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The Ring Of Power:

The Second Part of A Gnostic Astrologer's View Of The Twenty-First Century

 
 
By FRANCIS DONALD GRABAU

The Land base of a nation is indicated by the cusp of the 4th house in the chart cast for its official birth as a nation. In America’s chart that 4th house begins at 2 degrees plus of Aries, a Mars ruled sign. Aries is spoken of in astrology as the sign of pioneering new beginnings; hence, the Americans refer to their history as pioneers. Red is the colour which carries the vibratory energy of Aries, and red is also the colour traditionally assigned to Mars. Americans have always referred to the indigenous peoples who were living here when they arrived as ‘The Red Men’ or Indians. The Land was and still is Red Man’s Land.

Now there are two factors that stand out when one looks at America’s ‘roots’ through Aries and the Nation’s 4th house: Chiron, symbol of the Wounded-Healer function is in that sign and house forming a square aspect to the country’s mind and voice embodied in its Mercury in Cancer function, and Mars – the ‘ruling planet’ of Aries – is in Gemini in another and tighter square aspect to Neptune in Virgo. These two outstanding factors in America’s national chart reveal the root-essence of the aggression and bombast masking the deep insecurities of Americans. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these two factors.

It seems evident that with Chiron [symbol of the qualitative nature (by sign) and of the area of activity (by house) of a Nation’s Wound] located in the action-oriented, directly assertive and aggressive sign of Aries in the Nation’s 4th house, the literal physical Land of the Nation, Americans all collectively share together in an Aries Wound with regard to how they experience and relate to the physical Land they live on. They treat their own Land base with excess of aggression, action, and assertive force. Aries is the Springtime energy full of fiery renewal characterised by a spontaneous outrush of impulsive, non-reflective enthusiasm.

‘JUST DO IT!’ is Aries’ motto. And the ‘Stupid White Men’ who landed on America’s shores beginning with Columbus & Company did ‘just do it’. They went into immediate, heavily negative Aries action by incrementally instigating a series of non-stop wars against their predominantly friendly hosts. Stupid White Americans have never ceased their wars against Native Americans and still do not recognise their Federal Government’s thinly disguised policy of genocide toward all the remaining descendants of these people who now possess only small plots of their original Land base euphemistically called ‘Reservations’.

Contemporary Americans, whether they consciously know it or not, are still at WAR with their own LAND BASE! They treat the Earth they live on as just so much ‘real estate’ and with the spontaneous, non-reflective abuse of negative Aries Fire. The first ‘Atomic Bomb’ ever detonated on the face of the Earth was detonated at Trinity Site, New Mexico on the desert soil in America’s vast Southwest! They still detonate nuclear bombs on their soil to this very day. Their Land is home to more lethal radioactive waste than any other place on Earth (with the possible exception of Russia). It continues to seep into their streams and rivers as it continues to lethally radiate their air. They aggressively pour more and more radioactive fire onto their abused and raped soil. But chances are very slim that Americans will ever be able to grasp with their conscious brains just how wounded, how violent and non-reflective they are as a people because the Nation’s Mercury function, its collective brain, is in stressful square aspect to Chiron, its collective Wound at the Nation’s birth.

Stupid White Americans prefer to see only the spontaneous initiative of their collective mentality. They see themselves as doers, achievers, active ‘go-getters’! But aggression and war are at the very roots of their collective heritage. They act and react abruptly and quickly without much forethought or afterthought. They are, as a Nation, a very volatile and dangerous people who need to be carefully watched by the rest of the world. Americans have their roots in Aries which is the zodiacal sign of Children as well as Warriors. They are infantile and juvenile when it comes to understanding their responsibilities within the global family of Nations. Ironically, their childlike qualities are the potential healing gift hidden within their Chiron Wound found in Aries. Americans, as a people, and America as a country, has a real healing gift to share with the rest of humanity; it is the Aries gift of ever renewed and ever enthusiastic New Beginnings. But before they can access their innocent childlike gift they will have to resolve their collective ‘Karma’ as a People. That collective American karma is perhaps best understood by turning our attention to the second outstanding factor in the country’s chart: the square aspect between Mars and Neptune.

While Mars is the planet of action and accomplishment, Neptune is the planet of imagination and karma, and when action and karma are in stressful square aspect in a Nation’s chart the real accomplishment of the People of that Nation will come about when they learn how to deal with their Nation’s karma. In America’s founding chart Mars is in what astrologers call a ‘waning’ square to Neptune, and this kind of square is best understood (thanks to the work of Dane Rudhyar) as a ‘crisis in consciousness’ which must be resolved through the surrender of one kind of action in favour of another. The kind of surrendering action required by America’s waning square from Mars in Gemini to Neptune in Virgo is of the nature of the Taoist teaching concerning the ‘action of no action’. Minimally stated, America and Americans need to learn how to receive, how to reflect, how to keep their powder dry!

What is called for by this square is an imaginative approach to action, how to appreciate the active dynamic of receptivity, how to simply ‘let’ things happen. It calls for an attentive approach to all activity, a reflective and digested approach. Don’t run off half-cocked into battle; keep your powder dry, learn to bide your time. Think about the obvious future ramifications of your actions before you just hot-headedly (Aries) leap into them. Karma simply refers to the expectable, logical, and on-going consequences that result from any action. Americans need to reflect upon the actions of their ‘pioneering’ ancestors, those ‘stupid white men’ who obtained the ‘American’ Land base by systematically stealing the Land from its indigenous inhabitants while simultaneously slaughtering them year after year and acre after acre as they pillaged their way across the continent from sea to shining sea. Those bloody actions have set the tone of America’s karma and they demand redress. This redress is not a simple monetary, political, or ethical issue of atonement. It is a Neptune issue, a spiritual, imaginative, and psychic issue. America and all Americans are psychically ‘haunted’ by the spirits of the ‘Indians’ slaughtered on the Land. It is doubtful that any man ever expressed this issue better than Chief Seattle who said:

Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected to the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, still love these sombre solitudes and at eventide they greet us as shadowy returning spirits.

And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.”

Chief Seattle reveals in these words the core issue of America’s karma; it is a Nation unconsciously obsessed, unaware of its coming rendezvous with death and the realm of the dead. That realm is identified in astrology as the 8th house of a chart, and America’s Mercury Brain is located in that 8th house while functioning in introspective, retrograde fashion in Cancer. The 8th house describes a Nation’s psychic inheritance, its relationship to the values and concepts of sharing which have been psychically passed down from its founding ancestors. It is the house of death and rebirth, and America’s collective brain lives in its 8th house. Our white ancestors were extremely fortunate in that they had the opportunity to live among the ‘Indians’ who were a People profoundly conscious of and in direct spiritual communion with the Nature Spirits of their Land, and the Guardian Spirits of their Dead. Many surviving Native Americans still are. And something of all this has ‘rubbed off’ onto every American – it echoes hauntingly in our shared psyche.

Our collective Mercury Brain is also in a very tight (180 degree) opposition aspect with retrograde Pluto at the Nation’s birth, and Pluto is the very Lord of the Dead, the God of the Land of the Dead, the Dark Ruler of the Collective Unconscious. Is it any wonder that Americans are unconsciously obsessed with Death? Is it not more than just ‘interesting’ that an American scientist, Glenn Seaborg, ‘created’ the first man-made artificial element and named it Plutonium? Yes, an American literally made a physical substance and named it Death! It was this substance that composed the core of the ‘Christy Bomb’ – the first Atomic Bomb ever detonated on Earth and detonated on American Soil. Are you getting the picture? Americans are secretly, karmically obsessed with Death. But astrologically speaking, the other side of Death is Money.

Pluto is not only the traditional Lord of Death, he’s also the equally traditional Lord of Wealth for his realm is beneath the surface of the Mother Earth where she nurtures her gold, silver, diamonds, and oil. Pluto is known as the wealthiest of all the Gods even as America likes to be known as the wealthiest of all the Nations. While most Americans seem oblivious to their unconscious obsession with death, they’re all aware of their desire for money. It is safe to say that most Americans secretly dream of getting rich quick. Anybody can get rich quick in America, right? They invented the ‘get-rich-quick’ Quiz Shows: the $64,000 Question, the Wheel Of Fortune, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Little do they realise how deep is the bond between death and wealth.

The Manhattan Project which gave them the first Atomic Bomb had a literally unlimited budget; all the gold in their famous (now depleted) Fort Knox was made available for that project. The very surface of the sphere of the first Plutonium Bomb ever exploded in America was literally patched up with gold from Fort Knox after it had developed cracks on its surface. America sent that gold up into the stratosphere in the form of a mushroom cloud along with strontium ninety and unknown millions of other particles of matter, all rendered radioactive in the flash of a nanosecond. Ah yes, the Dark Lord Pluto gnashing his radiant teeth in a broad smile over Nuclear America. Death, casually coming by on a cloud for a visit, dropping dollars wherever he goes.

And watch out World, he’s coming your way this 21st century all dressed up as Uncle Sam, Chief Executive Officer and Commander And Chief of the One World Corporate Government! He’s the richest bully on the block with the most missiles and the worst bombs and all the newest biological weapons in red, white, and blue. When he farts whole countries go down for the count: aids, ebola, and anthrax are just the first wave of his scent. Count the tons of depleted radioactive Uranium he’s left behind him (dumped) in Bosnia and Iraq. How does he regard Afghanis? Why, they’re just ‘trailer trash’! Uncle Sam holds the singular and questionable distinction of being the stupidest of ‘Stupid White Men’. His greed is his own death wish, but Freud is dead too and can’t help him. Who can? Only the American People, and only when they realise that Uncle Sam’s current incarnation as G.W. Bush is the very embodiment of their collective Chiron in Aries Wound… the Warrior Buckaroo Kid! All show; no substance. A Howdy-Doody Puppet of a Juvenile President used to arouse, entertain, and distract the flag waving populace from the real power figures within their recently unveiled ‘Shadow Government’.

In the chart for the 21st century, America appears in the centre of the Ring Of Power. Not as a Nation or a People or a Land base, but as a Pentagon housing the International Corporations of the Dark Lord. A Gnostic view of the World and Time understands that there are in this Creational Universe operative entities and forces of an entropic kind. Retardant forces, psychic energy constructs of a binding and powerful nature traditionally referred to as ‘Evil’. Archons, if you like. And to the ‘average’ human being these ‘Evil Archons’ are Invisible; we know them only through the dark events they generate.

These entities taken collectively constitute what I am calling (in league with J.R. Tolkien) the Dark Ring Of Power, a secret and closed circle of fearful and fear engendering ‘creatures’. By virtue of our existence in dense material form we humans rub shoulders with these creatures, and can even be ‘invited’ to join ranks with them entering into their closed circle. We can act as their obedient ‘citizens’ controlled by their Pentagon, but once we yield ourselves to the hideous forces housed within that Mordor there is no exit until our physical death and even that death does not automatically free us from their Ring. Remember, for the most part these creatures do not consistently inhere in dense physical bodies. But they are very masterful wielders of Power and Form which gives them great affinity with the two planets of Power and Form, respectively Pluto and Saturn, the two planets dominating the Wheel of the 21st century [see New Dawn No. 72].

As the Century began in January of 2000 Saturn was forming that notorious quincunx relationship with Pluto from Taurus to Sagittarius, but last year in 2001 Saturn moved ahead into Gemini and initiated a series of three exact oppositions it would eventually form with Pluto. Two of those oppositions have already taken place and are directly related to the events unfolding in America and every other Nation consequent to the ‘terrorist’ attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington. The attacks on these two building complexes can be seen as attacks on the One World Corporate Global Government and its Police Headquarters. These attacks, coming as they did with the Saturn to Pluto opposition series, can be understood as symbolic acts aimed at dismantling the costly, wasteful, and destructive technological spell which ‘stupid white men’ have cast upon the Earth.

The final one of the series occurs this year on June 2nd 2002 and will further clarify the meaning in the minds of many as to what is going on. But all three of these oppositions occurred on or very near to the Ascendant-Descendant line of National Destiny in America’s birth chart, and this is why the United States can be seen as playing a central role in the confrontations with The Ring Of Power due to unveil themselves as the century unfolds. (Note also how Mars at 27+ degrees of Aquarius in the 21st century chart conjoins the Moon at 27+ degrees of Aquarius in America’s birth chart and you will see how the War-like energies of Mars conjoin with the Mass-feelings of America’s Moon folks exciting them to hot-blooded action!) The Saturn to Pluto (150 degrees) quincunx marking the 21st century as a whole ripens into the (180 degrees) opposition now, and since the opposition aspect refers – at its most positive level – to the opportunity for objective awareness leading to ‘enlightenment’, we may all expect that an enlightening revelation is at hand. But what is enlightenment, what is revelation? Just to say what you see is a revelation, and to know what you know is enlightenment.

What we all see and know is the rapidly disintegrating quality of our lives, the accelerating lethal pollution of our shared global environment, the increasingly poisonous quality of the Earth’s oceans and our local drinking waters. These events are not inevitable events brought on by ‘fate’, they are primarily the result of Global Corporate Government and its devastating filthy industries producing costly junk consumer items and lethal war toys. These industries must be curtailed and finally stopped altogether. And these industries are in no way, shape, or form limited to the US – they can be found in every ‘civilised’ or industrialised country around the planet. They are the ‘Progress’ brought to us by ‘Stupid White Men’ everywhere, and a ‘few’ of those stupid white men are black, or Asian or even Arabian, but it is probably safe to say that the US and its War Machine centred in the Pentagon is the central Police Unit, the Mordor of their One Ring. That US Pentagon is a literal building constructed in the classical fashion any Wizard might employ to cast a Spell.

It seems to me your ‘average American Joe’ or your average citizen of any other western technocracy thinks ‘Spells’ are things that only happen in Disneyland Movies, or in children’s storybooks, and certainly not in the real world of business and politics. But our Wizard friends, such as Gandalf (currently cavorting worldwide across movie screens in the newest version of The Lord Of The Rings), would point out that when a Wizard wants to make a Spell he might, like the United States Government, create a Pentagon; but unlike our Government, a Good Wizard will make sure his magical Pentagon is oriented in the proper way to serve the Good of all. He would make it clear that our Joint Chiefs Of Staff sit in a five sided Pentagon that is blatantly oriented toward the reverse of the Good and the furtherance of Mr. Bush’s fiendishly favourite word, Evil! Yes, folks… a Pentagon is a Pentagram is a Five-Pointed Star, symbol of Man standing with legs and arms outstretched and head erect: 2 legs, 2 arms, 1 head = 5 pointed star, the Pentacle.

The Good Wizard aligns his head, and the top of his Star to the North Pole of the Earth where the electromagnetic currents pour down from the surrounding Van Alan Belts, where the Pole Star resides alongside the great coiled Dragon of Stars known as Draco. And by doing so, the Good Wizard works in harmony with the force of Divine Nature. But an ‘evil’ Wizard, a Saruman, aligns the top of his Star and the force of his head with the South Pole where the Coalsack floats by the Great Magellanic Cloud, and his spread legs align his genitals to the incoming electrical force from the North Pole. Thereby, the ‘evil’ Wizard reverses the order of Nature and openly displays his intent to use Her forces for his own, self-propagating (often sexual) pleasures. He taps into the Cosmic Creative forces pouring onto Earth for his own personal ends, and not for the natural collective good. He works a Dark Spell.

The forces wielded by the Joint Chiefs Of Staff at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia are not aligned with the collective good of this Nation, this World, or this Earth. The building is negatively aligned with its ‘head’ facing South. The Pentagon Building needs to be taken down because it is misaligned, because it is not the target of terrorists, it is actually a magical edifice specifically created to wreak the terror of Black Magick on the planet. It is the Global Police Force Station for all ‘stupid white men’ around the planet, the Central Clearing Zone for industrial society’s most advanced and ‘scientific’ machines of death.

The Pentagon was constructed in the heat of the Second World War, and with the National Security Act of 1947 it became wedded under the name of the Department Of Defense to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council. These are the seats of real power in the United States and they are working hand-in-hand with the major Global Corporations to create the ‘New World Order’ of W. Bush’s Daddy and others. This is the very dark side of Retrograde Pluto (Ultimate Power) in Capricorn (Authority-Business-Money) in the 2nd house of values & money in the birth chart of America. And with Pluto now on the Nation’s Ascendant for the first time in its relatively brief existence as a sovereign country, this hidden, Top-Secret side of the Nation’s ‘karma’ is in our face.

America’s obsession with death and money can no longer be masked. It is a Nation characterised by short-sighted addiction to speed, profits, and impulsive actions. A Nation with a Chiron Wound in Aries, sign of the War Maker, ruled by a National Mars function that is karmically stressed-out in square aspect to Neptune. America asserts itself covertly as a Nation in an escapist and negatively Neptunian manner. It fights (Mars) over oil (Neptune) and drugs (Neptune). Its speed-addicted citizens are kept entranced by its pharmaceutical industry which feeds them ‘uppers’, ‘downers’, and everything in between. Its media industry in bed with its drug industry and its political Christianity broadcasts electronic deficit disorder disguised as television shows. The people of America are distinguished by their point-blank refusal to come to grips with the genocidal policies which created their Nation right from the start. They are overwhelmingly asleep while simultaneously hyperactive, confused, and waiting for God (disguised as Regis Philbin or Billy Graham) to personally arrive at their front door with a million dollar check making them instantly rich and quickly blessed. They choose to do nothing about the well-reported and carefully proven fact that G.W. Bush is not their duly elected President.

Astrology suggests that ‘because’ Saturn is currently in the sign of language and communication opposing Pluto, myself and scores of others need to write about all this. Every citizen of the USA needs to be thinking and speaking about this ‘karma’ publicly and for obvious reasons, not the least of which is that the public is the Moon and the (Progressed) Moon of America’s destiny is due to align with its ruling planet (Uranus) in a doubly emphatic manner this March of 2002 (doubly, because transitting Uranus will also be aligning with its Natal Moon) even as Saturn prepares for its third and final (for this current 29 year cycle) opposition with Pluto on June 2, 2002. These and a number of other highly dramatic astrological factors (which the length of this essay prohibits me from laying out in specific detail) all point to major change and shock amongst the American citizenry. (One wanders why so many of them are reading Michael Moore’s book detailing the illegally rigged election of Bush, and making it the best-selling book in the Nation? Is this their response to these Uranus-Moon energies?)

Shock is an awakener, and so is laughter and there can be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ shocks as there can be good and bad anythings! Clearly, this all conspires to create a wake-up call for America the likes of which it has not seen before. Americans – and all other stupid white citizens of Western technocracies around the globe are in need of (and ‘unconsciously’ preparing for) a revolution within ourselves – both collectively and individually. In practical terms, we are preparing to revolt against the proliferation of poisonous technology rapidly destroying our lives along with all other life on the Earth.

It’s no ‘accident’ that in the ‘Wheel Of Fortune’ chart cast for the 21st century all the planets are contained within that half of the circle defined by the Moon in Scorpio in opposition to Saturn in Taurus; it’s a clear indication that all our energies (symbolised by all the remaining planets) will be brought to focus on the physical survival of organic life on Earth. Like it or not, this is going to be a Tree-Hugger’s Century, a critical hundred years focused on Ecology, a century when we must clean up the accumulated poisons from the previous 20th century’s heavy industrialisation and employ far cleaner technology. These fossil-fuel-burning and antiquated industries are well-established and won’t surrender their lucrative and privileged practices without fighting. And we common citizens are the workers and stockholders in these industries; we don’t want to lose our jobs.

They have us by the balls, the boobs, and the bucks. The people are the Moon in Scorpio bound in the waters of purgation, while established industries are Saturn in Taurus stubborn and resistant as the Bull. But this Saturn in Taurus has that Quincunx relationship to both Pluto and Chiron in Sagittarius, so the Establishment Authority has all the very considerable Power of Organised Religion and Wounded Media Moguls to assist it in preserving its Poisonous Privileges. The Moon to Saturn opposition will polarise the situation, it will make the lines of division between the people and the established authorities very clear cut before a resolution can be achieved. And this polarisation will become totally obvious as the 21st century unfolds because the poisoned environments of the Earth, the toxic soils and waters and food chains will impact the common people ruled by the Moon in Scorpio before it will reach the wealthy, privileged establishment. The workers always live in the midst of the refuse (cities) from their industries, and the bosses always live ‘on the right side of the tracks’ in the spacious homes (suburbs) eating the best of food. Healthy, wholesome water and food are going to be increasingly hard to come by but… do you think Enron cares?

The common man, the workers, the poor and anyone else hoping to live in the 21st century would be wise to study and learn from indigenous people everywhere and support them in their struggles to maintain their independence from the Poisoning Corporate Machine because such people are likely to know a great deal more about the Spirit of the Earth, the plants and animals and rivers and winds than any Organised Religionist! And this century is the Century of the Earth and her Sister, the Moon who is found squaring her own Nodes, the Mouth and Tail of the Great Dragon of Wisdom even as Saturn, keeper of the Measures of the coming ‘New Age’ does the same. It is a century marked with the imprint of a Grand Square in Fixed Signs formed by Saturn, the Moon, and her North and South Nodes; the Dragon is restless in her square ring and she will break out. Earth in Upheaval, Mr. Veilikovsky called it, but we can simply say the Time has come when we must Ride the Dragon past the Archons through the Ring Of Power.

Only real individuals can do this, and as they do so such individuals will recognise each other and be able to form ‘groups’ and take action. But these groups will not be operating at the behest of any authority outside themselves because the only real authority is the authority each individual has to be self-determining, to be awake, aware, and choosing. The positive function of Saturn is this ability to focus, structure, and give form to our actions. Consciousness is power-action of an invisible nature which wants to spill over into visible, physical power expressed in concrete actions. But the One Ring of our shared Collective Unconsciousness seeks to bind all our thoughts and actions to its entropic, homogenous core. Terminator Seeds, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the International Monetary Fund, the New World Order – all of which are the One World Order of Monetary Monotheism. Stultifying entrapment in the closed circle of hidden authority binding all people of every nation to sterile conformity.

Hope rests in the Womb of the Moon as the vehicle for the Gnostic Sophia dispensing her Wisdom deep down in the unfathomable Waters of Scorpio where death gives way to a new birth. Hope rests in the purging and regenerative nature of those Scorpio Waters. Hope springs eternally from the human heart pulsing as it does to the only true ring of power, the Matrix, the Pleroma, the Wisdom Womb of Sophia. Love the Mother!

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Francis D. Grabau is a poet, writer, and practising astrologer who has been steeped in the stars since 1968. He welcomes the opportunity to interpret your birthchart through writing and tapes as well as by phone call. He can be reached via Internet at: www.starpathvisions.com; his personal email address is: starpath3@earthlink.net. Francis Grabau currently lives on the Hawaian Island of Kauai. He can be contacted via telephone in the USA on (808) 821 0710, or write to: Francis D. Grabau, 5359 Kumole St, Kapa’a, Hawaii 96746, USA.

The above article appeared in
New Dawn No. 72
(July-August 2002)