on a soul level. An adrenalized soul. Add that my progressed ASC is about to move from 29-30 Taurus to 0 Gemini in about a month and a half.
Much thinking? Ya think?
Thanks Fe for such an articulate and well-thought piece. Let Trump win is my philosophy, we get what we get and he will likely win even more, he is on a roll and doing a terrific job convincing people who earn between the $65,000- 100,000 range that he thinks “just like them!” Better yet, he has their interests in mind, and why wouldn’t he? Trump has been able to demonstrate his care and concern for the little guy, as demonstrated by his former reality show, and anyone with such humility and empathy for the “all-American” little guy deserves to be President of this nation’s citizenry. Plus, he is “self-made” enough for us, or at least he seems like he is, something all of us can aspire too, to be a Billionaire, to pursue and GET the American dream, and then become President! Neptune must play prominent in his chart- he wears it well.
Happy Solar Return Fe. Hope you and all of us can be heartened by the thought that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The pendulum may swing to the far right with Trump, but the energy always comes back in equal force, and eventually, the give and take motion settles to something that we can all live with, I truly believe that.
Pisces Sun:
Iowans got clever by half and put the insufferable Cruz on top. He joins Rick Santorum in the scores of other Republican nominees who ultimately became President of the United States.
Ps: having a great SR!
Have a great birthday, Fe.
Nellie the Elephant packed her trump and said goodbye to the circus …
Nice piece, kiddo — and much appreciated. There is a good deal of emotion in the air today and a gazillion questions about what tomorrow brings.
There’s much Trump schadenfreud going on. I’d say he deserves it, but I doubt if he cares. People like Mr. Trump are well insulated by their money and self-interest. I think he got a little too aggressive with his criticism of Cruz in an evangelical stronghold and Cruz gets the nod. Let’s not forget it was Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012.
Cruz thanked God first (and twice) in his acceptance speech and that’s the dog whistle we expected. So change isn’t evident in this instance except that Trump DIDN’T win — and media gets the black eye for making him all that and a ratings boost.. And Rubio, whom I figured to be a major player the future, got a big leg up; the money boyz will be running to embrace him.
The interesting race — on the left — continues with Hil up by just 4 delegates, 2 of which she won by a coin toss. Since all the results aren’t in, nothing is sure, except the winds of change you mentioned. And while AP has yet to call a winner, I had to laugh when Hillary called herself a progressive in her ‘acceptance’ speech. She’s anything but, but at least she sniffed the wind correctly. Nobody knows how this will shake out in November, but this much — as Mr. Sanders had to say in his thank you to Iowa voters — remains true:
“Let me conclude by saying what no other candidate will tell you, no president can do what needs to be done alone. And that is why what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution… when young people and working people and seniors begin to stand up and say loudly and clearly, ‘Enough is enough,” that our government belongs to all of us, when that happens we will transform this country.”
Feels to me this is the end of one game, and the beginning of another — one is comfortable because it’s familiar, the other is jarring because it feels risky, but there’s no denying it now: we’re there and that ‘hope-y change-y thing’ turned out to be bigger than anyone thought.
Happy Solar Return, m’dear. We live in interesting — even fascinating — times! So glad you’re here with us to help shape them!
Isn’t if fun to watch the MSM talking heads try to rationalize something that turns out different than they predicted? Such amazement! I will never forget that Rand Paul was Chris Matthews’s choice to shake up the Republicans. That was before Trump loomed large. In some ways their (and our) past experience seems almost a hindrance in these times. Hillary’s remarks might have worked on the public (not just fans) 10 years ago. I agree Jude, feels like the end of one game that feels comfortable and the start of another that feels risky and jarring.
I got all I really needed from last night’s dog and pony show; 1) there are only about a third of Republicans (if we can use Iowa as a yardstick for now) that will bite the Trump hook rather than the much larger number alluded to by MSM . 2) Half of those not voting for a Republican want to start the revolution to get billionaires and corporations and shadow government out of the election process, now rather than later.
I know I half jokingly thought that a ticket that included Hillary and Bernie might solve the dilemma many Democrats are feeling (including our Fe) but when Bernie once again bowed to Hillary’s declaration of a win this morning , always the gentleman with her, I feel it isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. Only if Bernie is at the top of the ticket though. Several reasons for that come to mind but I won’t enumerate here.
be
Be:
Thanks for your comments. There would have to be some melding if a Bernary were to take place. Perhaps shared responsibility? The one thing for Bernie — if he was at the top of the ticket — is his foreign policy cred. Hillary has more of that.
There are still Commander-in-Chief obligations that would make the Pugs scream “Neville Chaimberlain” quicker than you or I would draw a breath.
If something like a Bernary happened in the Executive Branch, it wouldn’t be the first time a coalition government was formed in the world. And a united front of middle aged, seniors, people of color and Milennials might make the oligarchy cool their drones.
Judith:
I have been feeling a calm since last night, even as MSNBC was bloviating (Chris Matthews) about the tie. An uncertainty was put to rest. We are not familiar or comfortable with what’s about to happen, but in the next few months we will see the full breadth of the dragon. We’re kind of feeling it with our hands while blindfolded, but its now there in the room.
I can’t forget we’re past the mid-point of Pluto in Cap and brushing up to the next stage of the evolution of Pluto into Aquarius in 2023. By 2020 things will really be hot and foundations loosening and shifting.
I keep reminding myself that the foundation we’re moving looks a lot like the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. This will require more than a bulldozer and a backhoe. Shall we say “Supermajority”?