Spiritual Company Newsletter

By Steffan Vanel • Astrologer • Tarot  Reader

Author of:
     The Astrological Karma of the USA
     Charles & Diana: The Inside Story: An Astrological-Karmic View

Now on YouTube:
     The Astrological Karma of the USA and The New Presidency
     Bridging Heaven & Earth Show #238

A Birthday Reading for the USA - 2012

Dear Friends and Clients,

I promise I am still intending to complete my globe-circling travel-blogs. I am also busy prepping the next Hilarion EBook, his book on Astrology: Astrology Plus.

I decided today, however, to take this opportunity to do a little birthday update reading for one of my on-going clients, The United States of America. As I stated in my book: The Astrological Karma of the USA, this client relationship started at a lecture I had scheduled weeks ahead of time for the evening of September 12, 2001.

During the time of your Solar Return, when the Sun returns to where it was when you were born,which is always on or around your birthday, is a good time to take a look at your life. I do my own Tree of Life Tarot Reading for myself on my birthday.

This morning of July 4th I decided to check in on the U.S.A. with a short Pentacross, 5-card reading.

Here is what I got:

Where we are now

Knight of Disks
Here you have adapted to this earthy personality who is very grounded and stable, with the instincts of nature. He is  based on a certain fear or insecurity however, and is therefore not very emotional or spiritually aspirational.

I think this is obvious. This obsession with the economy and jobs etc. is being used psychologically by a fear-based personality to numb down our emotions and deflect us from our lack of spiritual aspiration or connection.

There is an Astrological backdrop to this fear. During the 20th century, Neptune was in harmony, sextile, to Pluto.

During that century there were other difficult Astrological configurations, manifesting in periods of crisis or turmoil.

My feeling about this long harmony between Neptune (faith) and Pluto (transformation), however, is that this gave people an ultimate sense of faith and trust. A faith that ultimately technology and free markets would save the world, or the Communist worker’s state would save the world, or Reggae music and marijuana would save the world.

Neptune and Pluto have now separated beyond the six degree orb normally given for a strong aspect and my feeling is that with that separation people don’t have that faith anymore, faith that technology and free markets, the Communist worker state, or Reggae music are going to save the world.

Neptune and Pluto will come back into harmony in the later teens, and in the twenties, they will be joined by harmonious aspects to Uranus. All three of the outermost transformative planets will be in harmony with each other for a number of years. I predict this will be the start of the New Age.

But right now we have this separation of these forces that previously gave us faith in ultimate positive transformation. And we have three years of 7 Pluto/Uranus squares to contend with.

So, the current way in which the U.S., possibly the world, is dealing with this lack of faith is to go into this numbed down, practically/materially obsessed, fear-based Knight of Disks character.

The Card for the Past was

Ace of Cups
Here you are experiencing an outrush of emotional feeling in its purest form. It is like the Holy Grail itself.

Here I must say that I had to conclude that this reading is perhaps more relevant to my own perspective, being rather progressive/left wing, and I assume to the majority of my readers who have been willing to continue to read my newsletters, newsletters which obviously contain that kind of perspective/bias.

To me, this Ace of Cups was the ‘Honeymoon’ period of the campaign and election of Barack Obama. 

I confess that I am one of the few people I meet here in the U.S. that still likes Obama. With all his flaws and disappointing actions, I still think he is basically a good man doing the best he can in a very difficult situation, including a Congress of fearful, paid off Democrats and fanatical Republicans.

One of the refreshing things coming from spending months outside of the U.S. is that I didn’t meet a single person in a single country who didn’t love and admire Obama, and hope that he could continue to be a positive force for the world.

Now Obama’s Aquarius Rising does give some insight into some of his paradoxical decisions and actions.

Aquarius Rising gives a self-image which is open to the unusual and unconventional, ‘Thinking outside of the box.’

But, it is given to someone because in recent lives they have had a tendency to be too conventional. They need to find a balance between these two extremes. To me this is one reason as to why Obama can, at times, seem really liberal and progressive. And, at other times, his actions seem to be coming from a place of playing the game very conventionally and conservatively.

Obama himself is having to find a balance, which is what we need now. It does make it such that he will engage in actions, or fail to come through on promises, that are rather irritating to left-wing progressives like myself. But there is no way a left-wing progressive like myself is going to be President of the United States any time soon And if they were, they certainly wouldn’t get anything done.

In relation to the liberal disenchantment and backlash against Obama, I would say it is relatable to the Sagittarian Ascendant of the USA, producing a self-image of oneself as honest, upright and morally strong, whether true or not.  

Now that rather self-righteous, fanatical capacity of Sagittarius Rising is apparent not only in the right wing, and their propensity to show up at town meetings about Healthcare to scream “I don’t want the government to get involved with Medicare!” -???

But to me, us lefties have the same tendency towards angry self-righteousness.

And although I love and hate every country I’ve ever been to, getting away from this angry self-righteous Sagittarius Rising energy is one reason I enjoy getting out of the country for periods of time.

Sometimes, however, the U.S. can connect with who we really are, which is our Sun in Cancer, a potentially caring, nurturing, mothering being, the best symbol of which to me is the Statue of Liberty, the female Goddess with the poem at her base stating:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Obviously we are often quite far from that Cancerian positive emotional energy, but during the Obama “Honeymoon’ we had a brief connection with it. Now we’re rather numbed down and in denial.

Our Challenge or Blockage

Four of Cups – Luxury:
Here you have an emotional harmony and balance and stability, but in somewhat of a ‘holding pattern.’ It is a bit like cruising on the fruits of past labors without seeking further opening in the present.

This is a temporary challenge to move into an emotional balance and harmony even if it is a ‘holding pattern’ but at least moving us out of the complete denial of the Knight of Disks.

What Can Help

Knight of Swords
Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and perceptive and mentally active. He, however, is also based on a certain fear or insecurity and is therefore very impulsive, receiving an idea and leaping off with no time for reflection.

When there is a positive card in this position it indicates some quality that can help. If it is a negative card then what can help is to see clearly what will not help you. It thus serves as a warning of what not to do, which is the case here.

We have to be careful of going into identifications with this fear-based mental ‘head-tripping’ character.

Possible Future

Death
Here you are experiencing the death of attachment to your old emotional patterns of feeling and desire and identity, so that you can connect with the deeper inner heart feelings of your Higher Self.

Well, the numbed-down practical Knight of Disks isn’t going to last. With the second Pluto/Uranus square in September while  Pluto will be moving direct, and the full-fledged Presidential campaign frenzy, that earthy complacent denial of the Knight of Disks isn’t going to last. More intense, deeper emotions are bound to rise.

So, after this reading I decided to ask the cards about Obama and Romney in the election.

This is what I got today

For Barack Obama

The Moon
This is the initiation where you must walk onto the dark side of your moon, where you are completely vulnerable to all of your previously repressed emotions, so that they can be felt, healed, and released into the light.

For Mitt Romney

The Tower
Here you are experiencing a conflict between two sides or positions, which cannot be resolved except in going to a higher level. But that level is beyond the level of personality, and the Tower represents the destruction of the tower of your old personality so that your true self may spring free from the ruins.

We have two Major Arcana Initiations here. The Moon card is for those of us who want Obama having to feel all of our uncomfortable feelings, including our mixed feelings about Obama, and what comes up at the contemplation of a Romney victory.

The Tower card for Romney and his supporters shows they are still in this back and forth, yes/no, enthusiasm/restraint conflict that cannot be resolved at the level of pros and cons.

I decided to push it and ask what follows, or what each candidate is likely to feel on the day after the election.

The result was, personally for me, rather depressing. But I always tell my clients that the cards tell you what the truth is at this time, with the understanding that any future prediction is always a probability based on the conditions in the present, but can always be changed because we have free will.

That being said, the card for how Obama and those who voted for him would be feeling the day after the election was:

Nine of Swords - Cruelty
Here there is a mental tension as a result of trying to figure out with the mind and thinking and intellect, that which cannot be figured out with mind and thinking and intellect.

And for Romney:

The Chariot
Here you are experiencing the initiation that corresponds to the sign Cancer, a sign of great care and nurturing. This initiation, however, is into the awareness that the true fulfillment of your entire human reality. Of your body, of your personality, even of your higher self, is really but to serve as vehicles for the expression of the spirit.

Based on these results, based on conditions in the present, counter to what I and all of the Astrologers whose predictions I have heard have said, it looks like Romney will win in November.

The mental tension of the Nine Swords of Cruelty is how Obama and his supporters will be feeling the day after the election. driving themselves crazy thinking about how that came to pass and what the ramifications are and will be.

I guess it is up to us to change that fate with our Free Will, if we want to...

Blessings,
Steffan Vanel
 

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