Transit - The Astrologers Newsletter

Previously, in The Scrying Game…

Last time we took note of the impending station of Saturn, just before it reached the Suns of the USA and George W Bush. On 25th October 2003, Saturn stationed before turning retrograde, at 13 degrees 14 minutes of Cancer. The USA's Sun is at 13 degrees 20 minutes of Cancer, and George W Bush's Sun is at 13 degrees 47 minutes of Cancer. (See previous article for note on the USA chart used here.)

So the question was, should we expect to see the full impact of transiting Saturn over those Suns - on the basis that Saturn has reached the Sun's degree? Or would we have to wait until 11th June 2004, when Saturn finally reaches 13 deg 20 mins?

Let me just develop the case for the 'same degree is near enough' theory a bit, because I know that it may look a little flaky at first glance. In an interview in 1997, Rob Hand said:

"The word 'partile' in modern English, comes from the Latin 'partilis' which is a direct translation of the Greek word moirikos which means 'according to the degree'. And - this is the interesting point - it doesn't mean within sixty minutes (as moderns would think it means); it means they are in the same degree - or the equivalent degree of the sign, so if you had a trine from 13.59 to 14.01 that is not partile. If you had a trine from 13.01 to 13.59 that is partile, because they are in the fourteenth degree in both cases.

"So the Greeks, rightly or wrongly, had a quantum view - literally - of the zodiac. The zodiac is made out of a hierarchy of quanta (the actual term is morion; that word means allotment, or lot, as in 'a lot of land' or 'a person's lot in life'. In fact, the word for degree - 'moira' is a derivation of that) and these degrees, these moria are exactly what John Addey accused them of being - little boxes. And the Greeks would have said, 'Yes! We know they're little boxes! This is the way they are supposed to be! Because the universe is not a continuum; it is a series of discontinuous quantities!' Well, guess what folks! That's exactly what physics is telling us."

It doesn't take too big a leap from this, to saying that when a planet gets to the same degree, that should be enough to deliver the major effects of the transit. So this was one point of interest for thoughtful astrologers everywhere: when would the effects of this transit manifest? The other thing to ponder, of course, was: what would actually happen?

Of course it would be hopelessly simplistic to anticipate Bush's forced exit from office just because it happened once before under the transit of Saturn over the US's Sun (in 1974, in the wake of Watergate). But at the same time, surely there should be something in common between the times when this transit has happened in the past. So what has happened before?

Here are the dates of the last 4 instances of this transit (just showing the first 'pass' each time for simplicity's sake - Saturn actually went retrograde over the Sun & then direct again in 1915-16, & 1974-5):

14 July 1886

29 August 1915

28 June 1945

9 August 1974

In fact I wonder if the Nixon-resigning business is a bit misleading for the 1974 transit. Of course the symbolism is relevant to Nixon; but from 9th August on, Gerald Ford was president. So maybe we should look to him more than to Nixon for the meaning of this transit.

So, here goes. In '74 we have Ford, suddenly thrust into office. He hadn't even been vice-president very long, and became the first president not to have been voted into office (until Bush, but that's another story hmm?). Kissinger was still in place - in many ways he seems to have been the chief subverter and manipulator. Ford had good reason to feel quite isolated at this time, therefore; as if the cabin boy was suddenly made captain, and still had to cope with the rest of the crew.

You'll guess that I'm going with 'isolation' for the Saturn theme here.

Before that, in '45, Truman was in office - had only been there a couple of months, with Roosevelt dying in April. So suddenly Truman has responsibility for decisions about the terms of peace, rebuilding half the world, and whether to use the atomic bomb. And as the negotiation of national boundaries etc began, the alliance between the US and the USSR became increasingly shaky. So maybe this US president would have felt a little more isolated than usual under Saturn's transit, too.

How about 1915? Woodrow Wilson had lost his wife a year previously, and was devastated by that; then his secretary of state, Bryan, resigned two months before the transit. The US was on the verge of being pitched into war against Germany, which Wilson didn't want, but he didn't want to be too soft on Germany either. So can we notch up another instance of an isolated president here? It seems plausible to me, though I'll be the first to say that 'plausible' is definitely the word, not 'overpowering'. I'm hoping that some of Transit's erudite readership will pitch in here with a more thorough analysis of the historical factors involved.

1886 is the point where the 'isolation' theory runs into trouble. President Grover Cleveland got married on 2nd June 1886, a little over a month before the transit of Saturn to the US's Sun was exact. At age 49, this was his first marriage. So, now - what do you do with your theory at a moment like this? I could try the line that 'He probably became isolated from the process of government because of the focus on his new bride'. But perhaps a more plausible account was offered by Miss B on the Skyscript forum (http://www.skyscript.co.uk/forums/index.php ) when (as part of a long thread concerning this very theme) she suggested that the concept of taking on (parental) responsibility might be a more useful way of characterising this transit for the US President. Apparently Cleveland was 28 years older than his wife.

What Actually Happened?

On 24th October, around the time Saturn stationed, George Bush gave a speech to the Australian Parliament, thanking them for their support in the Iraq war. He was jeered by a couple of MPs from the Green Party, and a guy whose father is held in Guantanamo Bay. The three who jeered were all ejected from the building. Bush ad-libbed ironically: 'Boy, I love free speech'.

And, so far as I'm aware, that was the height of it. So I'm chalking this one up as a Saturn transit which almost-but-not-quite happened. Saturn stationed just before reaching the Suns of Bush and the USA. So criticism reaches him, but its power is weak and the critics are soon moving backwards, away from Bush. Looking to the preceding couple of months - polls showed Bush's popularity to be at an all-time low; the enormous deficit his government had created attracted much adverse comment; and a scandal threatened to explode about the fact that someone within the White House had blown the cover of a CIA agent, apparently out of political motivations.

It will be interesting to see whether the actual transit of Saturn over the Suns of Bush and the USA (in June next year) sees one of these incidents taking centre stage. Will we see Bush leaving office with jeers for souvenirs? With both Bush's Sun and Saturn in the 12th of his natal chart, will it be his dealings with the secret service that do him a public disservice?

In conclusion…

I make no apologies for the fact that the astrology here is really basic - just looking at the transit of one planet, Saturn, to the Sun. I think almost any astrologer would expect to be able to discern some underlying theme in the times when Saturn transits a country's Sun. Given that, in this particular case, that transit coincides with the transit of Saturn to the president's Sun, there is reason to monitor the events of next June with particular interest.

My thanks to the members of Skyscript's forum for their input on the issues discussed here.