At the Solstices and Equinoxes, it’s sometimes possible to cast a mundane astrology chart that explores the next three months of a country’s fortunes.  What’s Mundane Astrology? It’s sometimes called Judicial Astrology, and it’s a way of using the rules of astrology to describe countries and their fortunes instead of people. You look at the chart for the capital city at the day, hour and minute that the Sun enters the cardinal sign — Aries at the spring equinox is the most important of the four, then Cancer at the summer solstice, followed by Libra at the autumnal equinox, and finally Capricorn at the winter solstice.  I last did this at the Spring Equinox; today I want to do it for two locations: for the US capital in Washington DC; and for my state of Massachusetts and its capital in Boston.

The Rules

For me, astrology is very much a kind of algebra.  The planets, signs, houses, and aspects represent variables; they’re different relative to each other in every chart, but each variable has a nominal list or cloud of ideas around it.  For the most part, those clouds of meaning don’t overlap.  That means that each moment in time has a slightly different meaning based on how its particular algebraic equation is structured.

My guide(s) to learning this material is a single book from the Astrology Classics Reference Series, a book titled Mundane Astrology: The Astrology of Nations and States containing three smaller volumes in one set of covers by H.S. Green, Raphael, and C.E.O. Carter.

The core rule is this.  You find the moment that the Sun crosses the Aries 0° line in spring, and then observe what the Ascendant is.  If it’s a cardinal sign, the chart is good for three months; if it’s a fixed sign, it’s good for twelve months; if it’s a mutable sign, it’s good for six months.  Green cautions that there isn’t enough evidence to guarantee this rule.

For the most part, the planets and aspects are interpreted similarly. The Houses go through the greatest shift, though, with the people represented by the First House and the nation’s Treasury represented by the Second House.  The Third House represents both the inland transit system and the media, as well as neighbor nations. The Fourth House represents the landowners, the farmers, the crops, the mines, and the buildings;  It can also represent the minority party in the legislature. The Fifth House represents the entertainment media, but can also represent the elites — the people who command wealth and culture.  The Sixth House represents overall health and well-being, but also the military forces.  The Seventh House is foreign affairs and relations with other nations; it also represents the state of women in the state or nation.  Eighth House? What else? Death and Taxes… though it can also represent the cabinet and the executive departments.  The Ninth House is shipping and transportation of goods, but also the higher education system.  The Tenth House represents the government, and the nation’s reputation and credit and power.  The Eleventh House is the legislature, and sometimes local governments. The twelfth house represents secret enemies at home and abroad, and the courts and punitive or restrictive institutions like prisons and asylums.

U.S.

The chart for the US is calculated at 5:07 am, the minute at which the Sun moves from being in the sign of Gemini to being in the sign of Cancer.  This is associated in my own personal cosmology with the Headless One story, about the Sun riding on the invisible shoulders of Orion, and being struck off at the moment of the Summer Solstice.  By the rules of mundane astrology, with the Ascendant in a Cardinal sign, the chart is good for three months until September 21 or thereabouts.

And here we are.  The Sun, in mundane astrology, represents the leader of the country.  In the case of the US, we have a pretty good idea who that is, and we may note that he’s in the First House — that is, he’s unusually popular, and he’s above the Ascendant: the people are likely to continue following him.  Mercury, the planet of business and communication, follows him — the economic and media leaders are struggling to keep up with him.  The presence of all these things in the sign of emotional Cancer,ruled by the Moon, suggests a strong tide of feeling from the working classes supports the President in his work.

The Moon representing the people of the nation, are present in the Fourth House of the land — that is, the miners, the farmers, the workers. At the moment, the Sun’s light is reflecting strongly on the working class, and the Moon’s dark back is turned on the Fifth House where the economic and social elites reside.  There’s a turn against the powerful in progress.  The Part of Fortune is here in the sign of Libra, suggesting that a rebalancing of the accounts is in progress, or at least will be attempted.  Given that this sign also represents the Democrats as the minority political part, it is likely that an attempt to rebalance the country will be attempted, with only a 50% chance of success.

Venus, the last of the inner planets, is in the Second House of money, close to the North Node. Both are in Leo, suggesting a combination of showiness and performance, but also a fair bit of creativity and inventiveness in the accounting.  The financial markets may be growing and expanding, but at least some of it may be a pleasant song and dance routine.

Among the outer planets, Mars stands first, in Aquarius in the Eighth House.  Representing war, armies and the makers of weapons, Mars here indicates that soldiers and manufacturers of weapons ought to be taking a hard look at the world around them, and need to try to suss out what’s happening in the world; the answers may not be good for their long-health or the quality of life in their professions.

Jupiter stands next in the ring of outer orbits, and we find it in the Fifth House in Scorpio.  Here, the planet of joy and governance entertains the elites with barbs and quips at the expense of the President — yet while retrograde, Jupiter endeavors to create some distance between itself and the government which the elite bought for themselves.  The Sign of Scorpio indicates a secret, a sting… a poison result that has yet to strike its intended target.

Saturn, exalted in Capricorn in the Seventh House, indicates ongoing efforts to constrain and limit the rights of women within the country, and the external pressures of foreign nations upon the United States. For all its military might, America is still bound and encircled by old limits of treaties, international institutions, and infrastructure that cannot be easily dismantled. The world is also affected by layers of decay and limitation.

The government as a whole for the next three months is ruled by Aries and Mars — The government will tend to rush from one thing to another, rarely taking genuine heed of the will of its constituents and citizens — or at best, listening only to the half of them illumined in the fourth house.  Congress, represented by the eleventh house, will see substantial disruption as Taurus representing stability and comfort, is disrupted by the presence of revolutionary Uranus, the bringer of upheaval.

Neptune — the planet that makes waves, the dissolver who renders substance in solution, rides conjunct the midheaven in the House of long-distance travel and of higher education. Sudden waves may swamp international trade, or may flood the field of university-level education with significant space weather.

Massachusetts and Boston

Massachusetts has a slightly different chart, a few minutes later at 5:24 am on the same day.  Here the Sun represents the governor rather than the President.  The Sun’s presence in the First House suggests a continuing alignment of the leader with the people, particularly the working classes as represented by the Moon in the Fourth House.

In fact, many of the same conditions apply to Massachusetts as to the country as a whole.  The Legislatures is likely to be wracked by continuing upheavals in parts of their institutional life that have been settled and stable for a long time.  However, what I believe is a Grand Trine has emerged, a series of partnerships between economic and social elites, the media and business, and the communities of higher education, to help stabilize certain underlying challenges.

A certain amount of creative accounting is indicated by the position of Venus and the North Node in the House of the state treasury; Mercury dogs the governor’s footsteps and gives sunny reports on the state of the economy every night.  A certain amount of hard-headed analysis of the neighboring states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York is warranted,  though, and yet Mercury’s attention is elsewhere.  A good many of the state’s relationships with other states are somewhat toxic and constrained, as indicated by Pluto and Saturn riding in Capricorn in the Seventh House.

All in all, both charts indicate a bumpy, but more-or-less normal, state of affairs in the next three months: a leader wildly popular with the working class and at odds with the economic and social elites, a fair bit of financial hanky-panky, some uneasy and toxic relationships with neighboring sovereign powers, upheaval in formerly-stable institutions, and a turn of military minds toward intelligence gathering and surveillance.

If you found this helpful or interesting, consider buying one of my books of astrological poetry and magic on Amazon: Poems for the Behenian Stars, or The Paces of the Sun, or The Mansions of the Moon. There’s also Festae, but that’s less explicitly astrological.

And we’ll see whether I’m right in three months, yeah?

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