by Marcia Buchart

At my last physical exam my doc asked if I had any questions about my lab results.  I took a deep breath and bravely noted both that my total cholesterol was rather higher than what’s considered optimal, but that his own notes said nothing about it.  His eyes gleamed. “The devil is in the details,” he said and proceeded to point out my stellar HDL/LDL ratio and that my triglycerides were in the basement.  In short, he wasn’t concerned about the total, but of the factors that made it up.  And he was much more concerned about something else altogether: my low Vitamin D levels–I do live near soggy Seattle.                        Sun?                       What sun?

What does any of that have to do with the astrology of this year’s election?  I’ve had occasion to recall his attitude on listening to many of my astrological buddies gnashing their teeth about Mercury, which will station retrograde on election day.  Most are quick to point out that Mercury was retrograde in the storied election of 2000, and have expressed fears about similar confusion resulting from Mercury’s retrograde status on Election Day 2012.  There are two reasons to take that particular expectation with a pound of salt.

1) The “details” underlying Mercury’s retrograde status are completely different in 2000 and 2012 and

2) Mercury may have less to do with the outcome of U.S. elections than one might think.

Other than His retrograde status, the details of Mercury’s condition in the Election Day charts of 2000 and 2012 are verrrry different.  Mercury is no stolid, staid, predictable planet like Saturn; Mr. Flexibility is hugely affected by His particular celestial circumstances at any given moment.  The laundry list of those details is, I think, best saved for another post (it’s really geeky, folks).  And, like my doc’s concern with my Vitamin D levels, there is perhaps a more relevant astrological factor to be examined in the US elections.

              Venus.

 Say what??

Yup.  I was astounded in 2008 when Dr.Bernadette Brady published a Visual Astrology article which identified a cycle related to US elections of which I’d been completely clueless until that point.  She noted that any current US election—since they are held in November while the Sun is in Scorpio at four-year-intervals—has Venus as either Morning Star (rising before dawn) or Evening Star (setting after sunset).  The positions alternate with each election.  The correlation she noted was that since 1900, Venus—when in morning star position—favors the party in power in the White House keeping that power.

“Venus as Morning Star favours the one who holds the crown.”

In only two elections since 1900 has Venus as Morning Star ever failed to fulfill this.  The first was 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency; the second was 1980 when Ronald Reagan did so.  So, on to the $64,000 question: is November 6 2012—with Venus as Morning Star—likely to produce such an upset?

On November 6, Venus is not only a Morning Star, She “radiates” (is near in the sky to) Saturn, a planet Babylonian astrologers correlated with the King (that is, the current administration).  If one bothers to drag one’s carcass out of bed at 6:00 am in Washington DC (and the sky is clear) you will see Venus fairly high up in the eastern sky and Saturn juuuuust above the horizon.

Note that I’m not considering such factors as the many US “birth charts” or the natal charts of any of the candidates.  I’m not even trying to take into account the purported “beginning” of election day.  Should it be at midnight, since the first “official” votes are cast at that time in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire?  Should it be at sunset before, as is customary in Jewish or Muslim (even ancient Christian) traditions?  Should it be at sunrise of Election Day itself?  Should it be when the polls open at the nation’s capitol? (And which capitol? Our first national capitol was <drum rollll> New York City <cymbal crash>.)  And how should we factor in the current practice of early voting which starts to trickle in at undetermined intervals from early October onward?  Heck, I mailed in my own ballot two weeks ago.

I am also not considering any of the astrological factors that other authors have brought to bear on the current situation, all those (wonderfully geeky) things that have become part of our modern practice:  rulerships, dignities and debilities, house placements, receptions, aspects, antiscia, midpoints, planetary pictures, directions, progressions, time lord systems, yatayatayata. Nope: I’m being completely old and outdated (I am 61, after all).  I am looking at the appearance of the predawn sky—around 6:00 am—on the officially declared election day itself: the first Tuesday in November in 1932, 1980 and 2012.  And I am doing so using the lens of some our concepts inherited from the Babylonians.

And it’s simple, really.  There is one factor that leaps out in the 1932 and 1980 “upset” sky pictures: Jupiter is a Morning Star, hanging in the eastern sky before dawn, radiated by a nearby Morning Star Venus.  In 1932, when Roosevelt took the White House from the Republicans, Morning Star Venus shared the eastern predawn sky with Jupiter alone. In 1980 there was a veritable traffic jam in the pre-dawn eastern sky: Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon, all clustered within a very small space. 

In 2012, Jupiter is still high in the sky at 6:00 am, but already well past the zenith and sinking toward the western horizon.

So if Venus is so important, what is the big deal about Jupiter?  Why does He matter?  Brady has argued that in Babylonian astrological omen texts Jupiter was often correlated with the “crown prince”, the contender for the throne.  If He was more powerfully placed in the sky than Saturn—the planet representing the current “King”—then that King had better watch his back during this period because there was a good chance he could be taken down.  And if Venus, as Morning Star, is radiating—sharing the sky with—the crown prince on election day before sunrise, good chance the crown prince could end up with the crown.  It’s not foolproof.  There were three elections where Morning Star Venus radiating a Morning Star Jupiter did not result in a shift in the party in power: 1908, 1956 and 2004 (all Republican administrations…hmmm).  The planet of the King (Saturn) was nowhere near the “action”, so to speak, at those times; Venus was not radiating the King at all in those elections.  So it would appear that a Morning Star crown prince, even with Venus nearby, does not always guarantee the coup d’etat (especially if the current “King” is Republican?).

This year, Venus is radiating the star of the King—Saturn—in the predawn sky.

So will the crown prince take the throne in 2012?

My take?

  Not.    This.   Time.