Cusp

Posted by Fe Bongolan

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On the cusp of her 61st solar return, Fe Bongolan considers the cusp in the American presidential race that is the Iowa caucus — and the greater cusp in American politics that it represents.

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.”

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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.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or individual signs here.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and so are the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

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.

Posted in Columnist, Fe-911 on | 9 comments
Fe Bongolan

About Fe Bongolan

Planet Waves writer Fe Bongolan lives in Oakland, California. Her column, "Fe-911," has been featured on Planet Waves since 2008. As an actor and dramaturge, Fe is a core member of Cultural Odyssey's "The Medea Project -- Theater for Incarcerated Women," producing work that empowers the voices of all women in trouble, from ex-offenders, women with HIV-AIDS, to young girls and women at risk. A Planet Waves fan from almost the beginning of Eric's astrology career, Fe is a public sector employee who describes herself as a "mystical public servant." When it comes to art, culture and politics, she loves reading between the lines.

9 thoughts on “Cusp

  1. Barbara Koehler

    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

    1. Fe BongolanFe Bongolan Post author

      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?

  2. Pisces SunPisces Sun

    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.

    1. Fe BongolanFe Bongolan Post author

      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!

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