Crisis Solar Returns for the U.S.
Crisis Solar Returns for the U.S.
The 2024 Solar Return for the United States
August 2024
The solar return for the 2024-2025 birthday-to-birthday year, shown below, is the most extreme solar return for the U.S. since the Civil War (1861-1865) with regard to internal turmoil. That can be inferred in 2024 from solar return Pluto conjoined to natal Pluto, both very angular just barely west of the M.C. with solar Mars conjoined to solar Uranus straddling the ascendant; both ascendant bodies are mundane square both Plutos. Those combinations are forceful, aggressive and inclined toward upheaval and drastic action.
Pluto is in the fourth house of the natal chart for the U.S.* The fourth house of a mundane horoscope relates to the government, the foundation or the basis of society. Our Pluto in the fourth house symbolizes the words, Novus Ordo Seclorum, printed on the dollar bill: a new order of the ages [free of British domination]. Now, for the first time since the summer of 1776, transiting Pluto has arrived at its natal place.** The atavistic forces of the right want to return the United States to an earlier era. Half the country doesn’t agree that a simplistic, romanticized version of what happened 248 years ago constitutes a return to the spirit of ’76. It’s not even a return to an earlier time, if one reads Project 2025, but rather a new program of rigid restrictions of all kinds that constitutes the agenda of the far right, which until now, hasn’t been in a position to take control of the entire government.
The solar return for the United States for 1860, shown below, when Lincoln was elected, induced the secession of eleven southern states and four years of civil war. In the1860 return Pluto was on the ascendant, Mars was at the midheaven conjoined to natal Pluto, and Uranus, conjoined to its natal place, was only ¾° from the sesquiquadrate to the solar return M.C. Now those same planets occupy pride of place in the 2024 sidereal solar return.
Just as in 1860, the country is polarized with the forces of the right, now as then, ready to embrace violence. If their spokesmen are to be believed, a second American revolution is at hand, which they claim will be bloodless, “if the Left allows it.” That has to be construed as not too subtle threat.
When Donald Trump speaks of invoking a dictatorship on “day one” and relieving Americans of having to vote four years later, he is quite explicitly saying as much not merely about the first day but entire second Trump administration. Trump and the hyper wealthy behind him want to literally supplant democracy with autocracy. This would mean the imposition of martial law, suspension or dissolution of Congress, suspension of habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, indeed the entire Constitution, use of the military as a police force against American citizens and implementation of centralized authority on the Russian and Chinese models.
The 2024 inauguration chart, also shown below, with Sun conjoined to Pluto and both closely semi-square Saturn, promises tight, limited and concentrated government control in contrast to the loose, open and informal fabric of the American character. There will certainly be a reaction once people figure out what is actually happening, especially when transiting Mars turns stationary direct on February 24, 2025 at 21° Gemini 55' conjoined to the U.S. natal Sun at 21° Gemini 31' and square the U.S. natal Saturn at 23° Virgo 11'.
The angles of a horoscope, i.e., the horizon and meridian, zenith, nadir, vertex and anti-vertex and close aspects to those places are where the power in a horoscope resides. This will be demonstrated by transiting Mars which will take up residence during the fall of 2024 and the winter of 2025 at and near the M.C. of the U.S. natus, also shown below, as well as the I.C. of the solar return for 2024. Specifically, transiting Mars will conjoin the ex-precessed M.C. of the U.S. on October 9, 2024, February 7, 2025 and March 14, 2025. Transiting Mars will conjoin the I.C. of 2024 solar return set up for Washington D.C. on November 14, 2024, December 29, 2024 and April 25, 2025. Transiting Pluto will conjoin its natal place on December 30, 2024. The entire late fall and winter of 2024 and 2025 will be characterized by conditions that have not been seen in this country for more than 150 years.
In addition, the converse Mars is conjoined to Kamala’s natal Uranus (0° 37') as well as conjoined to her natal Pluto (2° 49'). Both of those are extreme, sudden and suggest being on the receiving end of blows. She could find herself reeling. In a manner similar to the sesquare and semi-square from Saturn to her lights in the direct solar return, converse Mars is semi-square her radix sun (0° 10') and all but exactly sesquare the natal moon (0° 01'). If she were not a politician, well-clothed, nourished and protected, I would expect with all of this going on that she would be in uniform, supplied with weapons and in the midst of combat.
*July 4, 1776, at 12:15 pm LMT at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was favored by the American astrologer John Hazelrigg (1860-1941) who took it from an article that appeared in the July 1851 edition of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, which commemorated the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I have added one minute to Hazelrigg’s time to produce best fits for primary directions: 12:12:01 pm LAT which is 12:16 pm LMT. See my book, Primary Directions and the Horoscope of the United States, for more information. The western horizon of this chart was brought to natal Mars by primary direction in 1861, which is singularly appropriate for war and calamity.
**See my 2017 article, The US Pluto Return: Why Precession Matters.
© Kenneth Bowser, 2024. All rights reserved.
