Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005 Before dinner later with some neighbors from Peru (followed by an excursion to Notre Dame for a nude photo session at midnight mass), my job for the day is to look at the United States charts, for a Parallel Worlds article called United States Live. The way the PW project is shaping up, I seem to be continuing with the collective astrology before moving deeper into the personal sign-by-sign forecasts. Yesterdays long excursion into Chiron in Aquarius was really quite interesting, to the tune of about 4,000 words. I have not done the US national charts for a while (it used to be a habit, started when I was writing for Rob Brezsny's online magazine during the Clinton impeachment). I think the last time I dove in was around the 2004 presidential "election." I am certain this is going to be a trip -- it's always a little like smoking some Vancouver weed. I work with the transits, progressions and solar arc directions (a different kind of transit) to two very different charts, one called the Sibley Chart (the first-ever USA natal chart, which has rather uncertain and allegedly unreliable origins but works very well -- this is the official July 4, 1776 chart); and another called Scorpionic America, a chart from 1777 put into circulation by a man I only spoke to once before he died, but love dearly and consider a star brother and true comrade: David Solté. The two charts portray very different personalities for the United States of America: one reveals the benevolent entity that the nation sees and portrays itself as; and then something darker, the purveyor of genocide and slavery and centuries of terrorism, but somehow maintaining a vestige of a social conscience even amidst its strange denial. Part of the puzzle of "America waking up" and seeing (for example) that Iraq is nothing but a mess and heap of lies is that we would be waking up from something, specifically a dream of ourselves to which we are very attached. So without further ado, I'm getting' to work. The charts will  be provided with the article, which begins with this lead: "To understand what's going on in the United States now, we need to begin with some old news. The day that George Bush was supposedly re-elected, Nov. 2, 2004, the progressed Sun of America's birthday chart changed signs from Aquarius to Pisces. A progressed sign change of the Sun happens about once every 10,956 days (including in personal charts), and not only did it happen near election day, which would have been interesting enough, it occurred exactly ON election day, a synchronicity so glaring I advise even insufferable, hardcore muggles to take note. America changed last Nov. 2, and a long, new era of history began." To be continued in Parallel Worlds... PS, if you're curious about USA charts, here is a resource on Astrodatabank. You get the charts and the story behind each one. I differ with one comment I've seen in the write-up: that it's somehow necessary to have a definitive USA chart. Countries and corporate entities often have many charts, the charts talk to one another, and you get different information from each of them. Note the controversy on the charts on and around July 4 -- this is particularly interesting. It was David Solté who pointed out to me how vital charts for coronations and inaugurations are, creating the current horoscope of a nation, and I have paid attention to that since he mentioned it some years ago. But I've never looked at a chart, for example, of Congress going into session... Have fun... http://www.astrodatabank.com/NM/USA.htm