SPECIAL ALERT: HOROSCOPE U.S.A.
A planetary configuration not seen since 1776 is coming our way, heralding chaos, revolution, and rebirth. Let the stars guide you through the coming storm.
MICHAEL LUTIN JANUARY 2007
Astrologers can tell you that that’s not going to happen, but that, no matter what, we’ll never go broke either. They can also explain George Bush’s predicament by pointing out that he’s a Cancer, and that in coming years Cancers are going to be challenged to expand their whole worldview. In fact, we can all gain perspective on what is happening politically, culturally, and socially in America by turning to the Zodiac, especially the signs of Cancer and Capricorn. For nations, like people, have horoscopes.
America was born on July 4, 1776, when the Founding Fathers decided it was time to separate from England and start a new life as an independent entity. That makes America a Cancer nation. Cancer is the sign of fertility, and America sees herself as the world’s nurturing mother. But because of the hostile presence of Mars and Uranus in our solar 12th house, we’re the kind of nurturer that can bomb the hell out of a country one day and send over sandwiches and coffee the next. That makes the rest of the world love us and hate us. We’re like the rich relative everybody is jealous of but still visits for the holidays because there’s always plenty of food. It is the sincere and conscious wish of every Cancer, including the U.S.A., to make sure that all those under its wing are safe—and if you mess with them, you must be ready to face the Special Forces.
Security and home are primal drives of this sign, sometimes to the point of clannishness or even xenophobia. America is and always has been about property, taxes, and land ownership. Conveniently, we forget that when the early settlers arrived they took one look around and said to the Indians, “What a gorgeous place you’ve got here! Get out!” Territory is everything, and if anyone tells you that the essence of the American Dream is just about liberty and freedom, don’t kid yourself. It’s about mortgage rates.
But are we, in the end, ruthless imperialists doomed to be brought down by our degenerate culture? That is the question Pluto’s transit through the sign of Capricorn over the next 19 years will answer. It will challenge us as we have never been challenged before—until it will seem that the whole world is against us—but it will also reveal the secret of how we need to change.
The sign of Capricorn has always been strong in our Cancer nation’s horoscope, and it’s going to get a lot stronger. We were born with Pluto in Capricorn, and now, more than two centuries later, Pluto is coming back to the same place. The seeds that were sown back in the 1770s are sprouting at last. That’s how Pluto works, over hundreds of years.
When you come out of a Pluto transit, you are changed forever. In another state. But during the process you don’t realize what’s happening. Life can get pretty dark. With Pluto, you can’t look ahead. You can’t be impatient. Most of all, you shouldn’t be afraid, because in the end there is nothing to fear. You just have to surrender to the mysterious process of complete and total transformation. This is about to happen to the United States as we deal with an opposition of Pluto in the sign of Capricorn to our Cancer sun. And while Cancers and Capricorns will be most strongly affected by this planetary motion, we will all be touched in business as well as in our personal lives, no matter what sign we were born under. Because of Pluto’s slow motion through the heavens—it takes it nearly 250 years to go through the 12 signs of the Zodiac—it rules over mass movements and great political and social changes. So it might be useful to look at what happened the last time Pluto passed over the position it holds now and will hold for the next 20 years.
Sometime in the 1760s, pamphlets began to circulate in the colonies, exploring new ideologies and belief systems concerning individual liberty and personal freedom. Harmless enough. Just philosophers spouting rehashed versions of ancient Greek and Roman notions. But the Crown over in England looked upon such doings as seditious. Mother England, once the great protector, was beginning to be the great drag. She wanted payback for all the protection she’d provided. That was when the colonists, starting to exhibit the collective traits of a Cancer nation, came to resent their mother’s hold on them. She was getting a little too bossy. And greedy.
Clearly, something was happening up in the heavens. Pluto was just about to leave the sign of Sagittarius and enter the sign of Capricorn. A transformation was taking place. And so, the United States of America was born.
Capricorn can be pictured as the mustache-twirling landlord in a black cloak pointing outside toward the blizzard while a poor pregnant wretch begs for mercy. Capricorn forces one to grow up, face life, recognize that it’s a tough world. It lends you a dime and asks for a dollar in return. It can be the sign of an inspired leader or a controlling, dominating fascist. It can support your existence or threaten it completely. Either way, the presence of Capricorn always indicates big business. And what is America about if not that?
Capricorn represents supremacy and power. And if Capricorn is not the most humanitarian sign of the Zodiac, it always means stability. Capricorn supports organized society, not rabble-rousing anarchy. It is often perceived as uptight and reactionary, mainly because its function is to uphold existing law. It is not progressive or forward-thinking.
It clearly represents the deep streak of conservatism that has always existed in the United States but that seems to be ascendant at the moment. If Capricorn protects the status quo, how did it help sow the seeds of revolution in the original colonies? There’s the problem. And the answer? It was not just the presence of Capricorn in America’s horoscope, it was the presence of Pluto in that sign that sparked the fight for freedom.
When Uranus hits the 29th degree of Pisces, before it pops into Aries, even the Pope could have a stroke over the upheaval the world will find itself in. Uranus in Pisces washes everything away—every hope, every prayer—and the only thing that saves you is the ability to surrender to the inevitable shift. Once Uranus hits Aries, however, a whole segment of the population is going to rise up. When the government becomes business and business becomes government, the people will fight back, and the ensuing struggle will lead to the eventual transformation and rebirth of America.
Pluto in Capricorn is going to change America from the inside out, threaten our very existence, challenge our economy, and divide the country politically. The government is going to be so paranoid during those years that it doesn’t really matter who gets in in 2008.
Pluto in Capricorn means the ascendance into overt power of corporations in relation to the government. But that situation will change when Pluto enters Aquarius, at the end of the 2020s.
Michael Lutin is Vanity Fair’s resident astrologer.