There is supposedly an old Chinese blessing/curse which is “May you live in interesting times”. Interesting times are more eventful than uninteresting times, but whether that is good or bad, hence a blessing or a curse, is the question. An interesting time is like for example the early Twentieth Century (UR=NE/PL) or the time right after World War II (PL=UR/NE). Those were interesting times to be alive.

Currently we are living in a three-fold interesting time (IT) as if we had won the trifecta. The current term de jour is poly-crisis. I’ve explored all these three before but here I want to put them all together and associate them with keywords from the popular press and talk which may give you some insight into what is taking place. Some people think that there is some nefarious actor behind all three changes happening but I believe it is just that all three are happening at the same time. So those of us who are alive now need to know that these times are unique or special; in a way all times are unique, just as all astrological charts are unique, but some are more unique or special than others. We live in such a time. Just as keywords for the planets hide ideas that are associated with those symbols the keywords that I give will hide ramifications of these three events. Use your own imagination to complete the meanings.

The keywords and tendencies of each IT will reflect on to the other ITs so each keyword constellation will effect the others. Each IT will influence/reinforce the other two ITs so they will be different and perhaps more interesting than if each were happening by itself. As they say the sum is more than just the parts.

The first of these three ITs is associated with the Pluto Return of the United States. No country has existed with one Constitution as long as the US so this return is unique. And since the United States is the most powerful country in the world currently, whatever happens to it will effect the entire world. But we really don’t know for sure where Pluto was 250 years ago so we can’t be sure this is the actual Pluto Return. But as astrologers commonly do for a birth charts with birth time unknown a process called rectification is used to determine the birthtime; this process is essentially if you know the answer (some momentous event in the person’s life) what was the question (chart that would show that event) or astrological Jeopardy(TM). We can judge if this is a Pluto Return by seeing if what is happening in real life (IRL) is what would be expected for a Pluto Return and so far many are talking about the breakdown of United States society, from both a blue and a red perspective. America seems to really be in a quandary. I can can see as possibilities a breakup of the country, a change in the way the Supreme Court is run, a realignment of political parties, the birth of new political parties, and other outcomes that would not have not seemed conceivable in the last century. Division is the keyword on everybody’s lip currently. More than once I’ve heard someone say that they haven’t seen a division like this since the Civil War.

Another way that this Pluto return manifests itself is in the huge involvement of the National Security State with our politics. Recent example abound but I should point out that the Russiagate saga over the last part of the last decade is a prime example (see long article by long time journalist Jeff Gerth in a recent copy of the Columbia Journalism Review and the article in the online magazine Tablet by Jacob Siegal called “The Hoax of the Century”) and the CIA’s debunking of the Hunter Biden laptop story — which was later shown to be as it was claimed to be before the 2020 election — at the request of a Biden campaign official who later became Secretary of State.

The popular term for this time is Civil War, which some people think will actually happen. I don’t know about that but anyone can see there is an increasing division between one group of people (call them Team Blue or the elite establishment or team reality or whatever term you are most comfortable with) against another group of people (call them deplorables or MAGA Republicans or anit-vaxxers, or populists or team reality or even Team Red). Essentially there are two basic viewpoints of reality and each group thinks the other group is crazy or deluded or evil. But the members of each group are not all the same, for example “anti-vaxxers” are not the same as Team Red — President Trump, the mascot of the MAGA Republicans, oversaw operation warp speed which was the epitome of anti-anti-vaxxer! — and the elite are not the same as Team Blue but the omnipresent “they” wants you to believe this. But there are two somewhat hazy groups that are somewhat opposite and spreading. I believe this split will see a new political realignment at least as significant as when the Republican Party formed out of third parties that existed in the time before the (first?) Civil War. What will be the Fort Sumter moment this time? Both sides would probably nominate Jan 6 but for very different reasons. And these traits are common but it is more wide spread then the cliches. Other possibilities could be a new constitution, a modification of the Supreme Court, or even breakup of the united States into several regional blocs, sort of like a re-Europization of the EU (caused for example by the next IT).

The graphical ephemeris above illustrates the whole of the Pluto return. We see the first actual return of Pluto to its natal position at point 1 in early 2022. It happens again at point 2 and 3. Finally at point 4 later in this year Pluto is stationary on the US natal Pluto for the last return.

But this conflict is not between the “left” and the “right” as it is between two world views which more or less correspond to the astrological terms I use in this blog: Pluto and Uranus or globalist and populists or up and down or the 1% and the 99% or artificial and natural.

The second IT is what I have called previously the Sixth Crisis. Since the founding of this country every 80 to 90 years there has been a crisis; these crises started very small and local to part of North America and each crisis has become larger and more global. This is discussed from a non-astrological perspective in the book the Fourth Turning by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Howe has a new book coming out called the Fourth Turning Is Here whose title says it all.

The keyword concept I give for this is World War III, otherwise known as the war in Ukraine but perhaps expanding into a war with China. But another concept that is certainly important here is a change from the unipolar world, a world with one dominant power, to a multipolar world with some powerful countries but none are considered the “top dog”. The world has never experienced the multipolar world before in human history; before it was unipoloar the world consisted of separate nations; this was before the Europeans had expanded to colonize the whole world. Globalism and the Unipolar world started 500 years ago with Spain being the first Single Pole. Since the US has the conjunction of Sun, Venus, and Jupiter which I’ve described before as double plus good the country has been very very lucky in its expansion so the United States is currently the Single Pole.

The unipolar world could only exist once Columbus discoverd America as far as Europe was concerned and the cat was out of the bag that there was a large undiscovered part of the earth that could be exploited by the the nations of Europe. That is what the last 500 years have been about and that is about to come to an end. I am reminded of the original Dylan who wrote a famous poem as his father was dying: “Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. The American Empire is dying and that empire is certainly raging against its dying of light. The country must realize there is life after death.

Multipolarity is an entirely new way of running the world. For the West the feudal world gave way to the modern world 500 years ago and to what brave new world to (coin a phrase) will this period begat? Pluto already knows the type of brave new world it wants. Will Uranus figure its reply to this?

I’ve listed five factors that determined the crisis, factors that have reoccurred every 80 to 90 years since the beginning of this country. The first crisis was very local — Jamestown — but each succeeding one got larger and more geographically widespread. The fifth crisis was World War II. These five factors are all illustrated in the graphical ephemeris above. The first was Neptune making a demi-return to the natal Neptune of the United States (Number 1). Then there was Neptune over the MC or IC of the US and Neptune at either 0 Aries or 0 Libra (Number 2 and 3). Finally there was the Uranus return (Number 4) and Uranus crossing the Descendant of the US (Number 5). These five events occur during the whole decade from 2021 through 2029. The Neptune demi-return — illustrated above — started early in 2021 and the final pass of Uranus over the U.S. Descendant — illustrated below — happens in early 2029.

Watching the behavior of the United States at this time is like watching a divorce where it is obvious to everyone except one of the principles that the relationship is over and he/she struggles to keep the marriage together (often by doubling down) and as a result the outcome of the divorce for that person is much worse that otherwise would have been the case. Is this a real life “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” (a play/movie by Edward Albee) but with less alcohol? The situation could go so much better for the United States if the country had better leaders. I believe this current situation should be a chapter of a newly updated version of Barbara Tuckman’s March of Folly, a masterful book about what the title says: How stupidity and hubris (something the Greek dramatists were aware of 2500 years ago) leads to downfalls, starting with the Trojan War with the Wooden Horse. (I imagine the conversation at that time went something like this: The Greeks left this beautiful wooden horse before they departed; Wouldn’t it be a good idea to bring this into the city so we can play with it? What could go wrong? There’s some chick named Cassandra who thinks that is a real bad idea but she is so into conspiracy theories I don’t believe a word she says.) America is so besotted with war propaganda (hello, Neptune) that is difficult to find any public figure commenting clearly.

We’ll talk about the third IT in Part II — this third IT is a threesome also.