Back in August, I read the chart for the 2019 Aries ingress as it related to mundane, or judicial astrology — the interpretation of the planets and stars for nations.  Now I get to do the same thing for the Libra Ingress of 2019 over Washington DC, six months later, and unpack what may be coming down the pike in the next six months.  This is called Mundane or Judicial Astrology, the astrology of nations, and how those nations’ fates are inscribed on the stars. So the first thing I’m going to do here is a quick review about what I said in March about the Aries Ingress as a summary, and then we’re going to look at the chart of Washington DC at the early-early morning hour of 3:12 AM, and try to get a sense of what the next six months will bring (until the Aries ingress of 2020 shortly before midnight on March 19). Let’s get to it, shall we?

Past predictions

First up, a review of the highlights of the Aries Ingress 2019, when the Ascendant was in Virgo. For reasons I won’t explain in detail here, but which I’ll review briefly: if the Ascendant at the Aries Ingress is in a mutable sign, the chart is good for six months; if it’s in a fixed sign, the chart is good for three months; if it’s in a cardinal sign, the chart is good for a year.

Those key predictions back in March were as follows:

• With the Ascendant in Virgo, I said we’d see a lot of information about a lot of important issues in the country, and various groups would go through that information with a fine-toothed comb — but we wouldn’t see much action on any of it; largely we’d confine ourselves to analysis and consideration rather than intentional action.
• The Sun’s placement then would suggest a strong alignment between President and his cabinet; and we would see his cabinet issuing aggressive defenses of the President, and a complete lack of opprobrium for his conduct. The President would face a lot of outside criticism, but very little effective opposition from within the government itself.
• The Moon’s placement suggested a growing opposition to the President, and an increasing awareness and consideration of the government’s actions. A lot of people would begin to suffer as a result of lack of access to energy reserves, and people’s access to transportation would be an issue.
• Mercury’s placement suggested that the media would be largely under the President’s influence, and would spend most of its time and energy chasing the story of him, rather than the story of the nation as a whole. At the same time, the retrograde motion of the planet would offer an opportunity to return to the rich fishing grounds available to those who investigate corruption and justice.
• Venus’s presence in Aquarius hinted at growing sympathies between the fashion industry and the media, and the working stiffs. We haven’t seen much of this sympathy, but there has been a growing popularity of military-style clothing among men.
• The placement of Mars in the chart suggested a reactive and alert military force rather than one actively engaged in seeking out conflict. I suggested that there would be significant disruptions to the military and its program over the last six months, and that the military and industrial contractors alike would see consequences for bad designs and bad production schedules.
• I predicted the growing importance of the judiciary in the last six months, based on Jupiter’s position in Sagittarius in the chart, and its relationship to the criminal justice system and to the courts. There have indeed been a number of significant issues around the selection of judges and around the procedures of the courtroom generally.
• Saturn’s placement suggested an alignment of interests between the poor and the elderly and the exceptionally wealthy, but I haven’t seen much evidence that this alignment has come to pass in changes to the medical health care system or in the improvement of quality-of-life issues for the Baby Boomers. But — that placement hasn’t worked itself out of the chart yet, so there’s still time. More on that soon.
• The North and South Nodes suggested a broad epidemic which didn’t come to pass; while Neptune indicated that the opioid addiction problem hadn’t yet run its course, and that states with legalized marijuana would continue to expand.
• Uranus suggested ongoing disruption to the US food supply.
• Pluto’s placement indicated lower-than-usual returns from the mining and energy industry.
• The tenth house placement inspired from me an extended metaphor about rulers under house arrest, rising flood waters, and desperate times leading to real woes for the reputation and dignity of the government’s more-immortal side.

You’ll have to decide for yourselves if I called it or not. If you think I’m on the right track, read on to find out about September 2019 to March 2020.

The New Season

The forecast for this period for the United States begins with a chart timed for September 23, 2019, at 3:52 am. Let’s start with the Ascendant-Descendant, the position on the eastern horizon where the planets rise. As we can see, with the exception of the Moon, the North Node, Uranus and Neptune, all the planets are in the lower half of the chart: the public side of the United States will be filled with popular action, evidence of tumult and revolutionary behavior — but nearly all the power will be in the lower half of the chart, in the more private and internal realms out of sight.

The Ascendant is in Leo, the sign of the Sun, and the Sun is in Libra in the Third House. The Sun, that is, the head of state or American President, will be the center of the national attention and conversation. The situation of the next six months will be fixed, and the general outline of the nation will be much the same in March as it is in September; we shouldn’t expect that there will be momentous changes in overall circumstances.

As to the placement of the Sun, it’s likely that the president’s attention will be on issues of transportation, highways, and communications systems in the next six months. Libra is an Air sign, so we may expect that there will be significant challenges with air travel, and travel generally; Libra is also a sign of valuation and business; air travel costs may rise catastrophically; or a major manufacturer of airplanes, may land in significant economic difficulty. Both Mercury, as the emblem of the media, and Venus as the emblem of the creative classes and of women, will find this issue occupies a significant amount of their attention. Both Venus and Mercury are “under the beams”, or in the Sun’s glare; they will be unable to affect the situation much, and the President will still be shining. Square to both the North and South Nodes, as well as to dutiful and responsible Saturn, Mercury and Venus will be performing their usual duties and responsibilities, and will have trouble adjusting to any new situation quickly enough.

Mars, representing the military, finds itself mired in messy financial transactions and difficulty compared with the domestic economy as a whole. A scandal involving the US Navy may briefly flash through the news in November [this is an edit, I typed August… for a chart covering September to March], but don’t expect it to occupy much attention in the broader news cycle; the news media is unlikely to see the issues clearly. Logistics troubles and threat analysis keep the US military in “at home” mode. Represented by the trine to Pluto in Capricorn, the US nuclear defense forces are likely to be more supported than in previous years, but also subject to some oppressive and limited working conditions.

Jupiter, representing the government, laws and courts, are either going to be firmly in the pocket of the American elites and those of more-aristocratic mien than usual — forgiving and merciful, the Jovial planet is likely to give them everything they ask for with expansive grace. Further tax cuts will put additional pressures on the unseen poor (represented by the sixth house); at least one manufacturing or mechanical system sold to a government agency will be shown to be outright fraud, and yet no one will be punished; some creative tax accounting will be largely forgiven; the US-flagged merchant fleet is tied up in administrative bureaucracy and suffering some significant setbacks as a result of high-level monkeying-around by prominent persons with a lot of wealth and political influence.

Saturn, the planet of duty and responsibility and old age, is solidly in the camp of the working classes and the rank-and-file of the military. If anyone is going to do the heavy lifting these days, it’ll be these folks, straining under the back-breaking labor. By the rules of traditional astrology, Saturn and Jupiter can’t ‘see’ one another right now, so the elites and government can’t see the effect of their policies on the working classes; and the working classes can’t make their government see how they’re affected. We should expect this tension to continue for another six months to a year.

Uranus, the revolutionary planet, sits in the heights of heaven directly atop Congress. If there was going to be a radical change in the legislature, it would have happened by now — but the insurgent force of populism is starting to ebb, and it won’t achieve its goals in the next six months. We can expect the battering to continue while the tide continues to flow out… but Congress will have other important issues on its mind like, “how do we keep the material comforts flowing?” and “What are we going to do about the weather?” and perhaps even more specifically, “what are we going to eat?” If there’s any good fortune in the land right now, it’s in literally The Land, in how food gets produced and supplied to the nation as a whole.

And maybe this a bit alarmist, but we have Neptune in Pisces in the 8th house of Death and Taxes, and the North Node in Cancer in the 12th house of secret enemies, and the Imum Coeli, the darker dreams of the nation, in the 4th house of the land and the agricultural industries in Scorpio… all in a slightly-less-than-Grand Water Trine. Usually, Grand Trines have to be composed of actual planets, rather than just theoretical points. And all of these ‘places’ in the chart are under water.

We are just inside hurricane season, aren’t we?

The Moon is also in Cancer, representing the People, conjunct that North Node which keeps shouting “more!” — more water, more warmth, more nurturing needed — in contrast to the command for more courts, more judges, more prisons (all significations of the 12th). We can expect the turmoil over US concentration camps to continue; for there to be an increasing dissonance between what the people want and what the President and Cabinet want (and what the elites who manage them want); and what the vast majority of the populace want. With the Moon almost directly opposing Saturn, each in their own domicile, we’ll see the political aims of roughly 50% of the country in rough parity with one another — and the working classes and military will lose in this game of wills.

Some Speculative Judicial Astrology

I could leave it there. However, Arnemancy posted a great article about House Triplicities a few weeks ago — and I found that the table of house meanings was quite useful. There’s no parallel table of house triplicities for Judicial/Mundane astrology that I can find, though. Yet if I squint at the House Triplicity system that Arnemancy published, and then look at my sources for Judicial Astrology, I can work out something rather like the next table. I want to emphasize that this is speculative.

The basic idea in a house triplicity system is to examine which elemental sign is in which house, and then to identify which planets rule that element. For example, the Fire signs (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius) are ruled by the Sun by day, Jupiter by night, and Saturn as their partner by both day and night. The Air signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) are ruled by Saturn by day, Mercury by night, and Jupiter as their partner. Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) have Venus by day, the Moon by night, and Mars as their forever partner. Water Signs (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) get a slightly-different combination: Venus by Day, Mars by night, and the Moon as their partner. It’s all in this next chart, because we should take the opportunities we can to create visual representations of important data.

In any case, by comparing the House Triplicities against the Triplicity Rulers, we can make some additional speculations about the state of of the nation. I must admit that all of this is very speculative, because there’s no guarantee that the house triplicities I’ve assigned for use in mundane astrology are correct— and if there’s a better list out there, I’m happy to be set right. So we’ll see whether I’m right in six months based on this chart, and then we’ll try for a few more eras/sequences, and then maybe remove the “tentative” label.

The First House, representing the people, is a Fire Sign: so we look to the Sun in Libra (in the 3rd house) to identify the condition of the nation’s young people; to Jupiter in Sagittarius to see the state of the middle-aged; and to Saturn in Capricorn to ascertain the state of play among the elderly. From this we may guess that young people will be in a state of flux and travel, roughly balanced between majority and minority political viewpoints; they will carry the balance, but will ‘fly blind’ in any elections this fall. The middle-aged (which right now are the Gen-Xers, a smaller generation than either the elderly or the young) will be ‘harnessed’ and ‘managed’ by the nation’s elites — we’re going to see the middle-ground continue to be led to particular conclusions by a massive spending machine that supports the priorities of the wealthiest. One foot in the grave and one hand in heaven, the elderly will continue to exercise an outsized influence on the working class: holding down most wages (for the sake of letting their retirement funds last longer), and retaining a strong control over the actions of both the military and the energy industry.

The Second House, the Earth sign of Virgo, invites us to look to Venus, the Moon and Mars for clarity about upper class, middle class, and lower class finances. Venus, in the company of the Sun, indicates that there’s money to be made in transport industries and infrastructure-improvement processes, but only if you’ve got a lot of money to invest in the first place. The upper classes are going to find their wealth grows in sync with their support of the President, as well. The Moon at 15° Pisces speaks to a destructive and difficult ‘dissolution of resources’ in the next six months — a damaging ‘low tide’ that sinks all boats. The presence of Mars indicates some strategic surgical work on the finances of the lower classes, which may keep them alive a little longer — but surgery is not always healthy for the patient. Both the middle and lower classes will find the next six months quite taxing.

The Third House, the Air sign of Libra, invites us to consider the placement of Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter in regards to inland transit, highways, and waterways (although I maybe think it might be the case that highways-and-waterways should be one thing, and communications networks [postal service and internet] should be another. The opinion of other astrologers would be welcome). Saturn of course is in its own sign of Capricorn, but combined with the South Node of “less-ness” — indicating some practical, earthy limits on the transport network — like a gas shortage. Mercury is also in its own sign of Virgo, but in the rays of the Sun: mercury the metal is free-flowing and easy, of course, and in Virgo the highly-mutable Mercury is especially favorable, so domestic trade is likely to be swift and easy — but restricted by the President in some fashion. Jupiter, as already noted, is solidly placed in the pockets of the aristocrats (whether or not they’re supposed to exist in a nominally-equal society), and so we may expect that the communications networks and Internet will respond to the priorities of the Tech-Bros of Silicon Valley (which is rather like the Gnomes of Zurich, is it not?), rather than the needs of ordinary Americans.

The Fourth House, representing the land itself, is a water sign: we look to Venus again, and Mars and the Moon, to understand the farming industry, the state of rural communities, and the mining and energy industries. The Moon, as already noted, is poorly placed in the 27th Mansion representing the destruction of resources and the dissolution of boundaries; nor is Mars positively-placed. We can see a renewed investment in mining, in the form of ‘earth surgery’ to extract every last bit of fossil fuel… oh, and at least one major challenge with a sudden break in a pipeline in the news. The Moon heralds the continued destruction by the minority party of allies and local governments alike.

The Fifth House represents our nation’s political, economic and cultural elites. A colleague of mine has pointed out that mythologically, Zeus is a sex-pest, and Jupiter stands solidly in the middle of the fifth house ruled by a Fire Sign: we look to the Sun, Saturn and Jupiter for a sense of how the aristocratic elements of our national experience will play out. The Jeffrey Epstein case, while not necessarily in the center of the public eye, will continue to extend grabby hands into many lives of the rich and famous —and yet the unforgivable will continue to be forgiven. Power will continue to remain with those who follow the Sun (the President), while a general policy of extracting wealth from the lower classes for the upper classes will remain in effect.

The Sixth House offers a deeper look at the state of the working classes, the rank-and-file of the military, and those who labor underground. As Capricorn is an Earth sign, we look to Venus, the Moon and Mars to have a sense of these aspects of life. As noted earlier, Venus is highly well-placed, but in company with the Sun — the lower classes are likely to stick with the President, and they may find that on balance, they’d rather stick with this power than range far and wide in search of assistance. The Moon brings dissolution and ruin to the military, and Mars continues to cut away at the livelihood of miners and the energy-extraction sector.

Aquarius, an Air sign, forms the Seventh House, so we look to Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter to understand the state of our allies and foreign relations, and the position of women in society. Saturn, as already noted, is currently in the business of placing practical limits and constraints on everything and everyone — and Mercury is highly-dignified but in close company with the Sun: our foreign relations with allies will be strained, but in general the President is likely to make some unusual deals overseas with some very practical outcomes. Women are likely to experience a degree of empowerment and expansion of their roles — but this shall come as much from outrage and fury over the limits placed on them as from anything given to them.

Pisces, the sign of Mutable Water, forms the Eighth House: let’s look to Venus, Mars, and the Moon to get a sense of what might be the causes of death for the next six months; what our taxes will be; and how the bureaucracy will behave — Venus in Libra indicates skin illnesses, perhaps genital diseases, or blood borne illnesses. Mars indicates heavier taxes on the middle and lower taxes. The Moon points to a destructive and corrupt cabinet.

Aries, a Fire Sign, invites us to consider the Sun’s placement, along with Saturn and Jupiter, to understand air travel, higher education, and tourism as Ninth House matters. The president is going to put some attention on air travel in the next six months, or rail travel, or both — it will be some kind of priority. Colleges and Universities are going to be under limits and subject to change; and some of them may close this fall quite unexpectedly. The tourism industry may undergo an expansion, however, and elites may be traveling more this coming fall and winter.

Tenth House matters involve the three branches of government —and earthy, comfortable Taurus invites us to consider the placements of Venus, the Moon and Mars in understanding the state of the government (while remembering that Uranus here in the first Decan suggests continuing upset and overthrow of the old state of the affairs of state). Venus indicates an ongoing, creative revaluation of the executive branch and its powers; the Moon points to substantial turmoil and dissolution of the powers of the legislature; and Mars suggests a continuing ‘surgical strike’ on the judiciary.

Eleventh House matters are shown to be ruled by Gemini, an Air Sign, inviting us to look at the placements of Saturn for the Upper House of Congress, Mercury for the Lower House and Jupiter for the majority party. Although the Democrats are nominally the majority party in the United States right now (more card-carrying members and more votes in the popular elections), their policy positions are still governed by the political and economic priorities of the elites. Mercury’s governance of the Lower House suggests that an impeachment of the President is still not in the cards, although Saturn’s position among the lower classes indicates a growing pressure on the Senate’s toxicity to do something on issues affecting the working classes and the military.

Cancer, a Water sign, represents the Twelfth House, so we look to Venus to understand America’s hidden foes; Mars to glean a hint of what’s going on in our intelligence services; and the Moon to understand our penal system. Given the presence of concentration camps in the American southwest and the deplorable conditions there, we can look to the Moon first — and its position is not favorable to the inmates (although I suppose the Moon’s negative position could be read as “closure of the camps” since we’re looking at the penal system and not its inmates. However, what I know of the Moon in the 27th Mansion, I’d argue for the system moving toward greater cruelty rather than less). Mars in Scorpio croaks out a variety of warnings of trouble and ill omens, but some of what he’s crowing at are dangerous illusions. The nation’s secret foes are close to the President, forging links that are not easily undone.

Final Summary

Overall, this chart is a Night Chart, with the Moon, Uranus and Neptune alone in the night sky, while the Sun and all the other planets hide from the stars in the depths of the invisible world. The images and warnings it presents are dark and full of foreboding, and suggest a nation in public turmoil and private machination. All in all, if you were expecting this autumn to herald some kind of substantial change… you may have to settle for a winter of discontent.