CHAPTER FOUR:
A Birth Chart for the United States of America - 14

It might be valuable at this point to summarize briefly the main points which were brought-out in this chapter, before we go on to study some of the main astrological features of the development of the American nation since its inception.
      The basic framework of the chart formed by the cross of horizon and meridian (the four Angles) outlines a pictorial message which begins by telling us that the individual character and destiny of the American nation can best be realized by an intuitive awareness of a spiritual ancestry deeply rooted in a great tradition which stresses the capacity latent in all human beings to transform themselves and their consciousnesses (Ascendant). This transformation should begin in earnest when the person is eager to become a focalizing agent (an "avatar") for the power and character of a greater Whole - in this case, humanity-as-a-whole, or in religious terms, God (Imum Coeli). As this begins to take place, it should gradually generate a capacity to experience space-transcending modes of communication in terms of relationships allowing for the development of such a capacity (Descendant); the end result of this will be a "New Order," a totally transformed world (Mid Heaven).
      If we visualize this archetypal picture in our minds, we then can see the Sun, the Moon and the planets operating within it as functional agencies. Solar energy is focused upon the field of interpersonal relationships, a field (seventh House) powerfully filled with expansive energy and intellectual initiative. The source of this energy is in the northeast, the direction from which galactic forces flow through our planetary axis. Solar energy is distributed by the Moon, and the use and management of, as well as a yearning for, resources of all types is emphasized as the daily preoccupation of the consciousness of the common people. We can find an emphasis on "security," and in this century, the tendency to rely upon large-scale organization, impersonal technology and bureaucratic patterns (including computers, the supreme bureaucrats) has become a dominant feature in our national character.
      At the sociopolitical level, the square of Saturn to Jupiter and the other planets in Cancer indicates a state of tension produced by cross-action between a powerful personal desire for relationships, expansion, permissiveness and all that leads to a life of abundance and home comfort, and an impersonal structure of law and morality (Freud would call it "superego") operating with rigid time-determinism. This structure actually implies a deep-rooted sense of distrust and fear which, among other things, led to the "separation of powers" in the government, and to the projection of a father lineage upon the Executive, himself theoretically subservient to an impersonal constitutional pattern of political-social-cultural behavior. The square of the Sun to Saturn can also be interpreted as representing the way in which new social relationships were able to successfully challenge the Saturnian tradition of autocratic rule.
      Forces of transformation, which it has been America's destiny to feature, have been particularly focused with Uranus in the field of labor, technology and service; with Neptune in the field of religion, mysticism, social utopias and journeys to exotic places; with Pluto in terms of large administrative patterns. These forces are now gaining momentum. Their original impact during the eighteenth century was not sufficient to overcome the pressures generated by the enormous geographical expansion and by the equally overwhelming release of usable power by the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying increase in population through immigration. In many ways these pressures have deviated or rendered ineffectual the spiritual aspect of America's power of world transformation, replacing it by a materialistic shadow.
      Material success can mean spiritual defeat. But defeat can be transformed into a still deeper and more total success. It is toward such an end that the transits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are now working in the U.S. chart. The greater the resistance to their action, the more severe, inevitably, the crisis will be.