Is Barack the Reincarnation of Lincoln

Unfinished Business

February 28, 2008 -updated April 27, 2011



Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is in danger of facing her political Armageddon in Texas and Ohio on March 4. If Buckeye and Lone Star voters send her on a long journey back to New York empty handed instead of back to the White House, she can take heart that she did not lose to just a self-styled “skinny kid with a funny name.” If she loses, her defeat will come at the hands of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Well, sort of.



Soulsign Astrology* has at its core the knowledge that the soul is eternal and that we incarnate in this schoolhouse of Earth to learn lessons that, if conquered, will propel us on an upward karmic path toward, to use the Buddhist terminology, Enlightenment. We come back to fulfill the soul’s desire to grow and to increase experiences in the physical realm. Therefore, while the person dies, the body dies, the soul reincarnates into another human existence. Each individual life happens just once and each incarnation is different. Therefore, while it is not Abraham Lincoln running for President in 2008, Senator Barack Obama (D. IL) is very likely the reincarnation of our 16th President. A different man, a different life but the same soul. (Note: When I wrote this in Feb of 2008, he was Senator Obama; from now on I will refer to him with his current title, President Barack Obama.)



When President Obama launched his presidential bid on a freezing February morning at the Old State Capitol Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln delivered the famous “house divided against itself speech” was he just employing brilliant political stagecraft or was he subconsciously harking back to his own “mystic cords of memory?” It was a bit of both.



On the surface, it would make more sense for a man who reached the pinnacle of American politics to incarnate into a different set of circumstances. If the soul is to learn and progress it would seem that it would say, in essence, been there done that, now what is next? However, there are reasons why one could come back to the same country and in the same profession as before.



Some souls can get stuck. Human emotion, anger, revenge, karmic retaliation toward others weighs on them so that the soul does not move on. Free will once in the physical realm can keep a person on a gerbil wheel of repeating the same life scenarios with the same people. Human weakness often trumps the soul’s desire for growth.



Others have unfinished business on Earth due to circumstances beyond their control. For instance, if an assassin’s bullet destroys a man at the moment his beloved country is on the precipice of peace and unity after years of bloody darkness and his death kills the possibility of a peaceful Reconstruction and leads to a century of Jim Crowe, lynching’s and poll taxes. Instead of being stuck, this person might reincarnate again with the same oratorical passion and political brilliance, not to mention fierce ambition, he had when he was here before to finish the job. How better to be a vehicle for unity, then as a multiracial, multi-cultural man? What better time to come back to power then when the country is involved in another hateful war and is in desperate need of solidarity and hope after years at the hands of hate and fear mongers? What better karmic reward for the man who saved the Union then to come back to restore it to pass luster? What better karmic justice for the President credited for freeing American slaves, then to be the first African American President?



It is of interest that both Lincoln and Barack Obama came to national awareness from a political base in Illinois. (Although Obama achieved something Lincoln never could, that is, win a seat in the United States Senate. Lincoln tried for the Senate and was defeated twice. He came to the White House after serving just one term in the U.S. House of Representatives to a chorus of his opponents foretelling the dire consequences of having a novice at the helm at such a dangerous time.) The fact that one transformational speech propelled each to prominence, Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Lincoln at the 1860 Young Men’s Republican Union at Cooper Union Hall is also informative. However, Soulsign Astrology relies on more than just “coincidences” between two figures. Without strong correlations between their charts, without a soul connection, we have nothing more than a list of interesting factoids. #. The proof must be in the stars and their birth charts.



Abraham Lincoln was born on a stormy Sunday morning, February 12, 1809 in Hodgenville, Kentucky. While some charts show a birth time at 7:00 AM, which would place his chart in somewhat of an alignment with Barrack’s, others record the birth at 2:00 AM, a much more direct alignment. We have to remember that recording the time of birth of the child of a poor farmer delivered in log cabin on a bed of cornhusks on the American frontier was not a high priority. Often late night-early morning births were recorded only when a midwife or preacher could arrive the next day. It is doubtful Lincoln knew the correct time of his birth. His beloved mother died when he was a boy and his relationship with his father so distant that he failed to attend the elder Lincoln’s funeral.



The 7:00 AM time comes from one source, a woman named Peggy Walters described as an old midwife, a distant aunt, a 20-year-old neighbor or the daughter of the actual midwife Mary Brooks Enlow. At some point in her life, presumably when Mr. Lincoln came to prominence, she said that he was born “sometime around sun-up.” It is a fair assumption that she probably was 20 years old when he was born, was asked the question some 51 years later when Lincoln became President and was relying on an old woman’s memory for the answer. Whether she was at the actual birth has never been proved and for all we know her mother, the real midwife, returned to her house hours after the child’s birth and that is what she remembered a half century later. This is hardly a reliable source.



The 2:00 AM birth time also makes for a chart that mirrors Lincoln’s personality. It places Neptune the ruler of Pisces in the 1st house, the rising house. The rising house, the ascendant, signifies our outward personality. The Sun sign, so important to armchair astrologers today, is an illustrator of a person’s life force, their internal energy. However, the ancient Sumerians, the inventors of Astrology, did not give it special emphasis. The Sun’s light actually interfered with their ability to see the other stars and planets and they really did not pay much attention to it. A person’s rising sign was of more interest. Pisces is the sign of the martyr, the greatest payer of karmic debt. Pisces also deals with dreams and the spiritual world, cosmic awareness – the etheric. Abraham Lincoln, the first martyred President, was famous for his prescient dreams, even the one that foretold his own death.



This chart also places his Saturn in the 12th house (the house of karma and the cosmic consciousness, ruled by Pisces) on the cusp of his rising house, a common location for someone prone to depression or “melancholia” as it was termed at the time. A Saturn 12th house person would also carry a “mystical presence” about him and seemingly be able to tap into cosmic realms unavailable to mere mortals.



In addition, the 2: 00 AM birth time activates his third house, the house of thought and communication by placing his Sun and Mercury there, two markers of someone with the gift of speech. How else could a man educated in a one-room frontier, “blab school” write words that bring goose pimples to the soul as does the “Gettysburg Address” or his second Inaugural address to name just a few?



The 7:00 AM birth time leaves his third house empty – a very unlikely scenario of a man who built and saved his political career on his oratorical abilities and whose speeches will ring through history as long as there is an America. It also places his Saturn in the 9th house, which would have him more drawn to the position of Secretary of State or foreign ambassador than a man who never traveled beyond the confines of North America.



Sadly, the 2;00 AM chart places Lincoln’s Mars (warrior energy) in the 8th house – the house of death and rebirth – in a conjunction with Uranus, a strong designator for a fast, unexpected and violent death. His Mars in Libra – the sign most associated with other people, foretells a violent death at the hands of another.



Today, April 27, 2011, thanks to the lunatic birthers we now know the President's birth time! See, I knew they had to have SOME value somehow! President Obama was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961 at 7:24 PM. And yes Hawaii was and is a STATE.



When I found out his correct time - not the time many astrologers had presumed, I wondered if my theory still held. Is Barack Obama the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln? And the answer - yup, I am still pretty darned sure he is.



The fastest way to examine a past life is to look at the Nodes. A Node is where a planetary body intersects with the ecliptic, the plane in space formed by the orbits around the Sun. In Soulsign, we reference the Nodes of the Moon as it travels on the ecliptic around Earth. The South Node shows us what type of life from which a person comes. Pluto reveals the soul’s desired incarnation, the South Node tells us how and if the person manifested the desire when in the physical form. The North Node indicates where a person should be going in order to fulfill the current soul’s desire.



President Obama’s South Node would need to correlate to Lincoln’s life force with either his Sun or rising sign energy. It does not disappoint. His South Node is in Aquarius in the first house. Abraham Lincoln born on Feb 12 had his Sun in Aquarius. Therefore, his South Node – Barack’s immediate past life force was in Aquarius – correlating exactly to Lincoln’s Sun energy. He was in his immediate past life a person who was born under the Sun sign of Aquarius. That is two direct connections to Abraham Lincoln. Adding an extra connection is it’s placement in the first house. The first house is what has the most influence on our personality- it shows how we project in the world. Someone with a strong first house is someone with a very unique personality. Well he has been dead for over 150 years and everyone still knows who Lincoln was. I would say that is pretty unique!



Can we reverse the process and look at Lincoln’s North Node to find another correlation with President Obama? We can and it too works. Lincoln’s North Node is in Scorpio, and on President Obama's chart Scorpio "opens" the 10th house - the house of government and authority figures. Lincoln’s soul was progressing toward a Scorpio experience. Lincoln’s North Node was in the 11th house – the house dealing with cultivating unique and revolutionary group activities in the social and political arenas. It is safe to say that his soul using the Obama existence is getting to know what is like to move people in a revolutionary group force to change government. He held the Union together now he wants to continue by bringing much needed change to the way it operates. (When I wrote this in 2008 we still had more hope. Now in 2011, we realize the lunatic fringe just won't go away and the battle will be hard, hard fought.)



Just as President Lincoln had a very strong 3rd house – the house of mental ability and communication, President Obama has a powerful conjunction of Vesta, Ceres and the Moon there. This is a placement that signifies the ability to dedicate the self to nurturing people through his ability to emotionally express himself.



These factors when added to the similarities and coincidences joining each man’s life, including the early loss of a Mother and distance from a father, spell out a soul connection. President Obama has Saturn in the 12th house as did Lincoln but its more serious aspects are mitigated by being in conjunction with expansive optimistic Jupiter. He also shares Mars in the 8th with Lincoln, which doesn’t make me happy. However, it is in a less volatile sign of Virgo and there is no negative interception with Uranus.



It is amusing to see that this time around Obama got a Harvard education. It was one of Abraham Lincoln’s great shames that he had a backwoods education so much, so that he forced his eldest son Robert, to go to Harvard and Harvard Law School, although he did not finish the latter. One of the many battles Robert had with his parents was over there constant pressure to get the education not available to them. Barack made it to Harvard Law School and became the first African American President of the “Harvard Law Review.”



Their North and South nodes correlate perfectly. Barack Obama has the karmic benefit of the education Lincoln craved and an even stronger communication house in an incarnation at the time of mass and instant media. He also thankfully has Venus, the archetype of the ancient goddess of love and beauty in the5th house in Moon Child a much less ominous placement than Lincoln’s warrior god of Mars. It is no wonder Barack Obama dreamed of being President when he was in kindergarten. He was cannot wait to get back to work.



#Yes, yes I know John Kennedy is supposed to be the reincarnation of Lincoln according to pop astrology and people who like making lists of “coincidences” between the two. Sadly for those enamored with this theory there is just no real karmic astrological links in the charts of the two men. Also, for all of those people circulating the lists of coincidences on the internet please note that Lincoln never had a secretary named Kennedy and was not shot in a theater named Kennedy. Lincoln served one complete term and part of his second, Kennedy never made it through his first term. Southerners did not shoot both men, although Booth was a Southern sympathizer, he was born in Maryland – a Northern state. In addition, the assassins were not born exactly 100 years apart – that is another continually perpetrated myth in these threads.

A Marriage Made Where?

Written June 1982

Ok I know I am a novice at astrology but I do not understand why astrologers are gushing over the upcoming nuptials of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles. I see very famous astrologers writing that this is a marriage made in Heaven – the Prince and the commoner (although Diane’s family is far from common.) It is the fairy tale and I fear are caught up in the hoopla surrounding a royal wedding and shirking their duty as astrologers. Well some fairy tales have not so happy endings and I don’t see much that will lead these two to happily ever after!

On a very basic level – her Sun is square or in a difficult position to his Moon. (A square is when planets are 90 degrees from one another. It is a disharmonious placement – making accomplishments delayed or difficult to achieve.) That is never something you want in a romantic partnership. The Sun is our life force – our energy center. The Moon is the ruler of emotions and feelings. With these squared in the charts of two people, it shows that her way of expressing her vitality clashes with his emotional expressions. There are going to be constant frictions between how she wants to express herself and how he wants to guard his feelings. For a very public couple this is even more disastrous then if they were, a couple able to work out their issues in private and perhaps find a balancing point.

Speaking of Moon’s, Diana’s is in Aquarius and she has a Sagittarius ascendant. (The ascendant or rising sign is how we express ourselves to the outside world. It is a much more accurate assessment of a person’s persona than the currently in vogue Sun sign.) With these two placements, I can safely say do not believe what you read in the newspapers. This woman is no “Shy Di.” Moon is Aquarius, while a very compassionate placement, makes for very stubborn people. Aquarius are often ahead of the rest of the world in the way they think and that makes them less willing to listen to advice or take orders. They crave freedom and independence. Her rising sign is fiery Sagittarian, the natural performer. (More actors are born under the Sagittarius sign than any other.) Sagittarius, symbolized by the wandering archer is not a shy mouse. He wanders the world seeking truth. How can anyone with these two very personal planets in signs that demand freedom be cowed into a life of subservience to a monarch? If that happens, Diana will be miserable.

Charles Venus is in Libra in the 4th house – he does not want a young filly he is looking for a mommy! Venus is the ancient goddess of love – Venus is the key to finding romantic and sexual harmony. The 4th house is the place of home and roots and relates directly to the mother figure. Libra is a very co dependent sign – Librans are always looking for approval and praise from others. He needs someone to boost his fragile ego and protects him. He does not want to be looking after this young girl. He is looking for a mate who will make him feel safe and accepted and now he has the role of being the protector of a woman years younger. This is totally out of balance with what he craves romantically.

To make matters worse his Sun is square her Venus and her Venus is opposite his Sun! (Oppositions occur when planets fall 180 degrees from one another. Like squares, they are hurdles because the planets are actually pulling away at each other’s energy.) This illustrates two huge clashes – how can they be physically compatible when their Sun energy – their vitality – clashes with their romantic desires? This has to have some element of an arranged marriage – these two would never have a natural attraction to one another.

Mars and Saturn do a negative dance as well in their charts. These two are the components to astrological thunderstorms – hot Mars energy clashing with cold Saturn. Mars is the ancient god of war. It is all about fire and temperament. Saturn is the old lesson teacher – very cold and distant. Mars wants to explore the new and tame the wilderness. Saturn wants to sit in the classroom and write the lessons of life 100 times. When these two meet especially in a squared situation as we have here, it is a recipe for arguments. His Mars anger will boil over more than once in their marriage as he sees her not playing by his rules.

In ancient days the royal families of the world had astrologers in court charged with the casting the charts before auspicious occasions such as battles and marriages. It is too bad that practice has gone out of style and it is too bad that our current crop of astrologers are too concerned with being a part of the big day without saying what the stars clearly foretell for these two.


Updated 2008

I wrote this as a novice astrologer to give to friends and family. I did not know much about astrology then but still sensed the disaster in the making. As a Karmic astrologer, I can now expand on their charts using Soulsign Astrology* and illustrate not just how mismatched they were but why they met up again to do their karmic dance. There are no mistakes or coincidences in the cosmos and Astrology helps explain what, on the surface, seems absurd.

The first step in Soulsign is to look at past lives. These are not always linear. Although we humans prefer to think of time as a steady progression, Einstein has proved that time is much more elastic. Therefore, when I speak of past lives it doesn’t mean the immediate past life. It could be a series of lives from long ago that have left over issues that the person must now address, or it can mean there are outstanding issues from a life back in antiquity and one from the last time around that are dealt with in this go around.

To examine Diana’s past lives that influenced this one we look to Pluto. Her Pluto is in Virgo in the 9th house. Pluto is always the messenger of the soul’s desire both past and present. With Pluto in Virgo, a sign ruled by Vesta the ancient goddess of service and duty (characterized by the Vestal Virgins who kept the temple flame burning), her soul wished to experience a life (or several ones) in precise and dutiful service to a greater cause. Precise and dutiful come from Virgo – the mistress of hypercritical analysis. This service would be in areas of the 9th house – spiritual awareness, a traveling to experience various cultures and religions. The 9th house is all about learning and accepting the rituals and riches of various cultures and seeking a cosmic spiritual truth.

That is a soul level now we see how this plays out in the incarnated state – when we move from the spiritual level to the physical plane. For that, we look to the South Node. (Nodes are not planetary bodies; rather, they are mathematical points. The North and South nodes so instrumental to karmic astrology are the points where the Moon's orbit intersects the plane of the ecliptic, the path it takes around Earth.) Her South Node was in Aquarius in the 3rd house that influences our communications and thought processes. Aquarius is a highly evolved forward thinking sign that brings compassion toward the human situation. Aquarians often get involved in group activities that work toward bettering the plight of the downtrodden.

Combining the soul’s desire and the realities of physical incarnation we see her past lives as ones in which she was a very caring and compassionate person who communicated through the written or spoken word about the plight of others and instructed people how to be in service to something larger than themselves. A missionary looking to better those she encountered, a religious pilgrim, an anthropologist or simply a woman who held her community up to a higher standard of humanitarianism – who didn’t let them get away with ignorance, cruelty and hatred.

It is interesting to note that her Moon is only 3 degrees away from her South Node. This is a tight conjunction. (A conjunction is when two planetary bodes are within one to eight degrees of each other.) With both in Aquarius, this adds an extra dimension of humanitarianism. This is person who led with her heart not her head for better or worse and one who emotionally attached to the work she did. She clearly felt everyone’s pain. The shadow or difficult aspect of Aquarius is stubbornness and an unwillingness to listen to advice. So regardless of what others suggested she plowed along on her path convinced she was in the right.

Past life memories engrain themselves on our soul. We might not readily remember the circumstances of these lives but we clearly have a cellular memory of what we have experienced. So in this lifetime, her Diana incarnation, she brought forward her compassion and caring for the downtrodden and willingness to instruct people about the less fortunate and what they could do to make their lives better as well as the Aquarian stubbornness.) However, here is the trick the universe loves to play on Mankind – well, one of them anyway. We cannot live our current lives – engrossed in the past. The soul desires to move on.

So what was Diana’s soul desire in this life? Why did her soul desire to come back in 1961? For that, we look at the Pluto Polarity – the opposite of her Pluto placement – and that is Pisces in the 3rd house. Again, we have an emphasis on the 3rd house – communication and thought processes – so it is clear she did not fulfill all she needed to do in terms of communicating her feelings to the world. (I have a feeling she sort of accomplished that this time, don’t you?) Pisces is the martyr – they really do feel like they must suffer – but on a larger scale, Pisces connects us to the cosmic consciousness – the God concept. Therefore, the soul wished to experience itself as a communicator of some essence of cosmic knowledge. Can you see that evolve as she did use her world pulpit to speak against AIDS, land mines and other injustices, but also took on the role of the martyr? She communicated the sense of being a sufferer and even her death has been seen by some as a form of martyrdom to the Royal Family. She also had a spiritual aspect and led many people to become more active in humanitarian causes.

Let’s look at Charles’ past lives. Interestingly his Pluto is in Leo in the first house. So his prior soul’s desire – why his soul wished to incarnate in the past – was all about being the ruler. Leo the lion, the king of jungle vibrates to the energy of the adored, beloved ruler. The first house is our outward persona – it expresses how we present ourselves to world. His soul wished to experience itself as the beloved, fear and adored ruler – the king of the jungle.

His South Node is in Scorpio in the 4th house. Scorpio deals with transformative power – personal power – the power to get to the root of problems and turn them around. The 4th house is a mother energy. It is the house of roots and home life. Poor Charles, the first thing that comes to mind when I see this is that he had many lifetimes of being the female head of a home based community – a high priestess or mother superior – the ruler of a female based society. It doesn’t look like he handled his power too well, however. We don’t have too look too far to see that his life is bit difficult made so by shall we say – rather strong willed difficult women? (If I were to do a total analysis of his chart, I would spend a lot of time of the stellium in his 4th house and the complications each bring. A stellium is 4 or more planetary bodies in one house. It is safe to say that he has been playing with this female control issue for a long time and hopefully it has now come fully to a head and he can move on.)

His current soul’s desire – his Pluto Polarity – is in the 7th house in Aquarius. If the first house is all about one’s self – the 7th is all about other people. His soul wishes to experience itself as a source of humanitarian group work (from Aquarius) in all of his personal dealings with others (7th house.) If you study Charlie’s life, you see that he has tried to do that. His North node – is in Taurus 10th house. Taurus deals with the Earth and possessions, and the 10th house is the house of career and public persona that vibrates to the father energy. He has been a leader in “green gardening” and Earth conservation and has spoken out against the horrors of modern architecture and the blight it leaves on our cities.

Astrologically, there is something fascinating in both the charts of Diana and Charles. In both charts, the houses that have their North and South nodes are intercepted. (Interception means that there are two astrological signs on the cusp of one house. The cusp is the entryway to each astrological house.) Both of them have a great deal of karma to overcome from past lives and misused energy incurred while pursing their soul’s desire. In other words, the soul had a pure idea but when they incarnated they allowed human foibles, greed, anger etc. to interfere with the work thus incurring negative karma.

Charles’s busy 4th house has Libra on the cusp but it is intercepted by Scorpio and his 10th house –is also intercepted – this one by Taurus. This indicates life as leader for the prestige for the public adulation rather than for the good of the community. He did not develop the proper communicating skills and was not willing to share himself with his people. He (I should be saying she because he was female in many of these incarnations) liked the trappings but not the heavy duties involved with leadership. He kept people at arm’s length and did not care for the suffering of the masses.

Diana also had her dose of karma with intercepted 3rd and 9th houses. She had great communication skills and misused them for frivolous chatter. She stymied what could have been a great pursuit of knowledge and wasted it on the pursuit of useless information – gossip, etc. As I mentioned earlier, she did not use the great gifts that she had.

Both of these people then had the chance to be leaders in past life – to direct people toward good service and teach and lead and both people wasted their skills. She chose a quick, somewhat painful path to rectify this situation. Charles seems to be a more laborious trail and we don’t yet know if he can somehow redeem himself as a gracious and beneficent leader of people. There is an old saying that you have to live 10,000 lives with someone to sit next to them on a subway this go around. How many lifetimes do you need to create a marriage like the one those two had? Untold I am sure: their respective South Nodes come in contact with the others personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury) several times so it was safe to say that while he was lounging around his palaces pretending to be ruler and she was wandering the world gossiping instead of teaching people they interacted more than once. However, this was a grudge match – I am more inclined to believe that the gossip she was spreading was about his ineffectual rule and as humans do she each carried the cellular memory of these battles into this life. Could he have banished her or had her killed in the past? Could her gossip have brought down his rule?

Let us hope that before her death they were able to come to some sort of mutual respect. Still there is no doubt that they each piled up a ton more of negative karma toward each other so stayed tune folks, this battle will start again in a lifetime coming soon!

Bush/Gore and the Question of Karma.

So I am sitting up nights as the battle of the hanging chads take place in Florida and wonder who will be our next president? As I often do in times of consternation, I look to the stars. Specially, I am combining the charts of George W. Bush born July 6, 1946, 7:26 AM in New Haven, Ct. and Al Gore, born March 31, 1948 at 12:53 PM in Washington, DC and matching them against a chart for Election Day 2000 in a Synastry chart. *I see that it all comes down to a question of karma.

This has not come to me easily – both men had pretty good astrological aspects on that day. Where is the difference? One has to win one has to lose. The only difference I can see is Karma and it doesn’t look good for Gore. Karma comes from the Hindu – Buddhist concept of reincarnation. The Sanskrit word Karma literally means action. For every action, there is a reaction. The quickest explanation of karma is: 'you get what you give'. In other words, whatever you do intentionally to others, a similar thing will happen to yourself in the future.

The one big difference I see in these charts is that Gores’ Pluto, a very karmic planet, is in a negative or difficult aspect with Saturn – another karmic planet. In fact, Saturn is the planet of Karma. Saturn is a strong disciplinarian and teaches us our lessons this lifetime. At times, this planet can be restricting and inhibiting – and when in a difficult aspect it demands a person balance negative karma– they must pay a debt. In short, Gore was paying for some karmic debt on Election Day – not a good harbinger for success.

Gore also has difficult karma in his 10th house the house of career. It is “intercepted” – that means that there are two astrological signs on the cusp of one house. When that happens, it always indicates a pause of karma. In this case, Gore has Taurus intercepting his 10th house. Aries is on the cusp of the 10th house – but Taurus comes and cuts it right in the middle. This is a sign of someone who could have taken control in the past but did not. He had a chance in a past life to take control and rule but he walked away from power. He could have influenced people for the better but took an easier, more selfish route.

Bush has no such karmic imbalance in his chart or on Election Day. Bush has no birth planets in retrograde. (The word retrograde applies, in astrology, to the apparent backward motion thru the ecliptic of a planet. As we from our position on Earth look at another planet, it appears as though it moving backwards on its path around the Sun. Astrologically, it is a pause for karma – another lesson to learn.)

I fear that this election will go in Bush’s favor. Politically I am opposed to his right wing evangelical believes. Astrologically I worry about a future president with a Leo ascendant. Our ascendants are how we present ourselves to the world – our persona. In ancient Sumerian days when Astrology was born, they paid little attention to the Sun. It was too bright and when out it blocked the astrologers’ view of the other planets and stars. You would not go into a bar in ancient Samaria and say, “what is your sun sign” you would say, “what is your ascendant?” It was the rising sign, the ascendant that took center stage in daily astrology.

An ascendant in Leo – the lion inclines a person to want to be more king than president. Leo expects, demands loyalty and fealty among his minions – and brooks little opposition. This is a bit frightening in a man whose only experience is being the government of a state that limits gubernatorial power and has a strong legislature. He needs to listen to advice of others and Leo is not inclined to listen.

Bush’s’ Midheaven, the 10th house cusp, the indicator of our career persona, is in Aries. Ruled by masculine Mars energy, Aries is all about ME. Aries has to be number one - has to be the leader and being the first sign, in essence the baby of zodiac, is prone to temper tantrums when not given their way.

With two fire signs, Leo and Arles, on prominent cusps Bush is going to be a leader who will want things done his way, right or wrong and prefer to have loyal yes men surrounding him.

Now I have to wonder, what karma did American incur to be in this position?

*Synastry is the study of relationships by comparing two horoscope charts.

Al Gore Happy At Last in His North Node

Being a person rabid with anger every time the Bush regime destroys another civil liberty, “spreads Democracy ” at the point of gun and sits by as the Earth comes to a boil, it is hard to step into my role as astrologer and take a dispassionate view of the Universe’s bizarre sense of irony. If nothing else, this is certainly a test of the theory that all occurrences naturally have both a positive and shadow effects – that nothing on Earth is perfectly good or perfectly horrible. (For example, in the wake of a horrible disaster – man made or natural – people will find sparks of generosity and compassion they never knew or had forgotten they had.) Ok we know the shadow or negative effects of the Bush Presidency. (Oh, boy do we!) However, where are the benefits? Well some positive karma has come to the man on the end of the Bush/Gore 2000 election debacle. After going through the black hole of disappointment and despair at having the election ripped from him by the Supreme Court, Al Gore, “the loser” is now fulfilling his soul’s desire in a way it is doubtful he could have accomplished had he became President.

Gore, born, March 31, 1948 in Washington, D.C at 12:53 PM has his North Node in Taurus in the 10th house. The North Node (that horseshoe shaped creature on the astrological chart) tells us the soul’s purpose in our current incarnation. It answers the question, why did the soul wish to come back for this particular lifetime. Nodes, by the way, are not planetary bodies; rather, they are mathematical points. The North and South nodes so instrumental to karmic astrology are the points where the Moon's orbit intersects the plane of the ecliptic, the path it takes around Earth.

The areas Taurus controls are our basic possessions and how we relate to them. Symbolized by the Bull, Taurus is a very tactile sign grounded by the Earth. Ruled by Venus, it has a creative and artistic flair. The tenth house is the career house – the house of social status and how we interact on a professional level. A person whose North Node is placed in Taurus in the 10th house – was put here to pursue a profession active in areas that utilize earth based materials in a creative fashion. By staring in a movie and writing a book teaching the world of the impending environmental crises, he is fulfilling his North Node directive.

On a more personal basis, Taurus controls our bodies – our physicality. Remembering the 2000 race when Gore changed personas, sweaters and image consultants every few months it is safe to say that this was a man not in control of his physicality. The man who was three different people at each of the three debates – has finally found comfort in his own skin.
His North Node is in a close conjunction with the asteroid Ceres. (A conjunction is a placement of planetary bodies in close proximity – normally one to 8 degrees from each other.) Ceres was the Ceres is the Roman name of Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture. She looked after the fields and crops. Ceres is part of an ancient myth that helps explain the cycles of seasonal change. Pluto -- or Hades -- the god of the underworld, kidnapped Ceres’ daughter, Proserpina (Roman counterpart to Persephone), and took her to live with him. Ceres went into the underworld to rescue her daughter and was able to make a deal with Pluto to return every year at the same time. When Ceres goes into the underworld, the crops stop growing and winter comes. In the summer, when she returns, spring arrives and it is time for planning. She was the epitome of motherly love and female fecundity – the ancient symbol of what we call Mother Nature.
People with Ceres in Taurus receive and receive nurturance through the physical substances and they feel their reward by learning how to provide physically for their family and community. Ceres is Earth Mother – Taurus the astrological sign that rules how we care for our Earthly and Earth-given possessions; what a fantastic combination crating a person who is passionate about protecting the planet. When he wrote “Earth In Balance”, in 1993, Al Gore was stirring to his soul’s desire but politics and the fear of the backlash from the radical right who see ecological preservation and environmental protection as issues to mock instead of duties Man must perform for the right to live on Earth, stymied the impact of the book. The press mocked him as a tree-hugger and not a serious politician.
Of course, one could argue that he could have done the same and more as President of the United States – leading the world in the fight of global warming but it would not have been his sole area of concern. Presidents must carry large agendas. Also, with all of the baggage and infighting that goes with politics, his message would have been diluted and attacked by Republicans who would have controlled Congress at least for his first term. Would he have made such an impact on the world community and become known as the brilliant “Goreacle” if still a politician? Doubtful. Yes, the Presidency has power – but it also demands caution. President Gore never would have been able to speak the “Inconvenient Truth” about global warming. Aides and lobbyist would have parsed and watered down his words. He might have gotten some small piece of legislation through – signed some international agreements but would never had the spoken the total truth he knew in his heart to be true. How many times did he talk about the environment in his 2000 run? Precious few. The environment does not “sell” politically.

With noting more to lose, Gore threw off his fake political cautious persona and suddenly he made the world aware that we are committing suicide.

Why, was his route so painful? Ah, that is where karma comes to play! This is not the first time negative karma has reared its ugly head in Gore’s life. (See “Bush/Gore And The Question of Karma).” His 10th house is “intercepted” – that means that there are two astrological signs on the cusp of one house. (The cusp is the entryway to each astrological house.) When that happens, it always indicates a pause of karma. In this case, Gore has Taurus intercepting his 10th house. Aries is on the cusp of the 10th house – but Taurus comes and cuts it right in the middle. This is a sign of someone who could have taken control in the past but did not. He had a chance in a past life to take rule but he walked away from power and responsibility and left his people in a state of upheaval. He could have influenced people for the better but took an easier more selfish route. This time around, his path to leadership in the area he excels in (Earth matters) would be convoluted and painful. He had to repay that debt

Gore’s South Node – where he is coming from – his past life indictor is in Scorpio in the 4th house. Scorpio is all about power. Because the 10th house is intercepted, the house on the opposite of the circle, the 4th house is intercepted as well. The karmic imbalance he had by shirking his career goals in the past – created an imbalance of power at home. It is humorous that he titled his first book “Earth in Balance” – I am sure he did not consciously know it when he or his publishers picked the title but he was already on his path to restoring his karmic balance with that book.

It is a testament to Gore that he came out of the abyss, balanced the karma and still fulfilled his North Node calling. In the face of such wrenching disappointment, he could have become bitter, vengeful and gone down into a hole of more negativity and karmic debt. He could have sowed the seeds for countless lifetimes of bitter lose, more anger – more negativity. Instead, he chose to shake off the dust and pain, follow his heart (actually his North Node) and become the world expert on climate change. He lost the rulership role he craved (or thought he did) and became an even bigger leader.