March 2015

In 2000, a fellow named John Titor got on the internet and created a stir by predicting that a nuclear war would start in Washington DC on March 12 2015 at 3:45 AM.

The chart for that moment has Moon tightly conjunct Saturn in a water sign, about thirty degrees before culmination on the Midheaven.  Its chart ruler is trine a Mars-Uranus conjunction, which is square the Ascendant.

The chart for the first A-Bomb dropped on Japan in 1945 also has Moon tightly conjunct Saturn in a water sign, also about 30 degrees from culmination on the Midheaven, and its chart ruler is now square (instead of trine) a Mars-Uranus conjunction, which again is itself square the Ascendant.

In the Hiroshima chart, the Sun is conjunct Pluto. In the March 2015 chart, the Ascendant is conjunct Pluto.

In the Hiroshima chart, the Midheaven is conjunct the Mars-Uranus conjunction. In the March 2015 chart, the ruler of the Midheaven is conjunct the Mars-Uranus conjunction. 

Liberty's Heartbeat: The Astrology of the USA

Chapter One : People Empowered

“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer.”

  -D.H. Lawrence

                                                         

          It’s a very controversial suggestion as far as the astrological community is concerned. Not only does a July 2^nd Independence Day mean that they’ve been working with the wrong chart all along, it suggests that some of their most fundamental presumptions about America’s basic character have been grossly mistaken.

          No one likes being wrong, but it goes deeper than that. They just don’t like the Moon-Pluto conjunction that occurred on July 2^nd .  It just looks too offensive to them.  It suggests dark and disturbing things about our homeland, indecent things that their more genteel and civilized July 4^th chart wouldn’t dream of mentioning. Their Fourth of July charts all have Moon in Aquarius, which would indicate that Americans are an idealistic, civilized, humanitarian people filled with brotherly love. Sounds pretty nice, right? Moon in Aquarius gives high intelligence with a stable, calm,  emotionally detached nature. Still sound like America? 

          I don’t think so. The America I know has always had a little outlaw blood in its veins, a little more Jesse James than Albert Einstein. Moon in Aquarius doesn’t have much in common with the nation I know, the nation that spent its first hundred years massacring Indians from one end of the continent to the other. Nor does it sound like the nation that almost ripped itself apart over slavery. Nor does it sound much like the nation that stood nose to nose against monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito, Mao, Saddam Hussein, and Bin Laden, and never flinched once.

          America, to be blunt, has balls. Moon in Aquarius doesn’t. 

          The July 2^nd chart, on the other hand,  has huge balls. But they come at a terrible cost. Moon conjunct Pluto would mean that part of the destiny of the America people is to confront evil in the world head-on, standing up to it both domestically and abroad, both our own evil and that of others.  It would mean that we might not always be the nicest guys on the block, but we’re no one’s whipping boy either. We would spend our entire existence, according to this chart, staring directly into the heart of darkness, and we would either overcome it or be destroyed by it.

          It is very much in the nature of Pluto to define the world in terms of all or nothing, black or white. A people born under Moon conjunct Pluto would see the whole world this way, and that is America’s entire history in a nutshell.  When we were fighting the “barbaric, savage” Indians, we believed at the time that we were fighting evil incarnate, cleansing the continent to ready it for the absolute goods of Christianity and democracy. When the North fought against the South in the Civil war, it again viewed the fight as being one against  the “absolute evil” of slavery.  When America fought against Hitler, then communism, and now Islamic terrorism, each time we have seen ourselves fighting against “ultimate evil”.           

          A lot of astrologers find themselves unnerved by this Moon-Pluto conjunction. They associate Pluto so strongly with concepts like “danger” and “evil” that they feel this conjunction could only mean that America itself was evil.  However, it’s not that simple. While no astrological aspect can make people immoral in and of itself , Moon conjunct Pluto does make people compelled to outwardly express and display whatever darkness they do have within themselves, so they confront it and become consciously aware of it. And eventually, if they survive that self-confrontation,  this same conjunction would ultimately compel them to fight that darkness and purge it from themselves. Part of the reason America has been as successful as we have been in confronting evil in the rest of the world is because we practiced that skill on ourselves first, in our Civil War.  We got to know our own dark side very well, and got a good feel for just what we are capable of.  In fact, we started learning that lesson early on.

Born in Matricide

          When Britain’s King George III rejected the American colonies’ Olive Branch Petition in 1775, the colonists were finally forced to admit  to themselves that there were only two choices left, and both were terrible : to either unconditionally submit to brutal domination by Britain, or to risk everything they had to fight for their independence and freedom. On the afternoon of July 2, 1776, the American people finally determined which of these two paths they would take when the Continental Congress voted for independence by passing the Lee Resolution.  The colonists’ decision to sever all ties with their British motherland is perfectly reflected in the Moon-Pluto conjunction in the skies that afternoon. Moon conjunct Pluto can either point to a mother who symbolically or literally  “kills” her children, or to a child who “kills” its parent, but the underlying theme is the same – the total destruction of the child’s tie to home and mother. Psychologically, this act is very powerful. If a human being killed his mother, that act would obviously have repercussions that haunted him for the rest of his life. One likely effect, however, would be the empowering conclusion “If I can do this terrible thing, I can probably do anything else as well. Nothing is beyond me now.” And just like people, nations also have their own psychology, and in 1776,  this decision to break free of Britain’s bonds must have been a tremendously frightening and awesome move that made a permanent impression on the nation’s psyche, one which still shapes our behavior and attitudes today. What was that impression? “I am powerful and dangerous! Do not mess with me! I would even kill my own mother if necessary!” The nation’s first flags carried the same message - “Don’t Tread On Me” -  along with a very Plutonian symbol – a coiled rattlesnake.  Later, we would switch our national symbol to yet another Plutonian character – the eagle (Pluto rules the sign Scorpio, and the three classical symbols for Scorpio are a scorpion, an eagle, and a serpent).

         

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

- “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus,

engraved on the Statue of Liberty

          Psychologically, Moon conjunct Pluto indicates both the death and the rebirth of the mother figure.  America’s first mother experience came to an end when we parted ways with Britain in our Revolutionary War, but then was reborn anew when America reinvented herself by taking on the role of mother for the entire world.  With this aspect in its chart, America was destined to be a universal mother and homemaker, gathering and protecting all who need her under a powerful motherly embrace, and that’s exactly what happened.  Pluto intensifies and magnifies all the natural expressions of the Moon, making our nation so tremendously maternal and nurturing that it opened its arms wide, inviting in all the world’s “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free” for 236 straight years. America has taken it upon itself to provide a safe refuge for the world’s needy, providing a new home and new melting-pot family to the “wretched refuse” of foreign lands. 

          Moon-Pluto’s strong motherly instincts also explain why America stood up to provide an umbrella of safety to the West as leader of the Free World during the Cold War. But the same concerns that inspire America to provide a secure homeland also tempts it to become controlling, manipulative, and possessive, as Moon-Pluto is the epitome of the overprotective mother who is always willing to ask others to give up a little more freedom for increased security.

 

Rebirth of a Nation

          Pluto is all about death and rebirth, and the Moon represents the people, the masses. Thus it makes sense that our nation quickly became known as a “melting pot”, where immigrants shed their old national identities to be transformed into something new. But with this conjunction in our nation’s chart, this process of death and rebirth, of self-purges and self- recreations, will be something that keeps happening to us as long as America exists. It is our inescapable fate, according to the Liberty Chart.  The circumstances of history will force us again and again to publically expose and confront our nation’s internal faults, shortcomings, and self-contradictions. This is a miserable, bitterly painful process, but a certain and direct path to becoming a better, stronger, more unified and more powerful people. Although “Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” is a modern saying, it has been one of the guiding principles of our nation since its founding.  Once our faults are exposed, we wrestle with ourselves over them for awhile, and eventually we purge them from our nation, becoming a new and  healthier people as a result. We have done this again and again in our history, and we will continue to do so in the years to come.  We are our own greatest accomplishment.  We have suffered through this painful process with slavery, and voting rights, and prohibition, and labor rights, and civil rights, and gay rights, and nonsmokers’ rights, and we will keep on going, forever reshaping and refining ourselves into something better. 

          Our first flag carried the image of a snake, which has proven prophetic in ways our founders did not anticipate. Like a snake, our nation has shed its skin and reinvented itself again and again over the years. We can do this great thing for one reason alone – we are not afraid of the pain. With Moon conjunct Pluto, we ARE the pain. The pain of ongoing self-destruction and self-recreation is a huge part of what the American people are all about.

 

The Gift of Moon-Pluto

          The primary focal point of the Liberty Chart is this Moon-Pluto conjunction, which is in Capricorn, in the Second House.  This conjunction is all alone on one side of the chart, with all the other planets grouped up against it on the opposite side of the chart.  This makes the already potent Moon-Pluto conjunction even stronger, turning it into the most powerful and sensitive point in the whole chart. And it fits. In a nation’s horoscope, the Moon represents the people, the public, the masses, and Pluto represents ultimate, absolute power, so this chart is perfectly placed in the chart of the world’s first modern democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people”.  This chart’s Moon-Pluto conjunction indicates a great empowerment of the masses, which as we know was the primary purpose of this new republic. But this same conjunction also represents extreme, ruthless, absolute control of the people, as well as an entire people’s terrible self-destruction and rebirth, and those too are consistent with America’s history. Moon conjunct Pluto is reflective of both the inhuman slavery of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and also the horrific war we put ourselves through to break free of that institution. Moon conjunct Pluto suggests that our nation possesses bitter and sensitive emotional wounds, but also that our people can be expected to continually evolve and self-transform as a result of that pain. Moon conjunct Pluto indicates a traumatized people who live in almost perpetual fear, but also a people who feel an urgent need to acquire ever greater control of the world around it in response to that fear. A people with Moon conjunct Pluto will carry tremendous pain, anxiety, and grief within themselves, but it will also be a nation of indomitable will, a people that  throws themselves fully and utterly into any project or mission they set for themselves. A nation with this aspect will be obsessive in many ways; it will have tremendous focus, drive, and determination, but it will also be highly prone to paranoia, and it will wrestle with some very serious hangups and psychological issues, especially when it comes to the subjects of sex and death. It will be a nation of dark secrets, a nation capable of going to any extreme or violating any principle or treaty to achieve its goals, a nation not merely capable of mass murder, but one that sometimes seems to breed mass murderers by the truckload. It will be a people who fiercely love their guns, a nation that stockpiles the most dangerous weapons imaginable and then goes looking for more.  It will be a populace that not only knows that disturbing things happen in secret behind closed doors, but who accept such things as normal and teach their children to play it safe, turn away and not ask too many questions.  But at the same time, it will also be a nation capable of the noblest self-sacrifice and steadiest resolve, a nation capable of plunging directly into an inferno if that is what it takes to achieve its goals. A people with Moon conjunct Pluto can stare unflinchingly into the heart of darkness without being intimidated or swayed from their chosen path.

The Curse of Moon-Pluto

          Any nation born under a Moon-Pluto conjunction would be condemned to suffer almost perpetual fear, tragedy, trauma, and grief, and this is so true of America that, right alongside our national anthem, our national bird, and our national pastime,  we also have our very own national natural disaster – the tornado, earth’s most violent storm.  While floods, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis occur in relatively equal measure all over the globe, America has far more tornadoes than anywhere else, averaging about 1,200 annually. While tornadoes do occasionally occur in other parts of the world, the vast majority of them take place in the United States because of its unique geography. For up to six months out of each year, Americans living in Tornado Alley go to bed at night uncertain if their houses will still be standing come morning, and every year brings more reports of homes, neighborhoods, and even entire towns being blown away by these monsters. It’s like a perverse national lottery that happens every Spring; everyone knows that some town somewhere in America is probably going to be ripped to splinters before the season is over, and everyone just hopes and prays it won’t be theirs. Witnesses describing tornadoes’ aftermath often say things like “Our neighborhood looks like the middle of a war zone”, and for the millions living in Tornado Alley, it does seem that every Spring brings a new round of violent ambushes from Mother Nature. These attacks are so swift and overpowering that there’s no real defense against them, leaving everyone in Tornado Alley feeling vulnerable and afraid.  The National Weather Service issues hundreds of Tornado Watches and Warnings each year, advising millions of Americans to quite  literally drop everything and run for their lives. No one feels safe when it’s spring in Tornado Alley.

          If America was truly born under Moon conjunct Pluto, its population would have been doomed to an almost uninterrupted diet of fear, pain, trauma, and grief. This is a problem for most astrologers today, who prefer to think the correct chart has Moon in Aquarius, which would instead make us a calm, stable, dispassionate, enlightened, and idealistic people, not at all like the troubled nation we would be under Moon-Pluto. So the question is, how troubled are we? Have the American people been force-fed a steady diet of fear, pain, and grief since the nation was born, or not?  Younger Americans recalling the relative peace and prosperity of the 1980s and 1990's might assume the answer is no, but let’s take a closer look at our nation’s history.

          To start off, for over a hundred long years, from 1776 all the way through 1890, America was tangled up in the Indian Wars, trying to “make the frontier safe for civilization”. Frontier warfare was almost incomprehensibly brutal, and even when noncombatants on both sides weren’t actively being massacred, their food supplies were being systematically targeted and destroyed. For over a century, there was a steady stream of  murders, tortures, rapes, scalpings, mutilations,  massacres, and other atrocities being committed by both sides of the war. Both sides regularly tortured innocent women, children, and other noncombatants to death, leaving gruesomely mutilated corpses. During this same period, of course, slaves in the South were treated every bit as inhumanly as the Indians were.  Our Black and Asian slaves were routinely beaten, raped, tortured, crippled, and even killed when it was thought necessary. The only reason the Indians were singled out for wholesale slaughter was because they made lousy slaves. Blacks in the North were treated somewhat better, but there too they frequently found themselves the victims of barbaric violence. It is estimated that as many as 10 million souls died during America’s Indian wars, including 90% of the native Indian population.

          But America’s frenzy of mass murder didn’t stop in 1890. Even after the Indian Wars were over, gruesome homicidal mania continued to play a bitterly familiar part of America’s daily life. Hundreds upon hundreds of mass murder cases have been documented in America’s 236 years as a nation; in just the last few years alone, over 43 incidents have been reported in our papers. We have suffered through the 2008  Northern Illinois University shootings, the 2007 Christmas Eve massacre in Carnation Washington, the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, the 2007 Church shootings in Colorado Springs, the 2007 Louisiana State University murders, the 2007 Westroads Mall massacre, the 2007 Trolley Square Mall shooting in Salt Lake City, the 2007 Tyler Peterson shootings in Wisconsin, the 2007 SuccessTech High School shooting in Cleveland, the 2007 Delaware State University shooting, the 2007 Atlanta abortion clinic bombing,  the 2006 Amish school shootings, the 2006 Capitol Hill massacre, the 2006 Baseline Killer murders in Phoenix, the 2006 Serial Shooter murders in Phoenix, the 2006 Hamilton Avenue murders in Indianapolis, the 2006 Platte Canyon High School shooting in Colorado, the 2006 Pine Middle School shooting in Reno, the 2005 Tacoma Mall shooting in Washington, the 2005 Red Lake High School massacre in Minnesota, the 2005 Tyler Courthouse shooting in Texas, the 2003 Ohio highway sniper attacks, the 2003 Beltway sniper attacks, the 2003 Lockheed Martin shooting,  the 2003 Rocori High School shooting in Minnesota, the 2003 Red Lion Area Junior High School shootings in Pennsylvania, the 2002 Angel of Death murders, the 2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting, the 2002 shootings at LAX, the 2001 September 11th attacks, the 2001 Anthrax attacks, the 2000's BTK Kill

er murders, the 2000 al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole,  the 2000 Buell Elementary School shooting in Michigan, the 2000 Wakefield Massacre in Massachusetts, the 2000 Brooklyn Strangler Murders, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, the 1999  Wedgewood Baptist Church shootings in Texas, the 1999 Xerox murders in Honolulu, the 1998 Thurston High School shooting,  the 1998 Jonesboro massacre, the 1998 Birmingham abortion clinic bombing, and the 1998 Connecticut Lottery Headquarters shootings.

          Astrologers who insist that our nation must have its Moon in the peaceful and civilized sign of Aquarius have a hard time reconciling that view with these chilling statistics.

          From 1776 - 1781, of course, we were also up to our necks in trouble with the Revolutionary War, which cost us 25,000 fatalities. Almost immediately after the war was over, we went through our first economic depression from 1784-1787.  A few decades later we very nearly lost our second war with Britain, which cost us another 20,000 fatalities, and almost immediately after that war was over, the nation was thrown up in arms over slavery by the Missouri Compromise. When the Panic of 1819 caused a six year-long economic depression, we started having urban race riots all over, and they’ve been with us on and off ever since. The race riots weren’t confined to the South alone; the bloodiest one in American history occurred in New York City in 1863, when mobs swept through the streets murdering Blacks, hanging their corpses on lamp posts, and torching Black homes, businesses, and orphanages. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, virtually the entire the South lived in anxious dread of slave uprisings, revolts, and conspiracies. Many did spring up, in places like Missouri, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and Louisiana; when the Army was called in to suppress slave revolts near New Orleans in 1811, sixty-six slaves were executed, with sixteen of their heads left impaled on spikes alongside the road as a warning to others.

          Meanwhile, horrible cholera epidemics occurred around the nation in 1832, 1834, 1849-52, and 1854. The first cholera epidemic started in New York City and  killed half its victims, while half of the entire Pawnee population and two thirds of the southern Cherokees died in the epidemic of 1849-1852. The Panic of 1837 brought an even more terrible five-year depression, leaving one-third of America’s  workers unemployed. From 1838 to 1862, a lot of brave Americans risked life and limb to run the Underground Railroad, but many of them got lynched by the Ku Klux Klan after the war was over. Around the same time the Underground Railroad was helping people escape to the North, other Americans were trying to escape to the West via wagon train, but a lot of them, such as the cannibalizing Donner Party of 1846, never made it.  But even though these journeys to the West were so dangerous and uncertain, massive numbers of Americans decided the risk was worth it, which says a lot about how awful life was in the East during these years.

          The Civil War was a blood bath, costing us 623,000 fatalities, more than all the other war fatalities in our entire history. And after it was over, racial violence and rioting continued to convulse the nation for the next hundred years. The Ku Klux Klan and similar domestic terrorist organizations spread riots, terror, and mass murder into nearly every southern state, mutilating, raping, shooting, and massacring Blacks, schoolteachers,  Republicans, and members of the Underground Railroad.

          The American Old West remained lawless and violent until 1890, because there was hardly any local law enforcement there, and those few justice systems that did exist were generally corrupt. Buffalo hunters, railroad workers, cowboys and soldiers had regular shoot-outs in public, and violent range wars were frequent.  Around the same time on the East Coast, the mid-1800's witnessed a cruel upsurge in child labor, when American children as young as four found themselves being pressed into the workforce, toiling in unspeakable conditions for up to ten hours a day.  In 1873, three simultaneous pandemics ravaged the South:  yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox.

          In the mid-1800's we started seeing a new phenomenon in America – strikes,  riots and massacres from labor unrest, beginning what eventually proved to be the bloodiest history of labor of any industrialized nation on Earth. After the Civil War, America’s population began shifting into the cities just as vast numbers of new immigrants arrived, creating horrific and violent slums.  In 1890, eleven out of twelve million American families were below the poverty line. Due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, infant mortality in New York in 1870 was  65% higher than it had been in 1810.  The Panic of 1873 started the  Long Depression (1873–1896), which was regarded as the Great Depression until the more severe Great Depression arrived in the 1930s. The last two decades of the 19^th century witnessed the worst race problems in our nation’s history, with segregation, lynchings,  riots, and Jim Crow laws all over the country. During this time, the constant threat of terror was used to keep blacks “in their place”.  In 1893, yet another financial panic erupted, causing hundreds of railroad companies, steel mills and other businesses to fail.

          In World War I, 116,000 Americans lost their lives overseas, while the US mainland became so terrified of Germans, Bolsheviks, and Blacks that a massive domestic intelligence system was put in place which included  300,000 volunteer spies, the largest corps of homeland spies ever assembled. After the war, the Klan came back and starting lynching people again, even going so far as to murder Black soldiers returning from overseas. The Spanish Flu pandemic terrorized America from 1818- 1820, killing over half a million of our citizens, and in 1919 there were race riots in 26 different American cities, and labor unrest was a daily occurrence. From 1920 to 1933,  Prohibition brought  a large organized crime presence to America, when Al Capone-style mobs ruled our cities. In 1923, the entire town of Rosewood Florida was burned to the ground and many of its inhabitants massacred in one of the worst cases of racial violence in America’s history. Then of course, from 1929-1945 we suffered through the Great Depression and World War II, which cost us another 400,000 fatalities.

          Immediately afterwards, Russia got the bomb, sending America into about twenty more years of hysterics worrying about McCarthyism, the Red Scare, Mutual Assured Destruction, and backyard bomb shelters. The Asian Flu arrived in 1957–1958, killing some  69,000 Americans, which was immediately followed by the fear, violence, and civil unrest of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960's, and then still more fear, violence and civil unrest from the Vietnam War protests in the 1960's and 1970's.  The Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968–1969  infected 50 million Americans, killed 33,000 of us, and terrified the rest of us. The Vietnam War cost us 58,000 fatalities, and almost as soon as it was over, the drug pandemic arrived. Crack cocaine showed up in the 1980's and then crystal meth in the 1990's, fueling a huge explosion in crime and street gangs all over the nation.  From 1960 to 1990, violent crime in America rose 630%, murder rose 257%, rape rose 596%, and robbery rose 592%.  And, of course,  we shouldn’t forget about terrorism, which stuck America in 1993 and 2001, leaving us looking uneasily over our shoulders ever since. 

          Whew! After going through all that, how do we Americans even get out of bed in the morning?  It seems that just as one would predict for a nation born under Moon conjunct Pluto, our nation has indeed been in a more or less  constant state of fear, pain, trauma, and grief since its very birth. Despite what the glossy advertisements say, living in America has never been easy or safe.  On the contrary, life here has always been a terrifying struggle for survival for a sizable portion of the population.  Between the tornadoes, the Indian Wars, the lawless Old West, the Civil War, race riots, the KKK, World War I, the Red Scare, the Spanish Flu, organized crime, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, World War II, Russian Nukes, the Cold War, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the drug wars, terrorist attacks, and a steady steam of race riots and crazed homicidal maniacs attacking our schools, malls, churches, streets, and workplaces, we have never really had much of a chance to feel safe. Instead, we’ve been forced to teach each new generation of our children how to bend over and kiss their asses goodbye for the last 236 years.

          So how do Americans summon the courage to get out of bed each morning after living through all that trauma? By embracing our past and drawing strength from having survived it. Our nation identifies deeply and passionately with this history of fear, pain, trauma, and grief, and has woven its inner sense of self around such issues. Who are we? We are a people forever dealing with our own fear and pain. We do not let go, we do not move on, we do not forget. Remember the Boston Tea Party! Remember the Maine! Remember the Alamo! Remember Pearl Harbor! Remember 9/11! The outward source of our fear may seem to change, but the trauma itself never really seems to dissipate. We process our fear and pain, and reprocess it, and then reprocess it some more.  We rehash battles from wars fought over a hundred years ago (Civil War enactments., etc.). Other nations might consider this sort of thing to be sick or obsessive, but to us, it’s just how we are. It’s WHO we are.  However, a nation that grows up living in fear is a nation that ends up being feared by others. And so we are. Who are we?  To many other peoples and nations of the world, we are death itself, the “Great Satan”. Which is also consistent with a nation whose Moon is conjunct Pluto.

Moon-Pluto Is Our Blind Spot

          Thanks to that conjunction, America can always be counted on to have a huge kneejerk emotional reaction to all things related to power and death (which on a psychological level are really the same subject – if we had enough power, we could theoretically avoid death).  Power issues are something we relate very strongly to in America, something we respond to instinctively and automatically. Whatever the stimulus is, if it makes Americans feel more powerful, we find ourselves attracted to it and want to embrace it and identify with it; but if the stimulus instead makes us feel weak, vulnerable, or powerless, we then instinctively reject it, deny it, and either try to ignore it, or, better still, destroy it. With Moon conjunct Pluto, America is always going to have more than its fair share of psychological complexes, phobias and blind spots. We harbor very touchy sensitivities about feeling vulnerable or endangered, and whenever these sort of psychological buttons are pushed, we automatically compensate with a powerful, over the top  reaction. As Japan learned in 1945.

          We especially don’t like being reminded of our mortality, and go to great lengths as a people to avoid, deny, and reject such reminders. Unlike most of the other nations of the world, we prefer to hide our sick, weak, and elderly loved ones away behind closed institutional doors, perhaps because they remind us that even with all our power and wealth, we still do not have control over our own final destiny. But even if we cannot hold off death forever, our Moon-Pluto conjunction makes us determined as a society to do all we can to avoid being reminded of that unpleasant fact, plastering over any nagging reminders of the inevitability of sickness and death with a constant media barrage that instead celebrates the eternal vibrancy, beauty, and sexiness of youth. It’s not that we are obsessed with youth itself per se, but just that we are desperately trying to avoid its opposite, which is why it has become possible in 2012 to flip through dozens of TV channels  without running across anyone older than thirty-five.  And why we are deluged daily with an endless flood of ads for products designed to help us seem young and healthy. And why we keep a far larger percentage of our population hidden away behind institutional doors than any other country on earth.

                                                         

Moon-Pluto Is Our Passion

         

          America has always had an insatiable craving for intense danger and death-defying heroics, from the epic gunfights of the Old West to Evel Knievel jumping across the Snake Canyon to Houdini escaping from certain death to the seemingly impossible aerobatic feats of the Blue Angels.  Instead of turning away in fear, we find ourselves drawn in, fascinated by the raw danger and unrestrained force of bare-knuckle fistfights, ultimate fighting tournaments, boxing matches, football games, NASCAR, and even hockey. Make no mistake about it, however, we're not there for the blood. We’re there to witness the one phenomenon that fascinates Americans more than anything else in this world – exhibitions of sheer will and unrelenting determination in the face of intense danger. The rest of the world thinks that soccer and cricket are the best sports in the world, but to Americans they are as unappealing as week-old bread. Why? Not enough danger. Not enough at stake to make it interesting. We want to see people putting everything they have on the line, just like we did in 1776.  If they do that, they’ll be reminding us of what we like best about ourselves, and we’ll love them for it and keep coming back for more.

          Moon conjunct Pluto indicates a national obsession with sex, danger, and death, which is clearly evidenced in the American Motion Picture Industry. The movies being made by the rest of the world's nations do not have anywhere near the same focus or emphasis on sex, death, and horror that American cinema does. Why sex? Because Moon conjunct Pluto is all about experiencing irresistible desire and powerful, sexy force.  We Americans never feel more alive than when we are riding a swell of raw power, when matters of life and death are in our hands. Moon conjunct Pluto makes us addicted to things that have a “kick”, things that make us feel acutely alive and in the moment. We like our sports to be dangerous, our movies to be intense, and our music to rock us right down to our toes. 

          The Harley Davidson motorcycle has enjoyed so much success precisely because it does such a great job of fulfilling this visceral national need, helping the average American feel what it’s like to wield massive amounts of raw energy. Elvis was such a phenomenon in America for the exact same reason – he infused music with a dark, sexy power the public didn’t even know they wanted, but once they saw it, they couldn’t get enough of it. In any horoscope, the Moon describes the emotional needs, telling us what we are really looking for whether we realize it or not, what we need in order to feel complete, satisfied,  and fulfilled. This conjunction says that America has a deep emotional need to feel raw power, to push limits, and to stand at the edge of life’s precipices and see how far we dare lean over. 

         

Moon-Pluto Is Our Dark Side

          For any nation with Moon conjunct Pluto, wrestling with its inner demons will be a major domestic issue. This is certainly true in America, which holds a far larger percentage of its population in prison than most other nations, and has a far higher homicide rate than other industrialized nations, and far more serial murderers, mass murderers,  school shootings, gun violence, and race riots than other countries, and is one of the very few “civilized” nations left on earth that still practices capital punishment. As of 2012, thirty thousand people die each year in America from gun violence, which is more deaths per year than all our Revolutionary War fatalities put together.  No other “civilized” country in the world has a record even remotely like this, and that dark truth is simply not reflected in any of the milquetoast July 4^th charts that have been proposed for our nation. 

          However, our inner darkness is not just found in our citizenry, but also in our government. In the last few years, the world’s news has surprised many by running stories accusing America of engaging in torture in our War Against Terrorism. Many were also surprised by President Bush’s blunt threat to pre-emptively nuke Iran or other nations if necessary. However, no astrologer would be surprised by a nation with Moon conjunct Pluto using such measures to achieve its ends. This conjunction makes people manipulative if necessary, controlling if necessary, coercive if necessary, and yes, even murderous if necessary.  Basically, it gives people such tremendously strong willpower and determination that they will do whatever it takes to achieve their aims. Pluto is very comfortable viewing the world in absolutes, and a nation living out its destiny under a Moon-Pluto conjunction would be predisposed to view its issues, goals, and desires as more important than the idealistic rules, abstract principles, and technical laws of normal civilized behavior. This attitude should surprise no one, because it’s the same one we adopted while exterminating the Indians and enslaving the blacks.

          Fortunately, this disregard for morality or principle is directly at odds with the strongly moral Jupiter and Sagittarius influences also present in America’s chart (in the Sagittarius Ascendant and the Sun-Jupiter conjunction), which means that our nation will always be fighting a battle within itself over the appropriateness or inappropriateness of such extreme methods.  With the strong Pluto influence, it is an astrological certainty that there will be times when our nation does embrace methods like torture, coercion, and mass murder, but with the Jupiter influence, it is equally certain that there will also be times when we just as enthusiastically reject and prosecute such crimes.

          Any nation with Moon conjunct Pluto will spend a lot of its time, energy, and resources struggling with self-destructive behavior, and that has also certainly been true of America. And while some of our self-destruction had a purpose, like the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, a great deal of it does not. Today, the vast majority of deaths in America are the result of avoidable self-destructive behaviors, such as getting lung cancer from smoking, or heart disease from eating too much crap and not getting enough exercise, or AIDS from unprotected sex, or having traffic accidents from driving too fast or not paying attention.  And then of course there’s our alcohol and drugs, which not only kill us when we take them, but also kill us by financing gang warfare.  As of 2012, America ranked last among all industrialized nations in preventable deaths.  But do we stop doing any of this stuff, even when we know its probably going to kill us sooner or later?  No. Why? Perhaps simply because it’s in our nation’s chart to be this way.  With Moon conjunct Pluto, after all, people will be more than a little attracted to “the dark side”. We like our cars to be too fast, our heroes to know how to fight dirty, and our women to have exaggerated sexual characteristics.

          There’s no way around it – any nation with Moon conjunct Pluto is going to have some very self-destructive tendencies. Given that certainty, our government’s move in the last decades to push our national debt into the stratosphere might be seen as deeply troubling, especially when one considers that this ominous conjunction is in the 2^nd house of finances. As we all know, America defeated the Soviet Union by bankrupting them. This makes sense, because Moon-Pluto in the second house tells us that our nation’s greatest strength and power is financially-based. But this Moon-Pluto conjunction not only describes our greatest power (Pluto), but also our greatest vulnerability (Moon), which leaves open the possibility that we could end up going to our destruction the same way  the USSR did.

          Speaking of “being attracted to the dark side”, Moon conjunct Pluto is also an indicator that the nation will have some substantial connection with the occult, and this too would seem to be in evidence in our nation’s history. The Founding Fathers’ connection with Freemasonry is well-documented, but most people today write that off as a strange but meaningless curiosity. However, the connections that our nation’s more recent leaders have with the dark and ominous Skull and Bones group are perhaps more unsettling. Once known as “The Brotherhood of Death”,  The Order of Skull and Bones is one of the oldest secret societies in the United States, continuing its Masonic-inspired rituals since it was founded almost two hundred years ago. The 27th, 41st, and 43rd Presidents of the United States were all “bonesmen”, and their brethren have had seemingly inordinate influence over the nation’s course.  It was bonesman Benjamin Sillman Jr., for example, who first invented gasoline, bonesman Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite who first gave corporations legal “personhood”, and bonesman Robert A. Lovett who created the CIA. Bonesman founded the Carnegie Institution, the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, and the American Psychological Association.

          But maybe we’re just being paranoid about that whole Skull and Bones thing. Any nation born under Moon- conjunct Pluto will have real issues with paranoia, and that has certainly been true of America.  In 1964,  Richard Hofstadter of Columbia University wrote the seminal article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, detailing America’s long history of political paranoia, detailing such events as an eighteenth century panic over an alleged  “Illuminati” conspiracy, a 1820 panic over an alleged Masonic conspiracy, a 1855  Texas newspaper warning of a Catholic European conspiracy, a 1895 Populist party manifesto warning of a conspiracy of international bankers, and McCarthy’s 1951 warnings of an impending communist takeover. Again and again, the American public has found itself caught in the grip of desperate certainty that “time is running out” before some shadowy group rose up and took over.

          Of course, this paranoia is not only reserved to the political arena. Over the last 50 years, a great many Americans have gotten themselves all worked up over alleged conspiracies about space aliens, conspiracies to conceal cures for cancer, cars that get 200 miles to the gallon, and Beatle Paul McCartney’s alleged death,  conspiracies to put mind control drugs in our water supplies, conspiracies to use AIDS and drugs to suppress the black population, conspiracies to combine Mexico, America, and Canada into a North American Union, conspiracies to kill JFK and MLK, conspiracies to steal elections with electronic voting boxes,  conspiracies to invade the Middle East and steal their oil, and on and on. Not only are we a nation of conspiracy theorists today , but we seem to have always been that way. 

          On the other hand, a nation born under Moon conjunct Pluto would be exactly the sort of place where secret conspiracies and invisible power structures really would exist.

                            

Moon-Pluto Is Our Need for Power and Control

                                     

          From the instant our colonies voted for independence on July 2^nd, 1776, the American people were astrologically destined to become a powerful nation. Having that Moon-Pluto conjunction in the 2^nd was like getting a promise from the universe that the American people would eventually possess incredible amounts of power, and this has come true beyond the wildest dreams of anyone alive at the time. The American people were the first nation on earth to harness the atom, and today our nuclear arsenal is the strongest on earth, making us the most powerful and dangerous nation in all of human history. The American people possess literally unimaginable power, both military and economic, a state of affairs which perfectly fulfills the promise of Moon-Pluto in the nation’s chart.   Thanks to the recent collapse of our only rival, the Soviet Empire, America’s will is now almost completely dominant in the world. We not only possess a vast network of military bases and spy satellites all over the globe, but we directly or indirectly control the economies of a great deal of the world. We have come to a point in history where our will is essentially law, and we can accomplish all that we set out to achieve.  But the key to our power, this chart declares, is our own resolve and unity. One of the meanings of Pluto is an intense focus of energy (or attention or will)  into a single point, which is yet another symbol of America - “E Pluribus Unum”. The only thing that can stop America from accomplishing its goals, its chart declares, is America itself; as long as the nation is unified in purpose and resolve, it has the power to meet any challenge.

          But Moon conjunct Pluto gives our nation an unsatiable and unquenchable thirst for power, and even with our recent victory in the Cold War, that thirst has not been sated. More importantly, according to America’s chart, it never really will. With this conjunction in its chart, America will always hunger for more wealth, more power, and more control, and just like the robot in the Terminator movies, it will never, ever stop.  We will always lust after more power, and because our nation’s concept and experience of power will always be tied to the Second House, America will continue to seek that increased influence through financial means, through the power of money, property, and possessions. Given this, one might find it disturbing that we have recently erected permanent military bases in the oil-rich Middle East. In 1943, the US State Department declared that Middle-East oil was “the greatest single prize in all history”, and with this conjunction in the 2^nd House of America’s chart, it may simply not be possible for our nation to resist going after that prize.       We Americans love owning things, acquiring things, putting things in our pocket. Our first major act as a nation, after all, was to annex the rest of the continent and evict its former owners.  Moon conjunct Pluto in the 2^nd House describes a people (Moon) with an unquenchable and obsessive compulsion (Pluto) to shop (2^nd House);  America’s extravagant consumerism was preordained from the beginning, and oh how true that prediction has proven to be. We always want more things, bigger things, shinier things, and we want them now. We want bigger houses,  more nukes, bigger Christmas light displays,  more TV channels, bigger restaurant portions, more gadgets, bigger SUVs  ... we probably won’t rest until we get our hands on that oil.

          Not only are we driven to spend money, but with this conjunction in the 2^nd, the American people are equally driven to make money, thus accounting for America’s magnificent financial empire.  The United States is the ultimate machine when it comes to making money, single-minded and unstoppable (which of course are Plutonian characteristics). One of the most important building blocks of our financial empire was the historic decision to give corporations legal personhood. Thanks to our Supreme Court, a corporation is considered a legal entity onto itself, a “juristic person” with a legal identity separate from its members. A corporation can be sued, but it of course cannot be sent to prison, nor can a corporation’s members be held liable for any crimes it may commit even though they benefit when the corporation profits. Thus, a corporation’s members are able to enjoy all its benefits without having to suffer all its failures. Corporate personhood is the single most important cornerstone in  America’s entire financial system, and as such, one would certainly expect it to be reflected in America’s chart.  It is.  The Moon-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn in the 2^nd house is a perfect symbolic representation of America’s corporate entities : powerful (Pluto) financial (2^nd house) businesses (Capricorn) have been given (conjunct) the legal status (Capricorn) of persons (Moon).

          Moon-Pluto typically brings intense possessiveness. Individuals with this in their charts typically have at least one intensely possessive relationship in their lives where they are blinded with desire for the other person and wish to own and control them completely.  America went through something like this as well. It was called slavery.

Moon-Pluto Is Our Achilles’ Heel

          Because this conjunction is all alone on one side of the chart with all the other planets on the opposite side of the chart, it becomes the focus point or fulcrum for the entire chart; it essentially becomes as powerful and influential as all the rest of the chart put together. This pattern makes the American nation acutely sensitive to any and all contacts from transiting or progressed planets that stimulate the Moon-Pluto conjunction.  This was borne out most recently, when America’s progressed Ascendant conjoined this natal Moon-Pluto conjunction between late 2000 and late 2001, at the same time that transiting Pluto was conjoining the natal Ascendant.  This was a supremely rare coincidence, because Pluto takes about 250 years to make one orbit around the sun.  Pluto only conjoins the Ascendant once every 250 years, but it just happened to be doing so right when the 9/11 attacks happened, and also right when the progressed Ascendant was conjoining the natal Moon -Pluto conjunction.  That’s right, there was a double Ascendant-Pluto conjunction occurring in the July 2^nd Liberty Chart during the 9/11 attacks!  When the first stage of this assault hit (progresed Ascendant conjunct Pluto), the whole nation felt raped (a Plutonian act) when the Supreme Court stopped Florida’s vote count in the November 2000 elections and handed over the Presidency to George W. Bush. Transiting Pluto continued to conjoin the Ascendant for the next year, which kept the nation nursing that election wound instead of letting the matter drop. But then when the second shoe dropped and the progressed Ascendant moved on to conjoin the Moon in 2001 (with transiting Pluto still conjunct the Ascendant), the full force of the Liberty Chart’s Moon-Pluto conjunction was finally released, and America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. ¹        

          Incredibly, despite all the pain, grief, and trauma that this Moon-Pluto conjunction has brought America,  we don’t  think of ourselves as a suffering people. Instead of feeling cursed, we feel very blessed, which is in large part due to our Sun-Jupiter conjunction, which keeps us optimistic and forward-thinking,  and prevents us from dwelling too heavily on the traumas of our past. While our Moon-Pluto conjunction gives us our ferocious will and determination, our Sun-Jupiter conjunction gives us great vision, hope, and no small measure of luck.  Together, they are an unbeatable recipe for excellence and supremacy.

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¹That this attack occurred under the progressed conjunction to the Moon instead of Pluto a degree earlier makes sense for three reasons : (1) it was the final part of the progressed Ascendant conjunction to Pluto-Moon, finally allowing the full force of our natal Moon-Pluto conjunction to be released, and (2) the Moon represents a nation’s humanity, weakness, and vulnerability, i.e., the place where it can be hurt and victimized the most, and (3) the Ascendant-Moon conjunction reflects how the rest of the world’s nations subsequently sympathized with America during the days and months that followed, comforting us and feeling our pain.

The Grand Cross of 2014

The Grand Cross, which the astrological community has been going on about for a good while now, is almost upon us. This is a rare alignment of four planets, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Pluto, which are currently aligning to form an almost exact cross in the sky between April 20 - 23. The tolerances here are very tight, less than a degree from being a perfect cross with exact 90 degree angles all around.

The Moon briefly joins the party for a few hours in the evening of Sunday, April 20th to kick things off.

Astrologers have blamed the recent Crimean, Ukrainian, and Bundy crises upon this Grand Cross, but expect still larger fireworks to occur over the next week.

Is there anything actionable in this information for the average person? Yes. First responders and all people who live or work in high-risk environments should be extra vigilant in observing all safety standards during this period. Besides that, the biggest takeaway is probably knowing that the real potential for craziness and disorder is a short time window of just a few days. If folks can manage to get through that period without over reacting or causing any more trouble for themselves than they have to, that may be about the most you can ask for.

Bedtime for Obama

Obama's last moment of real glory was getting the Iran deal to pass. Certainly his greatest defeat and failure will arrive in early-to-mid 2015, when transiting Saturn conjoins his MC and Solar Arc Moon opposes his Saturn. He could enjoy a brief moment of success in the first quarter of 2016, but that looks like that's gonna be about all she wrote for the man. His approval rating will plummet after this summer (2014). He's been able to wield tremendous leverage over the last year, but that ends soon.

Pathfinder Astrology Premium Annual Report

Pathfinder Astrology Premium Annual Report: B. N,  2014

           

Pathfinder Annual Reports examine astrological data from five sources : (1) your current Tertiary Lunar Return chart, (2) your full year’s set of four quarterly Solar Return charts, (3) your full year’s set of twelve Lunar Returns, (4) your full year’s set of Secondary Progressions and Solar Arc Progressions, and (5) your full year’s set of major planetary transits. These five data sets are then integrated together into a cohesive and comprehensive analysis of your coming year.  This report took about 20 hours to complete, and represents the highest quality available in today’s astrological marketplace.                  

Based on the dates you provided of the string of strongish events in your life in late February and early March, I reconfirmed my previous rectification of your birthtime; it was almost exactly spot-on, but I did adjust it forward by about 9 seconds in an effort to fine-tune it even more precisely.

Current Tertiary Lunar Return (TLR): April 2013 - May 2015  

From spring 2013 to spring 2015 will be a time of dramatic changes and stressful developments in your life. It won’t be a “smooth sailing”, “par for the course”, “steady as you go” time in your life. The developments of these two years will disturb, disrupt, and alter the trajectory of your career more than your personal life.  This is ultimately a rather stressful two-year period for you and your spouse, but also one that still contains a good deal of fun and excitement, and the troubles it brings are limited in their scope. While you do not get rich, famous, or retire during this period, you also do not come down with any life threatening illness, wind up in jail, or bury loved ones.  Despite the considerable stresses and burdens on you during this period, it will ultimately be viewed as a hopeful period for you, in which your future prospects brighten.  
     

The TLR is a two-year cycle, the first year of which has already occurred.  Most of the themes and predictions in this current TLR chart can already be seen to be manifesting in your life since this cycle began in spring 2013, but this TLR cycle should continue to produce similar effects for another year as well.

Marriage

Neither your life nor your spouse’s life will be in danger during this period, but each of you will go through some hell in these two years. Both you and your spouse will suffer troubles and difficulties during these two years that interfere with and negatively impact your personal plans and goals and/or your professional status/goals/prospects (that already happened when your spouse’s leg injury prevented him from participating in last year’s vacation). The reverse is also true - issues at work and at home will also cause some hell in each of your lives during this period.  Although spouses and partners are going to suffer sudden, unexpected, distressing, and frustrating problems during this period, you do not suffer loss of spouse, marriage, or relationship status quo during this period.  So there’s that. You are more likely to go through actual shifts and changes in the status quo at work than you are to have shifts or changes occur in the status quo of your marriage. 

Career

There will be changes in your career status quo, as you’ve already witnessed.  Expect more.  There will be multiple stresses and difficult changes and adjustments in your professional life, and bosses and other authorities in your life will both endure harsh troubles themselves and also cause you troubles too.  They will be extremely pushy and demanding, and will make you feel very pressured and under the gun. You do gain substantially increased duties, responsibilities, and possibly authority during this period, and they are distressful for you, but you manage them well nonetheless.  Fortunately, not all goes poorly in your career, and you do enjoy and receive valuable, although possibly hidden or private, benefits in and through your career during this period as well.

Family

Your relationship with home and family is strong and healthy during this period and does well, and is not the cause of any great trouble for you. Family thrives now, and much family- and children-oriented travel occurs. You engage in and enjoy dramatic or exhilarating recreational/ fun activities during this period, some of which may involve or revolve around children and/or family matters, and these social/recreational activities generally go well, and certainly do not include, involve, or bring about any great disasters or tragedies.

           

Social Life

You enjoy an abundance of hidden/private/escapist pleasurable activities during this two-year period, and they prove beneficial and advantageous for both your career/professional and home/family situations. You engage in private activities out of the public view that you thoroughly enjoy and enthusiastically get into in a big way.  These pleasurable activities will involve and/or benefit family and/or career, and they mesh well with your life and are not the source of any troubles.  Since we already know that you have motorcycle vacations planned for this period, this essentially becomes a guarantee that no great tragedies will occur while you are engaged in these private passions during this two-year period. You seem to have more friends and meaningful social contacts now (especially professionally), and/or spend more time in activities with/for them.  You find yourself identifying more and moving in synch more with your chosen social group or societal ideology now.

Personal Life

You tend to find yourself feeling and acting more mature, formal, responsible, disciplined, careful, professional, patient, longsuffering, tired, and mountain-bound during this period.

Weight loss is possible during this period, due to Saturn rising.

 

Current Solar Return (SR): March 2014 - March 2015

Your Solar Return for March 21, 2014 demonstrates a point that has been growing increasingly clear to me over the last 11 years - that these Solar Return charts start working ahead of schedule, as much as two months ahead in some cases. Case in point - your March 2014 SR very clearly represents the death of a boss or supervisor - Pluto is sitting directly on the Midheaven, and the ruler of the Midheaven is conjunct a fallen Moon on the cusp of the 8^th house.  I know that’s just astrobabble to you, but trust me, its pretty definitive. 

What does this mean about the rest of your coming year?  That Pluto-MH conjunction, especially since it is substantially afflicted by Jupiter and Uranus, basically means that a lot of heavy shit is going to play out in your job and career this year.  Because Pluto and Uranus are so strongly in play, it means that for the most part, the changes that occur in your job now will be due to forces beyond your control.  There will be important changes that you feel anxious about, and there will be some power plays going on that you are likely to get caught up in to some degree. You are going to be subject to a great deal of stress, tension, and anxiety in your career environment, especially in your relationship with your boss and the authority structure of the organization. You will feel endangered and threatened and under a lot of pressure.  Job demands will definitely increase over the coming year, possibly becoming oppressive.  The changes to the authority structure above you this coming year will not please you or comfort you or  reassure you, but it is possible that they will ultimately empower you. Because Uranus is in the picture too, some of these changes and developments will seem sudden and unexpected and will shake things up and create some disruption, disturbances, and unsettled conditions. It is possible that these unsettled conditions could represent rare opportunities, but if so, they would the sort of opportunities that could only be taken advantage of through bold, forceful, and sudden moves.  It will not be business as usual, and the changes that occur will demand a lot from you, and will force you to operate outside your comfort zone. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that a power struggle will develop over, or affecting, the authority structure above you.  Any bosses that come to occupy that position over the next year will, at least in your perspective, come under a great deal of stress and pressure themselves, and may even be afraid.  In any event, none who come to occupy that position now will be gentle, diplomatic, happy, or easy to work with.

That’s the downside. The upside is that Jupiter on the Nadir is also part of the equation in this chart, and that means that whatever changes and stresses occur in your career environment this coming year, you somehow manage to benefit and prosper from it at home. You see your home, bank account, and personal fortune growing and improving during this coming year, and facilitating that prosperity and wealth at home is a major focus for you this year.

Because the ruler of the Midheaven is conjunct a fallen Moon in the 8^th, your boss will be depressed, unfortunate, emotional, vulnerable, and endangered.  It’s not a good sign, and makes me wonder if you will go through multiple bosses over the next year.

That Moon-Saturn conjunction is the only thing that aspects the Ascendant in this chart. That connection will tend to dampen your own attitude, outlook, and personality over this next year, putting you in a more serious, formal, professional, and ambitious frame of mind and less interested in frivolous and inconsequential matters. You will specifically be more interested in controlling and managing your own banking over this next year, and this will take up much of your attention. You will feel insecure about your banking now, and will seek long term stability and long term security .

Having a Moon-Saturn conjunction in the 8^th house does suggest a possible family funeral this year, but since the Sun is trine Moon/Saturn and nothing else is really afflicting it, you don’t seem to be too traumatized, so maybe it isn’t a real close relative. 

Both the Sun and the Ascendant are aspecting Moon/Saturn in this chart, which means that you strongly identify and concern yourself with your finances this year, and your emotional satisfaction and sense of personal security is dependent on your banking and finances now.   

That Moon-Saturn conjunction is widely square to a Mercury-Neptune conjunction.  This means that your banking concerns are made more difficult by uncertain/secret/unreliable/mysterious information.  Communication failures may occur, and received data may not be reliable. It also suggests that any funeral that does occur now will be seen as being a more troubling loss to other neighbors or relatives than it is to you.

This chart has the Sun in the 12^th house, with no strong aspects, but a weak trine to the Moon/Saturn.  This means that you will seek to accomplish things quietly and unobtrusively this year in such a way as not to be noticed by others, and you will be successful at this.  It also means that you will successfully enjoy private getaways and escapes, and that you will be more private and reclusive now.  Your private escapes will be your favorite part of this year, when you feel most free and alive.           

Venus and Mercury are both in the 11^th house, which means that you will enjoy quite a bit of friendly socialization this year, so that means you’re not a hermit despite the reclusive tendencies.

Mars is sitting right on the Descendant, which is a concern.  This basically means five things: You will find yourself  (1) socializing and interacting more with very strong/aggressive/active/ambitious/sports-oriented/stereotypically masculine types this year (like cops, mechanics, soldiers, athletes, etc.), and (2) your spouse will be more aggressive/strong/masculine/ active/sports-oriented/ambitious/competitive himself this year, and (3) you will be much more active and aggressive in social situations yourself, and (4) your spouse could suffer from fights/arguments/injuries/accidents/burns this year, and (5) you will likely be in more conflicts/disputes/competitions with others this year.  It is not good for diplomacy or genteel socializing, but it is great for hanging out with hard-ass types and acting very competitive with others and beating them at their own game. You will feel that others are being assholes more than usual this year, and while you are not likely to initiate much action on your own now, you will not back down from a fight, and will be most aggressive and passionate when you have someone else either to work with, or fight against. Most of your energy this year goes into relationships, social situations, and competitions, and you are more active and motivated in relationship and social situations than you are when you are by yourself this year.  It will bring a very busy, action-packed, and boisterous social life, and you will surely participate in more sports-oriented social activities than has been your custom in the past.

This Mars-Descendant conjunction is mirrored in a way in the TLR chart, because that chart also had 7strong ^th house afflictions, making all the above even more likely, especially the part about (1) you having trouble with others, and (2) your spouse having trouble in general during this period. Because this testimony is repeated in both the TLR and the SR, it is a red flag. Fortunately, the progressions, transits, and quarter return charts (which we will get to in a bit) all seem to indicate that your major trouble period will be concentrated mostly over next winter of 2014-2015.

  

Finally, the South Node is conjunct the Ascendant in this chart, indicating that people who have played important roles in your life are likely to exit your life or sphere during this year, and it also suggests that you will grow to relate to and identify with people, groups, or causes that makes you feel socially alienated, unpopular, or rejected, but you may at the same time create lasting bonds with others who you feel are rejected or disapproved of by society.   You will tend to identify and bond this year with culturally unpopular, rejected, or condemned people, causes, and ideologies, while distancing yourself from more popular cultural groups and attitudes.

Quarterly Solar Return, 6/22/2014 - 9/23/2014

This chart basically covers your summer. It is not a bad chart and does not indicate any great tragedies or disasters occurring for your during this season, or even any really severe stresses. Venus is rising and sextile Jupiter on the Nadir, indicating that you are in good spirits and feeling that life is treating you well, and you are enjoying warm and prosperous times with home and family during these months. Saturn is opposite your Ascendant in this chart, indicating that your spouse does has some troubles himself now, but it doesn’t look like anything too serious.  He will have increased duties, burdens, limitations, and responsibilities now, and his free time will be reduced.  Mars is in the 6^th house opposing Uranus, indicating some disruption or unrest in your workplace, but it doesn’t seem to negatively impact your status quo.  Pluto is closely trine the Ascendant in this chart from the 9^th house, indicating that you press your intentions forward firmly, strongly, and successfully at this time, and also that any legal matters will work out in your favor this summer.  Distant relatives could have big changes develop in their lives during this season, and you draw closer to them now. Pluto is squaring Mars in the 6^th, indicating that work will be very strenuous for you during this period. 

Quarterly Solar Return, 9/23/2014 - 12/22/2014

This chart basically covers your autumn. This chart is a bit more dramatic than the previous one, and indicates that some significant changes will occur in your life this fall, some good and some not so good.  Well, let’s start with the good news.  Career matters really look good during this season, and should shower you with numerous benefits, improvements, and advantages. Expect to see positive breakthroughs and hopeful new opportunities arise in the career environment now, and not much stress at all.  I wouldn’t expect a major change in the status quo now, but things should certainly be looking up. The advantages and improvements emerging from your career now should surprise you and substantially exceed your expectations.  The next point that this chart makes is also good - a New Moon conjunct Venus in the 7^th house says that something very happy and lovely occurs in your marriage now, a new beginning that pleases you very much. Your spouse will likely start something new now that is very much to his advantage and his liking. Also, your social life is rather full and impressive this season, and you enjoy it very much, and may start mixing with a new crowd.   Now for the bad news.  This chart has Neptune on the Ascendant and square Mars. This ain’t good, and suggests that you personally have some troubles to deal with now, possibly health or medically oriented, possibly not, which make you feel weak, unprepared, ineffective, and under a lot of distress.  Any legal issues now will not go in your favor, so avoid those.  Any traveling now will not go in your favor either.  You seem to want to hide away now and be passive, even though outside forces are leveling an assault against you.  Fortunately, your Moon is conjunct Venus, so you are able to keep your spirits up now anyway, probably with help from your spouse.  You are very unsure of your direction now, even as you are pressed to make a move.   

Quarterly Solar Return, 12/22/2014 - 3/21/2015

This chart basically covers your winter. This will easily be the most challenging season of your year.  There will be a lot of anxiety and more than a little disruption in your life during these three months.  Most of what happens now will revolve around big changes occurring in your career environment.  There will be a major change in the status quo at work for you now.  Either you will get a new position or a new boss, or both.  You are certainly not completely unhappy with the developments this season, but they definitely force you outside your comfort zone, and even scare you a bit. You feel that your life has changed a lot now, and things are very new and different for you.  You take on a more original and independent attitude now, and may be more than a little rebellious and nonconformist.  You do not go with the flow or adhere to popular opinion now.  You feel strong, capable, free, and know exactly what you want and make a play for it.   You are your own agent now.  

Current Progressions and Transits: 2014

The biggest things that happen in your progressions and transits don’t arrive until late this year, but when they do, they will have a huge impact. It won’t be the least bit subtle.  There are two major aspects going on this year:  Your progressed Mars is going to conjoin your Descendant this December, and then transiting Saturn will conjoin your Midheaven a few months later. 

These are both huge events, but they describe two very different developments that happen at around the same time.  The Saturn-Midheaven conjunction is the culmination of a 27 year cycle, and promises a major life milestone in your career, a feather in your cap that you will celebrate and wear with honor for at least the next seven years. It will bring a major change, achievement, or milestone in your status quo.  The last time this happened you were 23, just out of college, and starting your first job; the next time it happens you’ll be 77.  Essentially, the astrology says that this will be the “big one” in your career unless you end up working deeply into your old age.  Now, this is Saturn, so the rules are clear. If you’ve worked hard and done things right, now is when you get your big reward. But if you’ve left a trail of mistakes and cut corners behind you, now is when it all catches up with you.  This Saturn conjunction specifically occurs in Jan-Feb 2015, April-May 2015, and Oct-Nov 2015, but will basically be in effect for all of 2015.  You can be sure that these indicated career fireworks, for good or bad, will be over by the end of 2015. But between now and then, you are sure to get some pretty high-level attention and recognition for your professional accomplishments.                   

Meanwhile, Progressed Mars is growing closer and closer to your Ascendant. Progressed Mars first came within five degrees of your Ascendant in 2008, when you first started getting into motorcycling, and it came within 3 degrees of it in 2011 when you got your first Harley, and within two degrees when you went on your first long-distance motorcycle trip in 2012.   The closer Mars gets, the more you  identify with and incorporate that lifestyle, which means you’ll never be more of a biker than you are in 2014-2015.

Mars was conjunct your Sun when you were born, which means you respond to its aspects naturally and strongly.   Because Mars is so prominent in your natal chart, this major Mars aspect in your progressed chart is sure to have a very strong effect.  Make no mistake, Mars has a reputation for being trouble, and that means that this conjunction will bring one of the most dangerous periods of your life.  But that’s only part of the story.

This conjunction will affect your personality, your physical appearance, and your social life.  It will make you strong, aggressive, ambitious, quick to action, competitive, impulsive, and confident. But it can also make you very accident-prone. It is very liable to bring fights, conflicts, and disputes into your life; it will not be a peaceful time in your life, but it may be one in which you wage all-out war in some fashion.  It will give you loads of energy and will make you feel more athletic and motivated, so weight loss is common with this aspect.  But it brings a reduction in discipline, caution, and self-control, and you are inclined to try to take what you want directly, with force, so it can be bad for losing weight because it stimulates the appetites. You will feel younger, and will want to look/dress/act younger too.

Mars conjunct Ascendant has a nasty reputation for bringing cuts, burns, injuries, and fevers, especially to the face and head, so watch out for that.

There is an awful lot of Mars in your progressed chart between December 2014-April 2015, so that will unquestionably be a difficult time for you. But if you’re up for it, that could be a time when your own efforts yield very significant results.

Anyway, as this aspect grows closer over this year, your tendency to leap before you look will stronger, as will your energy, impulsiveness, drive, and tendency to piss others off by your increasingly rough and tumble approach.  Basically, if you have worthwhile goals, you should have loads of energy and drive to achieve them this year. But if you are drifting, all this energy will trip you up.  You need to have a focus and an outlet for it.

You will LOVE all masculine stuff this year, much more than usual. You will be attracted to motorcycling, sports, weapons, competitions, and machinery.  

Because Mars is the ruler of the 2^nd house, and because it was conjunct Sun on the 2^nd house cusp when you were born, this Mars-Ascendant conjunction means that you will be more and more focused on your money, finances, investments, purchases, and possessions as this conjunction gets closer. And a great deal of your increased activity, energy, drive, ambition, and competition this year will revolve around your financial matters. You will strongly identify with your finances this year, and it will be an issue that gets you all fired up.    As this aspect is exact  around Christmas, you are very liable to indulge in excessive spending this holiday season.  Because it is risk-taking Mars, you are liable to be comfortable taking more risks with your finances this year than you used to be.  It is not an aspect for the timid, and brings great courage, certainly more courage than wisdom.

Probably the biggest thing this Mars conjunction signifies is that you will be moving into an extremely busy, strenuous, and highly motivated period in your life later this year. It will be a high-stress period, and it will not leave much room in your life for much peace and quiet or rest and relaxation.

You have had a few major aspects like this happen in your progressed chart before now.  Your progressed Ascendant conjoined Saturn in mid-1974, Mars in summer 1987, and the Sun in mid-1991. Yes, curiously, in 1987 you had the same two aspects that you are going through again this year - transiting Saturn conjunct your Midheaven and progressed Mars conjunct your Ascendant.  No, this is not normal; it is just a fluke. Since the 1987 aspects are virtually the same, you might expect  effects this year that are similar to 1987. You should feel that the pace of your life has kicked up a few notches, and things are more in motion. You should feel more energized and invigorated, more balls-to-the-wall. Try not to get into another accident.

You have some pretty strong red flags in your scope this coming winter, and that suggests you might be in crisis mode then.  We will need to explore this in a good deal more depth and detail before the 2014 holiday season gets here.     

As 2014 began, you had several positive and enjoyable aspects in play that made you feel good and generated a sense of joy, comfort, and abundance.  This spell was broken by a rough patch that began in February and will continue to a lesser degree through mid-April. Late April and early May will be pleasant, and then late May and early June will be very busy, exciting, active, exhilarating, and possibly somewhat accident-prone. Things calm down then for a few months until a sudden shock or surprise in late July, and then a time of joy and celebration in September. The whole September-November period looks very peaceful, happy, prosperous, and enjoyable, and then stresses and tensions begin in November, growing strong and quite unsettling in January through early April 2015, followed by a very happy accomplishment or milestone in late April, which transitions into a calmer and more pleasant period from May - August 2015.

You have three strong Moon conjunctions in your progressed chart this May, and that is a red flag, especially with the Ascendant-Mars conjunction looming seven months farther down the road.  Lunar conjunctions like this can trigger an early manifestation of a strong progressed aspect, so I had to look at all the related charts to make sure there was nothing to be seriously worried about. Fortunately, while these three lunar conjunctions do predict a wild, exciting, and very invigorating time for you in May, I feel comfortable that it does not point to any major calamities.  But you will certainly feel restless and reckless in May, and  could be accident-prone on a less serious scale, so try not to twist an ankle.  It won’t be a boring month, and it will seem downright chaotic to you at times. You will be in a mood to adventure well outside your normal comfort zone in May and early June, and you will not feel calm, relaxed, or peaceful. It will surely be a month to remember.  You will be full of energy and very boisterous, but you may be pretty scatterbrained and disorganized as well. You will not be a wallflower, and will be attracted to eccentric, rebellious, and risktaking attitudes and behaviors.  You will be very talkative, and you will not have much of a filter, and will likely have some sudden or random flare-ups of your temper.     

There will be some relatively minor shift or adjustment in the status quo at work in  late June or early July, and then a second, more substantial and stressful one in late October.  The October one seems to coincide with some very positive feelings, social celebrations, and possibly financial benefits.  You seem to feel that things are falling into place all by themselves very nicely for you at that time.

Then stress starts to escalate in November, and really hits home in January, when you seem to be feeling rather emotional, threatened, and vulnerable.  January, February, and March 2015 are pretty much going to suck.  All you can do is steel yourself for it.  I believe April 2015 will bring a positive conclusion to the career stresses you endure in early 2015, but you won’t have much confidence of that in February and March.

The energies in your chart between November 2014 - April 2015 are so strong that they will create big problems for you if you do not keep them controlled and give them an outlet.  They will surely bring conflicts, disputes, and fights into your life if you have made any enemies.  If you can avoid that stumbling block, they will provide you with supreme energy, ambition, confidence, and motivation to advance your interests at that time.  If you have no enemies and no ambitions, they could manifest as some sort of illness, in which your body fights against itself.  But have no doubt, one way or another, you will be in a fight then, putting at least a temporary end to your life of leisure.

Transiting Jupiter has been conjoining your Moon on and off over the last year. This has been a nice, comforting influence that has made you feel optimistic, fortunate, rich, and generous, but it is almost over. By this June, Jupiter will have moved far enough away from your Moon that you will feel a substantial lessening in your sense of emotional well-being and material abundance, as you return to more normal levels.  At the same time, Pluto has been opposing your Moon, but Jupiter has been getting in the way and partially masking the worst effects of that influence. With Jupiter out of the way by June, that more disturbing, intense, and anxiety-ridden Pluto effect will become more prominent, especially in the months where this Moon-Pluto opposition is angular or otherwise emphasized in your Lunar Returns, such as this May, July, November, and January 2015, all of which will be higher-anxiety months for you, when you feel some degree of threat and your peace of mind is disturbed.  Weight loss was not possible under the Jupiter influence, but it often occurs under Pluto.

Current Lunar Returns and Daily Transits

March 10- April 6 is not a bad month, but not awesome either. Your banking goes well, but there is some anxiety there. You are in a serious and responsible frame of mind, with much self-control, and are all about taking care of business now.  You may deal with some unpleasant news now. Not a dramatic month, but subdued, and fairly private. 

Dailies

Feeling very lucky around March 19

A lot of tension and difficulties around March 22

Everything seems under control by March 31

April 6 - May 3 will be a much more interesting, stressful, and unsettling month. Banking and finances should again go well.  You are happy, friendly, loving, yielding, and cooperative at work but also feel confused, disoriented, and a bit lost over matters there.  You are very sentimental and mushy in your relationships now.  You will probably do some heavier drinking this month. You will not act stable or consistent this month and will be excitable, restless, and on edge. You could be very impulsive with purchases or finances now, and may not make the wisest decisions. Caution is lacking, but you don’t seem displeased at all about financial developments now.  You could be rather impulsive, but you are also acting out of a sense of fear or threat. Matters in the work environment are not good, and sudden or unexpected conflicts could emerge there this month, but no major changes in the status quo seem to occur now.   It will be a bit of a roller coaster this month, so hang on and don’t underestimate matters or act carelessly.

Dailies

Getting very worked up but possibly angry around April 7, arguments or accidents likely then

Good news around April 11, but don’t force things then

Feel like a winner around April 13-14, never back down then

Kinda depressing around April 21-22, not much fun then

Good news around April 23

Wild and crazy around April 23-25

Happy and content around April 28

May 3 - May 31 will be an active, dramatic, exciting, and exhilarating month for you.  You will have loads of energy and adrenaline.  The people you meet and interact with this month will surprise, excite, and disturb you.  Your emotional energies and enthusiasm is very high now, and you are feeling very adventurous and ready to get out of your rut and engage in new and unfamiliar activities. You could be accident-prone now, and are likely to have some fights or conflicts with others. You feel very athletic and motivated now, but have little or no caution or discipline. You are all about the rush now.  You will be quickly bored by quiet or sedate activities, and you have very low tolerance for boredom and frustration now. You want to shake things up. 

Dailies

Things go your way around May 3-5, very happy then

You’re all about the news around May 10-11

Good news around May 15-16, you get very worked up emotionally then

Crazy exciting around May 30

May 31 - June 27 will be a much more relaxed, subdued, easy-going period.  You feel good now, in good spirits, but not all wound up anymore.  You will drink, daydream, or zone out a lot this month.  Not a very focused or ambitious month. Finances go well.  You have no conflicts with others this month, and energy levels are down.

Dailies

Strong and energetic as hell, but possibly restless or in some pain, around June 3

Very frustrated around June 5

Feeling lost, confused, and defeated around June 16

Strong and successful around June 17

Stable and under control around June 21

Self-righteous around June 22

Successfully pressing your agenda around June 26

June 27 - July 24 will be an important month for you this year, but you may not realize it at the time.  Something new will privately begin in your life this month that will put increased tension and pressure on you at work.  You are not unhappy this month, and are able to keep a smile on your face, but your stress levels increase now.  You may feel tired or weak now, and could seek medical care. Bosses and authorities at work show you some favor and give you a break now, but bonds and alliances at work may be shifting this month.

Dailies

You feel emotional, vulnerable, exposed around July 5

You want something bad around July 8

Feeling solid and secure around July 16

Feeling happy and blessed around July 19

July 24 - Aug 20 will mostly be a very good month, although there will be some troubles or responsibilities you have to deal with that involve your career environment. But the big news now is some very lovely trip, vacation, or travel you do now. Your spirits are high, very happy, and you have a wonderful time.  Any matters involving travel, publishing, long-distance relatives, or the legal system will go your way this month and bring you much happiness. 

Dailies

Feeling even happier around July 25

Feeling completely confused and surprised around July 26

Feeling under extreme pressure and anxiety around July 28

Possible anger around July 30

Feeling like the boss’s favorite around August 1^st

You are all business, no nonsense, very serious mood around August 11

Feeling powerful and justified around August 12

Aug 20 - Sept 17 will be a more difficult month.  You are in a fugue state now, not very well organized or feeling very clear-headed, and you may stumble through this month in a daze. You don’t feel prepared or effective now, and mostly just roll with the punches and go with the flow. Things in the work environment seem to be going very well now, but matters having to do with banking, or possibly law, are a pain in the ass and don’t go your way at all now.  I don’t see any major changes in your status quo now.

Dailies

Feeling lost, confused, and defeated around August 23

Good news around August 25

Positive breakthrough around August 31

Positive career opportunities or breakthroughs around Sept 1

Very busy, active, motivated, angry around Sep 9

Good news around Sept 12

No time for fun and games around Sept 14, you’re all business then

Sept 17 - Oct 14 will be a pretty good month. A lot of things go well, and not much goes very wrong.  You will be feeling very upbeat now, hopeful and enthusiastic. The big news of the month will probably revolve around some interesting and creative changes happening in the career environment.  You see them as very positive, and they work in your favor, but they will create some disruption and disorder at work. Home matters go well, and children seem to play a part in that.  You may enjoy a nice little getaway now. 

Dailies

Excellent social/marriage/relationship situation around Sept 18

Elated and joyous emotions around Sept 23

Feeling rich and celebratory around Sept 28

Positive breakthrough around Sept 28

Some stress around October 3

Possible danger/anger/conflict around Oct 4-5

Feeling very optimistic and outgoing around Oct 4

Feeling very optimistic and outgoing around Oct 7

Feeling some disappointment or letdown around Oct 10

Oct 14 - Nov 10 will be a more demanding month for you. Your plate is full, and your responsibilities are about all you can handle.  But when you do have time to come up for air this month, you are able to enjoy a very lovely and possibly quite profitable social life.  You are acting, appearing, and feeling very mature, responsible, formal, and professional now, but the big news of the month is the very full social calendar you have now, which you enjoy very much and only find somewhat stressful.  You make valuable new friends and contacts now. A good month without an excess of stress, and quite a lot to enjoy.

Dailies

Under great pressure, stress, and anxiety around October 21

Feeling sad, poor, hardnosed, and discouraged around October 24.

Big status quo change in career or home around October 26.

Very optimistic plans for the future around Oct 29

Feeling a newfound freedom and liberty around Oct 29

Feeling like everything is in good shape and well under control around Oct 30

In a very happy, lighthearted, social mood around Nov 4

Feeling very animated, motivated, and energized around Nov 7

Feeling a strong need or desire for something around Nov 9

Nov 10 - Dec 8 is an important and quite difficult month. There will be serious stresses both in your work/career environment and also in your finances. It is a very strenuous month. However, home and family matters thrive now. There will be a lot of anger and/or a lot of pain this month.  You will not feel calm or at peace.  Difficult changes at work will make people unhappy.  You could have a lot of banking concerns or banking business to deal with now, and you will do it with some urgency.  Bankers could be assholes now. You will not feel secure in your finances now, but could be inspired to make some very aggressive and risky moves.  

Dailies

Feeling very happy and pretty around Nov 14

Feeling and acting very disciplined, formal, and professional around Nov 23

Around Nov 27, you have to handle an excess of energy and aggression that you’re not dealing well with.

Dec 8 - Jan 4, 2015 will be a much lower stress month.  You feel your banking and finances are stable and under control now. There is a lot of activity at home now. Your mood is good, hopeful, friendly, and even a little gregarious.  

Dailies

Feeling like you’re between a rock and a hard place around Dec 3

You feel anxious, afraid around Dec 8

Feeling like you’ve got all the leverage in the world around Dec 11

You feel happy, lucky, rich around Dec 14                   

Feeling a disappointment or seeing an overoptimistic dream collapse around Dec 16

Between a rock and a hard place again around Dec 20, no luck at all then.

Dec 19-22 will be emotionally turbulent, upsetting, possibly dangerous

You are full of energy and very active and busy around Dec 22

Enjoying a rich and joyous celebration around Dec 26

Feeling like you’ve got everything under control around Dec 31 

                                                                                   

Jan 4, 2015 - Jan 31, 2015 will be a very dramatic and intense month. Your health and safety are not in danger, but disturbing and unsettling developments in the career environment have you very anxious and on edge.  You feel empowered in your career now, but not even remotely safe or secure. Power plays at work are likely now.

Dailies

A lot of tension and frustration around Jan 11

Feeling like you are winning a popularity contest around Jan 13

Feeling a great deal of agitated stress around Jan 15

More tension and frustration around Jan 18

Feeling very emotional, vulnerable, and exposed around Jan 21

Farther Out: 2015

2015 will be a roller coaster year for you, with sharp highs and lows. I believe the long-anticipated regional Middle Eastern war begins in May 2015, and if so, that international event will have repercussions that impact your own life. In any case, by the second half of 2015, your home, family, residence, and personal life will all be making you feel insecure and uncertain, and may suffer a variety of weaknesses, losses, failures, and shortages. 

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