Editor's Note: This weekend we've decided to take a closer look at the USA's natal chart and its upcoming growing pains: namely, transits by Pluto, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Chiron. Using the Sibley chart, we take a peek at how we got where we are now and the positive creative potential held in these powerful transits, since over the next couple years they intersect with the Aries Point. This post includes the introduction to Judith Gayle's article and the water sign horoscopes. Subscriptions to Astrology News include the Eric Francis horoscope, depended on by readers around the world since 1995. You get seven horoscopes a month: four or five weekly horoscopes and two monthlies. To subscribe, please check out our reasonable six-month and three-month options. If you're new to our service, here is a free one-month trial offer.


Going Through Changes: the USA Sibley Chart

Dear Fellow Traveler:

The United States is having its 234th birthday this weekend -- a good time to check with something called the Sibley Chart. This is the best-accepted chart for the United States, dated July 4, 1776 and with a time of 5:10 pm local time, Philadelphia. The time of the chart has been debated; if you're curious about the backstory you may check out the page in Astrodatabank that discusses the issue. I was a bit skeptical of this chart until the Sept. 11, 2001, incident, which basically proved the time is accurate -- that ascendant degree of 12+ Sagittarius turned out to be pretty sensitive, confirming that this is a working chart to within a few minutes of accuracy.

The Sibley Chart is the Sagittarius rising chart for July 4, 1776. The time the Declaration was signed is in debate (it took a while), but the 12+ Sagittarius ascendant of this chart (next to the horizontal line on the left side) has been confirmed by historical events. Click for larger version.

To sum up the transits the U.S. chart is now taking: every aspect of American life is in the process of profound and sweeping changes that we can barely imagine. It's hard to counsel a whole nation, but if this were a client, I would prepare them to go through a series of transformations, inner and outer, that create an entirely different life in just a few years. The chart aligns exactly with the cardinal T-square that we've been discussing. Were the United States a person, the angles of American life that would be most affected over the next two years are sense of identity and perception in the world (ascendant), personal resources (2nd house) home and security (4th house), marriage and partnership contracts (8th house), and reputation, career and goals (10th house).

The Sibley Chart has Sagittarius rising, which describes our sanctimonious, religion-obsessed, expansion-obsessed nation. We love to spread out, and for the first couple of hundred years of our existence we did quite a bit of it. We still think that's what we do, even though at the moment we're shrinking both in influence and in economic strength. Our military is mired in two wars that have no goal and no limit to their expense; that is not growth, unless you supply guns and hamburgers to the troops. Our treasury borrows every day, taxing the distant future, to wage these wars, and there are no protests against them. This week Republicans in the Senate blocked renewal of unemployment benefits to more than a million Americans while it will spend billions to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan under a false pretense of being at war with Al Qaeda.

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Divided We Stand
By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Once again I am struck by the sheer absurdity of our political situation. This week Mike Huckabee held forth at FOX News about the 'ick factor' in homosexuality, while Elena Kagan, vetted by Congress as a Supreme Court candidate, insisted that Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies present an unacceptable level of bias in the workplace. General McChrystal retired, and Petraeus changed tactics in Afghanistan to expand the killing rather than pursue the delicate mission of nation building. Unemployment extension failed again; the Republicans called those without work lazy and suggested that those still receiving checks should be tested for drugs.

To fund more war, House Minority Leader John Boehner proposed that Social Security be pushed back to age 70, adding that the proposed financial reform is similar to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." Running against Majority Speaker Harry Reid, Nevada candidate Sharron Angle proclaimed that God's plan for those impregnated by rape or incest does not include abortion. Glenn Beck has embraced the real spirit of Martin Luther King, of which the majority of us remain unaware. Oh, and don't forget that Hurricane Alex, the earliest superstorm in fifteen years, is pushing oil in the Gulf onto land with 90 mph winds.

If you're thinking just shoot me now, that's exactly what I think, several times a day. How is it possible that we've come to such a pass? How did the national conversation become so thick with preposterous distractions while real solutions are obstructed? How is it that the progressive policies we so desperately need are thwarted at every turn? You won't be surprised to learn that this was all planned, well in advance of our current crises. "Government is the problem," is a political meme that found its champion in folksy Ronald Reagan.

Our 40th president was once a Democrat, then ran for office as a Republican, but was clearly Libertarian in his heart of hearts. Populist conservatisms can be found in St. Ronnie's vision of deregulation, limited taxes and non-interference from government. His message was pointedly Christian, born in the cradle of white elitism. "We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down," said sunny, old Ron. "Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector."

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 2, 2010, #822 - BY ERIC FRANCIS

Cancer Confidential	You are poised for some extraordinary new success, and a whole new variety of achievement. One of the ways that you'll be facilitating this is not being stuck in the personality structure of someone who has failed in the past, or who does not deserve recognition. I assure you this has nothing to do with your actual state of being. Once the concept of deserving comes up, you can be sure that there's a defensive reaction somewhere in the equation. I suggest you observe its utter lack of usefulness. Indeed, this concept -- deserving -- may be the bone of contention you have with yourself, and it would help facilitate your happiness immensely if you would let this go. You have a plan, you have a vision, you are not merely competent but a kind of visionary -- and your outer reputation reflects this. Allow these things to get the results you want, and they will.
Scorpio Confidential	You seem to be obsessed with service. I mean, it looks really impressive, like at this rate you could end up on a Vatican coin. Yet you have another impulse coming from even deeper in, which looks like a passionate need to create or express something. The service thing may be a distraction, or an excuse to not give yourself something you really need. Or you may be trying to stay visible and connected to a community. I would remind you that your evolutionary fires are burning hot, and in many respects this has nothing to do with any other person. You are in relationship to yourself, and the depths of that are invisible to others -- that is, until you reveal them. I suggest you nurture your inner journey for a little longer before doing so, and please be aware of when you're distracting yourself from something you want and need deeply.
Pisces Confidential	Two elements of your psyche that are both fully functioning, and close to one another, are ready to be integrated. You're almost there. You haven't quite got the intellectual notion of what they have in common: you still have this idea that they cancel one another out. This involves how you process money and your concept of money; and how, in turn, money relates to self-worth and independence; and finally how this influences the subtler parts of your being: your creativity, your receptivity, your desire to be free. There are still plenty of people who believe that money corrupts everything, and I suggest for your own sake and that of everyone around you that you go to the next dimension with this one. You now have within reach the actual experience of resources enhancing your creative gifts and doing nothing to detract. Deep at the core of both is a common experience, which is valuing yourself. And this is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour journey. Walk lightly.