The Land of Opportunity

Post by Jane Lewis

Following Donald Trump’s election victory the world nervously looks on to see what will happen in the coming months. The ‘Sibly’ chart is still considered to be the most relevant horoscope for the USA, and with the Sun now in Sagittarius it’s interesting to see that this is its ascendant sign. Curiously, the Sabian symbol for the 10th degree of Sagittarius is “a stage symbolisation for the goddess of opportunity”, which the Statue of Liberty aptly embodies. America has always been known as the land of the free. Like Britain, America is populated by people from overseas seeking a better life free from poverty, repression and persecution. Paradoxically, another group were settled there as slaves, and the nation’s prosperity was built upon their labours, ironically, denying them of those very same basic human rights, freedoms and opportunities.

Now that America is allegedly ‘full’, with Sagittarius rising it’s hard to see how any wall erected along its border will ever stop attracting people seeking a better life. This is Jupiter’s sign of freedom, benevolence, generosity, internationalism and multi-culturalism. It is also the sign of faith and trust in God’s love and universal abundance.

America’s Sun is in Cancer, whose soul lesson is Peace in Action. Cancer and Sagittarius being five signs apart makes this an uncomfortable combination, in the nature of a quincunx, which means that the fire and water elements and cardinal and mutable qualities are forced to rub shoulders in order to somehow make things work. This awkward and contradictory mixture creates a lot of friction, as is now very much in evidence. It makes it very difficult for the nation to fulfil its Cancer soul purpose which must be expressed through its Sagittarius ascendant. America’s outer Sagittarian personality attracts and welcomes all-comers with open arms, but its still-young Cancer soul is jealous of its riches which it fiercely protects through fear of there not being enough to go around. Protectionism is one response.

The Sun’s conjunction with Jupiter holds potential for a great sharing of its riches and opportunities, but this can only be secured through the Wisdom of Love. Cancer is learning to let go of the fear of insufficiency, and must trust and have faith. Fear is the lack of love, as White Eagle so often says. In the process of learning this soul lesson, Jupiter can have the effect of inflating those very fears and insecurities. The quincunx demands adjustment and creative determination to find solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and no doubt it gives rise to the current paradox of a land of immigrants wanting to put up walls to keep others out.

Of course, other later horoscopes have been cast, so why not simply ignore the Sibly chart and move on? But the Sibly chart is still active so we might well ask when will it cease to be operative. Presumably, the answer is: when the nation, through its individual people, have learned the Cancer soul lesson and fulfil its deep soul purpose, at which time the karma associated with its past will presumably be settled.

The Sibly chart was created by an English medic and astrologer called Ebenezer Sibly, a Freemason. Born on 10th February 1751 in that revolutionary era, Sibly himself was strongly Aquarian having a stellium of Sun, Mercury, Venus and Uranus conjunct America’s Moon. A bi-wheel showing his horoscope on the inner wheel and America on the outside reveals some powerful inter-aspects: the nation’s lunar nodes sit on his vertical axis and its ascendant-Uranus opposition on his horizontal axis.

The idea behind the Statue of Liberty came from a French political anti-slavery activist called Edouard de Laboulaye, who wanted to mark the centennial of USA’s independence and friendship with France. The idea was conceived in 1865 when transiting Uranus, planet of freedom and independence, was conjunct USA Sun. It was designed and built in sections in France, shipped to America and erected in 1886, by which time Uranus was transiting its midheaven.

Mercury is in the 8th house of the Sibly chart in the 25th degree of Cancer, for which the Sabian symbol is, rather mysteriously: “a leader of men wrapped in an invisible mantle of power”. Which makes you think: just who that might be?