Originally published in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2017
With his progressed Sun moving into his first house (significant beginnings) and Jupiter trining his Sun/Uranus for most of 2017, Donald Trump’s electoral success makes astrological sense. This is the year of his Jupiter Return, a year to cash in on many fronts (2nd house).
Cardinal Cross
But it also means that the transiting Jupiter-Pluto square impacts him all the more powerfully (peaking in Jan, July – early Sept, and Nov 2017). His characteristic excesses and exaggerations (especially where his own definition of unfairness [Libra] is concerned) carry a destructive potential here, as the Plutonian urge to overpower runs up against the limitations of his new circumstances.
Jupiter/Pluto combinations often involve legal reprisal, suggesting trouble with pending and future court cases. The Cancer conjunctions between Trump’s chart and the US (Sibly) chart remain triggered throughout 2017.
His Venus-Saturn conjunction (objectification of women) in the 11th house (fear of not being socially accepted) conjoins the US Mercury; his Mercury conjoins the US Sun cluster. He not only shares in the destabilizing effect that the Uranus-Pluto square has been having on US Sun/Mercury, he personifies it.
Pluto opposes his Mercury-Venus midpoint all year, like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. Transiting Uranus squares his Saturn most of the year; in Feb-March it exactly squares his Venus while trining his Mars. The man’s characteristic unpredictability (Gemini Sun-Uranus) is the only thing that’s predictable about him in 2017.
Mars-Neptune trigger
The mutable alignments between Trump’s natal chart and the Sibly further link his fate to the country’s in 2017. His Sun sets off the country’s Mars-Neptune square: he’s an archetypal projection of our collective anger and will, our puerile masculinity, our group ego that struggles with confusion and suggestibility.
Together with Trump’s fiery Moon, these have been forming a Grand Cross with transiting Chiron (exactly square his Moon Oct ’16 – Jan ‘17; then stations within 2 degrees of his Sun in December). Chosen to address the unaddressed wounding (Chiron) of the disenfranchised, he is a messenger (Gemini) and a release valve (Uranus-Eris opposed to his Jupiter) for mass suffering (Neptune).
Saturn transits
It is transiting Saturn that has Trump-watchers most watchful. From Dec ’16 into September ’17, Saturn conjoins his Moon and opposes his Sun (exact on Inauguration Day). It’s a nine-month slog that eases up for him Feb-May, then peaks in August, when Saturn stations four days after the “American eclipse” (8/21) on the exact degree of his Moon. The eclipse itself falls exactly on his Ascendant.
The Saturn transit expresses the obstacles and frustrations of high office, which will weigh heavily upon this restless Uranian habituated to making his own rules. Saturn will force him to suppress his loose-cannon will. Domestic troubles are implicated, not just with his natal family but also his national family; i.e. his popularity with his base (4th house Moon).
Greater purpose
The fact that multiple cycles are waning right now — among other indications, including the unaspected Sun in the Inauguration chart– suggests that if Trump does last through his term, he won’t accomplish much. But he is not a policymaker or implementer.
His astrological purpose is to compel the group entity that is the USA to look at itself realistically (Saturn on the Ascendant) in terms of the changing power arrangements of the twenty-teens (applying Pluto Return). As a “human Molotov cocktail” (in Michael Moore’s phrase), he is here to explode the public’s denial and complacency.
He both calls out and acts out the corruptions of today’s globalized world (Pluto). His karmic role is to push into the public conversation the unsustainable toxicity that has been building up in the collective consciousness.
