Don’t let the author’s title to this piece scare you off. This is not a Dooms’ Day piece. Far from it. I’m glad that he’s brought this to my attention, that the Progressed Ascendant for the U.S.A. birthchart now moves from Leo into Virgo. This is significant, indeed, huge. Whether the shift took place now, this month, I’m not sure, as birthtimes are notoriously inaccurate, and the Ascendant is the point in the chart most sensitive to minute differences. However, sometime this year or last, this changeover did indeed occur, and already begins to alter the way this nation swings its weight around on the planet. No longer are we No. 1, king of the world. That Leo persona lasted for about 40 years, since the very early ’70s. This Virgo persona will do the same. By the time it is done, we will be not only thoroughly chastened as a nation, we will be finally willing to take the next step, and learn how to interact with others as equals, in partnership: the progressed Ascendant will then go into Libra.
Think of the zodiac as an evolutionary process, moving from Aries, where life sparks initially into blazing fire, through Pisces, where the entire life-cycle of the growing entity surrenders to the compost heap of history. Twelve signs, twelve stages of development, each one correcting the excesses of the one before it. If the excess of Leo is rampant egotistical greed, then the correction of Virgo is slow, deliberate, thoughtful, careful analysis of what went wrong and how to return to integrity.
October 18, 2011
by Fe Bongolan
It was 1998. Driving through the Embarcadero in San Francisco on my way to the Golden Gate Bridge and home in Mill Valley, I saw the lights of a white BMW speeding up perilously close to me in my rear view mirror as I approached the left-turn only lane. The driver was obviously in a hurry. So much so that at her speed I thought she was drunk.
Just before I reached the signal light, she made a quick pass to my right and then cut right in front of me in my lane in order to make it first to the left turn light. She then proceeded onward at a furious 65 mph pace on the city streets, not even acknowledging me, all the while talking furiously on her cell phone.
All that mattered was talking on her cell phone and getting to where she needed to go as fast as possible — everything else existed as mere inconvenience. The skin at the back of my neck, my fingers and legs were tingling so hard with adrenaline that I had to manage my breathing. I could have crunched her directly in a T-wreck, or been driven off the road and into oncoming traffic had I not brought myself to an abrupt stop. I was almost killed while that driver rode on. It was then, out of nowhere, that the strangest sentence came to my head, words that I never forgot, but somehow for a reason unknown to me at the time felt appropos for the moment: This is how the world ends.
Nearing the end of the 20th century and during the beginning of the 21st, one could say that an apocalypse of sorts had already happened. This apocalypse was not a single cataclysmic event like a devastating bomb or a natural disaster. The apocalypse was the slow-motion destruction of our national soul. For decades, we worshiped at the altar of entitlement. Our ethos, built on cheap gasoline and inexpensive goods, centered around the better car, the latest device, the biggest house in the neighborhood, the second, and maybe third, family vacation for the year.
During the dot.com boom in the Bay Area, money came at us in every direction, not all of it for products in stores or on the ground. Ideas alone — some more ridiculous than others — were generating tens of thousands of dollars in venture capital. It seemed that money was raining down from a huge invisible bucket overhead and everything was possible. Back then, during those days and nights, especially the night of my run-in with the white BMW, we were all trying to become dot-com millionaires and retire early. Some made it. Most did not. And that’s how the ‘bubbles’ — the dot-com era and the housing boom of our Pluto in Sagittarius economy came and went — one great idea followed by another, but not all was substantive or real.
How easy it is for money to wrap you up. You get caught up into a lifestyle, with societal rewards and approbation coming right from your television set. Our pop culture became a glorification of bling, winner-takes-all and ‘only the strong survive to stay on the island’. What was missing from that approbation — those feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction over having the power to ‘win’ — was the grasp of our values. Not the family values of the traditional Pop-Tart Mom-and-Pop variety, not the values brought to you by Values Inc., or the values sold to you by a politician or pundit from a podium or a pulpit, but the deeper values that appreciate true freedom for yourself and others. The true weapon of mass destruction was that we were no longer here to help each other but to help ourselves.
Over the weekend, when Jude talked about Crazy Money, she said: “Money and privilege provide a cushion against paying heavy penalties for bad behavior. ” I totally agree. I would also say obsession with money is a sickness, symptomatic of how empty our bling bags have left us; how lonely we are in our mansions too big for one person to live in; how odd to be rushing headlong down city streets regardless of who is in your way, wondering why in the hell am I going so fast?
All the accelerated avarice of over the last 30 years brings us exactly to this point in our collective history as a nation. On the brink economically and politically, as well as astrologically. As described on his websiteEarthwalk Astrology, Robert Blaschke’s entry from May 17, 2010 entitled Upheaval and Rebellion on the Horizon, says that a widespread rebellion (the #Occupy Movement) could be seen as a consequence of the country’s progressed ascendant moving from Leo to Virgo:
Coinciding with the progressed Sun-Uranus square becoming exact in October of next year (2011) is the concurrent ingress of the U.S. progressed Ascendant into Virgo, ending its 38-year passage through the sign of Leo, which began in February 1973. A new 36-year American period of history will commence with the progressed Virgo rising.
The progressed Leo rising era and its infatuation with Hollywood celebrities, the societal addiction to electronic entertainment and games, and the casino mentality on Wall Street that led to overly risky financial practices, will all soon be coming to a merciful ending.
Replacing this will be the new progressed Virgo rising era, lasting until 2047 and ushering in a more humble and conservative America, with a return to traditional values such as hard work and craftsmanship.
With the ticking of the clock on our country’s progressed chart, the bomb has already gone off. It was inevitable. When you push too hard and too fast and think only of yourself, when you forget that others are in your path — your vessel flies off the safety rails, crashing down to earth. That sounds about right, doesn’t it? The end of the world and its simultaneous new beginning is already happening. The end of the world built on greedy self-absorption comes by the hands of the self-absorbed, and by their children who are rebelling against them. It’s about time for a new world — one more sober, grounded and inclusive — to come to take the place of the old. There is more to do today to carry on, but for right now have faith and don’t be afraid when you hear “The end is near,” because it is, and this time something good comes of it.
