Note: For previous astrological forays into Trump’s and Putin’s astrology, see: ASTROLOGY: Trump, Melania, Putin, and Mother Earth. There will be more. 

This?

Or this?

One of the biggest arguments for Big Ag is that it’s necessary to “feed the world.” That otherwise, “there’s not going to be enough.” Well, I’m not going to talk any more about that. Hopefully, the two images above will help you intuitively decide whether or not it’s true.

Ok. Hold on to your hat. This is going to take some time to tell.

Those who live with me realize that my perpetual bias as a person, and as an astrologer, is to see through the bullshit in others, and hopefully, in myself (or if not, then to ask, even beg, others to see through my bullshit, so that I may learn!). But what is it that I am determined to see through to? What lies on the other side of the corruption that has infected our self-seeking egos in this dog-eat-dog capitalist world?

Why is it necessary to try so hard to win? Because, dummy, there’s not enough to go around!

Yes. What undergirds the seemingly ubiquitous dog-eat-dog capitalist attitude is the deep, often, usually, but not always, unconscious assumption of scarcity.

I, personally, do not know anyone who has not been infected by this stance that capitalism forces us into, in order simply to survive! We aim to “get ahead;” which means, we aim to climb up the ladder, stepping on others along the way, if necessary. In other words, the end justifies the means, which in practice means: you are valuable to me only in so far as you serve to get me what I want.

But wait a minute! Aren’t we all taught, as kids, to share our toys? To not be so selfish? Well yes, that’s there, too, that “socialization.” But except for that one brief and shining moment as two year olds, newly invigorated into “me me me!” by the first return of our Mars energy to its own natal place, once we go to school, especially when we go to school, we are lock-stepped into a programmed system where we are supposed to come out on top in a world where the assumption of scarcity is the norm.

In recent years, another kind of schooling has emerged, in an attempt to balance the first, with its emphasis on individual achievement. This is the notion of “group:” group projects in school, which require students to share, get along, and come up jointly with some kind of result. Of course, it’s only a matter of a (short) time where the more studious, or energetic, or obedient, or really really smart ones realize that they “are doing all the work,” that others are coasting along on their results.

Couple that with another relatively recent idea, that every kid is perfect, just as he or she is. (No matter how spoiled.) Prizes should go, not just to the winner, but to everyone who participates! Which, in turn, spurs the notion of entitlement. I can get whatever I want just because I’m so great! No matter what I do or do not achieve. No effort required!

When this notion of self-entitlement, which tends to spoil group effort, itself runs up against the deeper unconscious, multi-generational,  cultural fear of scarcity, then all hell breaks loose. As now, when student debt, accumulated during the la-la college years when students who had been given all they wanted as kids, who never had to even earn a weekly allowance, much less wonder how to pay for the increasingly exorbitant cost of college, which in turn was supposed to guarantee their place in the pecking order, drink and smoke and fuck their weekend nights away, with all thought of what comes next put off  until after graduation, then what? This naive attitude ends up not only crippling the expansive future of those who hold student debt, but in turn threatens (among other things) to take the entire ponzi economic system down.

The older, deeper, assumption of scarcity is human, all-too-human. It has nothing to do with the natural world, where abundance is the norm, undergirded by the interplay of all elements — fire, earth, water, air — and all species with one another, mineral, plant, animal, each offering its own waste as food for others in turn! For example: Trees offer their nuts to squirrels, who, in turn urinate and defecate below the trees, thus replenishing the tree’s nutrient cycle. And this cycle is never-ending, and self-replenishing, if left alone.

But of course, it hasn’t been left alone. Instead, humans have interrupted the natural cycle, and especially, beginning with agriculture, began to store extra food cultivated and harvested from nature for the lean times, and wintertime. Store food for the future, and soon, trade food for other goods, and then, eventually, jointly declare some kind of easy-to-carry token a substitute for hard-to-haul heavy food, thus facilitating both travel and multi-level, multi-people exchanges.

You’d think that this creativity, this remarkable ability to turn some things into other things and term them of equal or more value, this eventual creation of what we now call “money,” might have increased the regenerative resiliency of humans with each other and the planet. And perhaps, at first, it did. But that deep, abiding assumption of scarcity still lay in wait, smoldering below in the collective unconscious of the mass mind, and when active, erupts into actions that aim to win over others, or beat them silly, rather than cooperate in joint gains.

Where am I going with this rant?

Well, I’m assuming that this fear of scarcity fulminates secretly inside each of us. It is, after all, our own body’s instinctive need for survival (and thus for food, shelter, and so on) which generates that primal fear. But usually this fear is denied, and/or projected onto others. The Hobbesian “war of all against all” results, in a capitalist “society” where everybody tends to be driven only by self-interest.

But of course, we aren’t. There is also this need to connect, to relate, at least one to one, and/or in small family groups, then tribes, regional alliances, and so on. Yet sooner or later, “government” takes over, attempts to clamp some sort of structure over the natural give and take between self and others that we build over time more or less successfully. Especially when we’re not successful, government comes in to “save” us: when we start fighting each other, blaming each other, rather than realizing that for all of us, the needs are the same, for food, water, shelter, and then, as those are met, for creativity, fully developing our own capacity, what we personally, uniquely, were born to do.

And what facilities this creativity? Mirroring, through others. This is where we first recognize who we are, by seeing ourselves in the gaze of the other. The other admires us, or loves us. What do they admire, what do they love? Thus we turn within, to become self-reflective, and begin to recognize, acknowledge, admire, love our selves!

All this is prelude to what I wanted to talk about, which is Donald Trump, and his relationship or non-relationship to the scarcity agenda that has driven civilization for so long.

Let’s face it: since Trump was born rich, he has not experienced scarcity the way most of the rest of us have. Instead, he has been privileged to have his security needs met, and in turn to creatively express his own nature into the world from the beginning.

(Not that he wasn’t willing, from the very first, to work hard. It is said that rather than participate in college weekend parties, he would travel home on weekends, to continue learning and working in the construction business for his father.)

And what a nature his has been! The man is huge! Now, as President of the United States, he strides across the globe like a colossus!

So the question is, the question for all of us who watch this astonishing display of self-expression and self-confidence that we call, often jealously, overblown ego, what is he after? Does he just want to win, to get more and more for himself and his family? Is that his motivation?

I’m here to say that I don’t think so. And yes, here’s where my bias as an astrologer — and as a human being — comes in. I look at a person’s chart and I see the potential of the being, what he or she could aspire to, and could even achieve, if only they are willing to continue to grow, to unfold their unique nature, throughout their entire lives.

Most people do not do this. Most people get stuck at some point, and start repeating themselves from then on out. Creatures of habit, they crystallize out into some form or other that basically, because it is closed and not open, calcifies, starts dying the moment it comes to fruition.

So, are we like fruit, that fall off the tree and die, ultimately our seeds food for squirrels? Or are we like trees, which fruit again and again year after year? Or even, are we like rivers, or entire watersheds, with their mountains and valleys, receiving from the heavens and trickling, rushing, hurtling, flowing majestically to the sea.

The point is, I hope I am getting to it here, we are all as large as we imagine ourselves to be. And the larger our imaginations, the fuller our expression, the more deaths and rebirths are featured, factored into our protean lives as waste becomes food for the next season’s glory.

I wager that Donald Trump is more like a large watershed then he is like a piece of fruit that falls from the tree. I wager that this Herculean task that he has taken on, to join with Putin, and probably President Xi of China, to overturn the globalist new world order and morph it instead into a multipolar world, where nations can each experience themselves as sovereign, and life can be lived in cooperation and harmony, with bi-lateral agreements rather than centralized globalist trade deals, is calling upon a part of himself that is even larger than his famous overweening ego, symbolized in his natal chart by pugnacious Mars in Leo on the Ascendant conjunct the royal star Regulus.

In other words, I wager that the direction of his first 70 years has now been eclipsed by a larger order within himself, one that mirrors the larger task that he is now embracing as his, and Putin’s, and Jinping’s, to take on.

Why do I say this? How can I possibly say this? Because I don’t think that people are condemned to be a certain way, so that after a certain age they don’t change, cannot change. That’s certainly true of most people, but not all. Those who embrace and integrate the challenges in their lives, those who are curious enough to want to explore further and deeper, on and on, do NOT get stuck, do not calcify. On the contrary: having absorbed and integrated the lessons of the decades they have already spent upon this earth, and turned them into skills that can be shared with others, they can then marshall an even larger expanse within themselves to wrestle, more and more expertly, with larger and larger challenges from without.

Same goes for Putin. (I don’t know about Xi.) Both Trump and Putin have shady backgrounds, supposedly. After all, they are both men, mensch, in fact, successful players in a decidedly dog-eat-dog capitalist world. Each has proved that he could not only survive, but thrive. And now, both are seeing and taking on the challenge of their lifetime, the one for which all the skills they have mastered have been mere preparation.

For Trump, this means switching his dominant energy from Mars to Jupiter, which by the way, utilizing vedic astrology, we can say that he has now done. His generous, philosophical, far-seeing Jupiter in diplomatic, relationship-oriented Libra exactly conjuncts Putin’s Saturn, inside Putin’s  Sun/Saturn/Neptune/Mercury stellium in Libra.

As for Trump’s relationship with Xi Jinping? Did you know that their birthdays are only one day apart? I hear that Xi and Trump talk on the phone often. I’m not surprised. Both are Geminis, nearly twins. Lots to talk about.

But hey! Guess what?  We, all of us, the people of the world, bar none, still must contend with this long-running assumption of scarcity that runs through all our veins, that has dominated the globe for eons, and that, if we can learn how to cooperate with each other as interdependent partners with both each other and with nature the way nature herself teaches,we might just let go of our fear of scarcity into the joy of abundance for all. But: as long as transnational corporate capitalism is allowed to go unregulated, then it’s still a winner take all world, and the regenerative, resilient give and take that nature would otherwise provide is inevitably, not only polluted, but destroyed.

Amazing. Just as I finish writing this post, I come across an article about Trump and Big Ag that blows me away. I’m still absorbing it. I invite you to join me.

President Trump Confronts Multinational Big Ag, Proposes Bridge Subsidy to Break Up Controlled Markets and Exploitative Contract Farming