Almost Twenty Years Ago, Vanity Fair Published America’s Horoscope. Was It Prescient?

Astrologers can tell you that that’s not going to happen, but that, no matter what, we’ll never go broke either. They can also explain George Bush’s predicament by pointing out that he’s a Cancer, and that in coming years Cancers are going to be challenged to expand their whole worldview. In fact, we can all gain perspective on what is happening politically, culturally, and socially in America by turning to the Zodiac, especially the signs of Cancer and Capricorn. For nations, like people, have horoscopes.

America was born on July 4, 1776, when the Founding Fathers decided it was time to separate from England and start a new life as an independent entity. That makes America a Cancer nation. Cancer is the sign of fertility, and America sees herself as the world’s nurturing mother. But because of the hostile presence of Mars and Uranus in our solar 12th house, we’re the kind of nurturer that can bomb the hell out of a country one day and send over sandwiches and coffee the next. That makes the rest of the world love us and hate us. We’re like the rich relative everybody is jealous of but still visits for the holidays because there’s always plenty of food. It is the sincere and conscious wish of every Cancer, including the U.S.A., to make sure that all those under its wing are safe—and if you mess with them, you must be ready to face the Special Forces.

Security and home are primal drives of this sign, sometimes to the point of clannishness or even xenophobia. America is and always has been about property, taxes, and land ownership. Conveniently, we forget that when the early settlers arrived they took one look around and said to the Indians, “What a gorgeous place you’ve got here! Get out!” Territory is everything, and if anyone tells you that the essence of the American Dream is just about liberty and freedom, don’t kid yourself. It’s about mortgage rates.

But are we, in the end, ruthless imperialists doomed to be brought down by our degenerate culture? That is the question Pluto’s transit through the sign of Capricorn over the next 19 years will answer. It will challenge us as we have never been challenged before—until it will seem that the whole world is against us—but it will also reveal the secret of how we need to change.

The sign of Capricorn has always been strong in our Cancer nation’s horoscope, and it’s going to get a lot stronger. We were born with Pluto in Capricorn, and now, more than two centuries later, Pluto is coming back to the same place. The seeds that were sown back in the 1770s are sprouting at last. That’s how Pluto works, over hundreds of years.

Though Pluto has recently been demoted by astronomers to a not-quite planet, try telling that to any Sadge who’s been to hell and back over the last 10 years, thanks to the passage of Pluto through Sagittarius. The power of the little dwarf is so profound and catastrophic that it doesn’t matter if you call it a planet or not—it’s a killer. But, oddly, it’s also a healer. When Pluto moves into your sign, it threatens to devastate you emotionally and physically, letting you know along the way that you must stop whatever you are doing. However you were conducting business or your personal life, that’s over. Finito. Kaput.