The 3rd Debate and What Happens Next

We’ve just watched the third debate in the US presidential election, or perhaps you hid behind the sofa. Either way, this seems an unprecedented time in human history. It’s not just the deliberate undermining of western democracy by a presidential candidate, there have been badly behaved candidates before now. The problem is that this disturbing election is happening on top of global instability in areas as diverse as economics, geo-politics, environment and health. Pretty much everything seems about to break, and people all over the world are holding their breath about what might happen next.

This post is not intended to be political. What I hope to do is put all these events into a bigger framework.

Revolution, Chaos and Mayhem

One of the major players over the past few months has been dwarf planet Eris. Let’s not mince words, Eris is a trouble maker. She likes to set the cat amongst the pigeons and see what happens. Uranus has been passing over Eris in Gate 42 and between these two unpredictable planets, trouble has been afoot.

Eris is an outsider, an outlier. She has been snubbed and so she gets her revenge by causing mayhem. This may sound familiar to you just now! It’s not just in the US. Look at the Brexit vote in the UK, where a surprising number of people voted to leave the EU.

Eris is joined by Uranus, planet of revolution and unexpected events. Together they are turning politics and society upside down.

They are aided and abetted by Chaos in Gate 45. This is the gate of the lord, the financial and political leader of the community. The energy of this gate has long been hierarchical. I am at the top, you are further down. Look at the corporate world, there is only one CEO. There is only one President. But nature doesn’t operate in such a way. This type of hierarchy is a social construct and only maintained by agreement. What happens if the base breaks loose and challenges the top of the pyramid? It’s a valid fear just now, and it shows up in the HD transits as a major shift in how our society is structured, to bring it more into alignment with natural systems.

Let’s have a quick look at the charts of the two candidates. It always fascinates me the way a person can find themselves at the crux of history, with all the world’s eyes upon them. Both Clinton and Trump have some role to play in this pivot point.

Trump

Donald Trump has Eris in Gate 17, a gate of leadership and opinions. The leadership in this gate is about having opinions that are informed by your followers. You are only as good as how well you listen to what your followers are teaching you. This gate is part of a potentially locked down feedback loop, where everyone goes around and around in the same pattern and no one learns anything new. The leader has no ideas, but likes to talk about them anyway. Also in this gate, Trump has a wonderful asteroid called Sphinx. This is a love of the mysterious, the conspiracy, the what if???

In particular, we find Eris in the chart of Joan of Arc (yes we do have her chart!), which can in the extreme represent an ability to gather large numbers of people on a divine mission to overthrow the oppressors. Interestingly, Trump has his North Node in Gate 45, which is the Gate of Gathering – because it has the ability to gather people together around a shared idea.

What puts Trump centre stage right now?

Trump’s Personality Sun and Design North Node are in Gate 12, and Chiron is transiting in Gate 22 just now. It explains the bizarre focus on women’s beauty in this campaign.

He has Vulcan in Gate 22, which intrigues me. Vulcan is a blacksmith to the gods, and (synchronistically) husband of the beautiful Aphrodite. Vulcan forges new tools for the expression of consciousness. He was also lame, the damaged masculine. This theme of the damaged masculine will come up a lot over the next few months.  Zeus (the adulterer) and Vulcan (the husband of Aphrodite) are both in Gate 57, where Trump has his Jupiter (expansion).

Uranus and Eris are transiting in Gate 42 and Trump has his Design Mars (masculine) in the adjoining Gate 53. So here again, we find a connection with the masculine. It’s also his Nemesis, underneath that deal maker (his craft) and his beautiful women is a lame man.

This election speaks to feelings of impotency in men. Just look at the apparently powerful Republicans standing by wondering what to do.

Let’s take another tack, and head into US history for a moment. The nation arose from a civil war to gain freedom from the UK. In astrological terms it was all about Uranus (freedom- the US) and Saturn (authority – England). This relationship is carved deep into the soul of the US. There is a planet which unites these two energies – Chiron. And Chiron is acting strongly in Trump’s chart right now as he plays out the rebel (Uranus) pitted against a corrupt power (Saturn).

There is a deeper layer here. Cognitive scientists have used brain scans to find the difference between conservatives and liberals. It seems conservatives map to a family type with a father who’s authority must not be questioned (no facts required), and with a moral viewpoint based on the will of the individual to succeed. Liberals map to a family type based on a collaborative systems approach, a more feminine networked system, which means they are sometimes seen as weak and can find it difficult to take decisive action. (see George Lakoff and Drew Westen.)

These two mental / social constructs hold sway in this election, and are pivotal in a deeper underlying shift in consciousness. We are all somewhere on the ‘spectrum’. The conservative end is closer to material reality (cause and effect, applying force /will to objects, etc) and the liberal map is closer to quantum reality (systems, interconnectedness of all things).

These two systems of reality are beginning to come together, although paradoxically they have always co-existed. Many eminent people, including physicists, believe human conscious is the bridge between these two very different realities. Chiron could well be a key here.

Trump represents a shift in how we relate to each other – as objects (gate 22), as opponents (gate 38), as followers (gate 17). He is bringing all our attention to our addiction taking on an opponent and putting so much psychic energy into defending ourselves and going after our own personal interests. Vulcan – in a channel with his North Node (destiny) is principally about loosening our attachment to the material world. This is a necessary precondition to the wave of quantum (non-material) consciousness that is about to break over us in 2017, and nothing at all to do with ascension or physical death.

These are themes that will loom larger in 2017 and beyond, as we develop a shift in consciousness from output/object orientation to a more process oriented way of being. The ends does not justify the means, the means is an end to itself. If you are living as you are meant to be living in this moment, your own self renewal become self-creative.

Freeing up the psychic and financial resources devoted to defensive living are fundamental to our shift in consciousness.

Clinton

Ironically, we have the first woman nominated for president standing alongside someone who is called the most misogynist candidate ever, and now stands self-accused of (at least) locker room talk and (at most) sexual abuse. Let me just say, we had our first female Australian Prime Minister here in Australia a few years back and the systemic nature of sexism was gradually revealed. I found it shocking.

This is a part of the rise of the feminine point of view, the voices of women and their personal experience being reintegrated into our society. While Trump represents the underlying impotency of men which must be kept hidden at all costs, Clinton represents the failure of woman to speak out about their own personal passions and opinions and experiences.

Hillary is not the most popular candidate in the history of the universe, and I want to keep the politics out of this post, but I do see that systemic sexism coming up in the way people talk about her.

So, why is Hillary sitting here as a major player right now?

She has her Sun and Chiron in gate 28 line 1, Pluto has been transiting in adjoining Gate 38. Her Sun activation says:

This is the beginning of a new purpose, you need to take great care. You give your gentle generous support as the best way to show your commitment. With the roof threatening to fall, you might feel as though you out to be doing something more, but you are taking the first step and waht you are caring for is sacred.

(Hilary Barrett Gate 28 line 1)

Notice Chiron, bridge between Uranus (revolution, rebellion) and Saturn (authority, established convention).

Clinton also has Uranus (revolution) in Gate 12, and Chiron is transiting in Gate 22.

Clearly both candidates are acting out a form of breakdown between chaos (Uranus) and structure (Saturn).  Structure does have a place in a world where chaos theory exists (which is does in our world), but it exists as a way of facilitating creativity and life force, rather than limiting the wild nature of people to prevent them from breaking free of the established hierarchies.

Clinton has her Mercury in Gate 43. This is one of the gates of danger. It’s about going to the centre of power and speaking out, no matter how dangerous that feels. It’s no surprise that she has a Ceres return right now, we see her speaking out on behalf of women and children. Adjoining Gate 23 is a gate related to chaos theory and is linked to breakdowns which happen before breakthroughs.

There’s no doubt Hillary is not a perfect example of the returning feminine, but right now, she’s holding the door open. I talked about the gate of the lord – Gate 45. Hillary has her Mars in that gate. Which means she is passionate about the way resources are distributed. This could go any which way, but I’m interested to hear her talking about the end of trickle down economics.

Who’s Going to Win and What Will Happen Next?

One of the most important shifts of 2017 will be our consciousness moving away from our conditioning as objects in a machine-like world, rather than humans.

Humans are subjective, we are emotional, we have subtle perceptions, we can see many nuances of a situation. Machines are objective and think in terms of black and white. Machines live in a world of right/wrong. Humans live in a world of unique and personal perceptions. We are creative and flow with life. We create our lives by taking one step at a time and never really know how things will turn out. Machines know when they get switched on, that at the end of the day they will still be sitting in the same place on the factory floor and will have created 359 widgets.

This presidential campaign contains within it a very interesting matrix of conservative/liberal and male/female. This kind of matrix is the basis of fractals and chaos theory (its in the maths, more in my upcoming book). The conservative/liberal part of the matrix speaks to the way our brains have polarised into father-based mindset or mother-based mindset. Whichever end of the spectrum you are on, the other side looks crazy. They just don’t make sense to us. It’s nothing personal, just the way your brain is wired. Both sides have useful gifts.

This election has other emergent qualities as well. The claims of voter fraud, the threats to jail opponents, the Russian hacking in a purported attempt to influence the election, the breakdown of the GOP. There is a reasonable fear of civil unrest on election day and afterwards.

On election day, the Moon moves through two gates that tend to trigger terrorism – gates 13 and 49. However there is also a Neptune eclipse and Neptune will be in a channel with Psyche, Karma and Ariande (in Gate 40) and Neptune and Child (in Gate 37).

The Sun will be in the most yang (masculine) gate – Gate 1. The Earth will be in the most yin (feminine) gate – Gate 2. I want to mention Ariadne for a moment, she represents how women project their inner hero onto men.

What’s coming up now is a call to women to speak out about our perception, our experience, our opinions. This is not just a personal redemption, but a way to change the world. We are shifting to a quantum consciousness. This means we are descending into dark matter, the web of universal consciousness. This is a yin, or feminine, force of nature. Women hold the key to this shift.

We have seen some of this in the women coming foward to speak about their experiences with Trump this week. They felt it was dangerous, but spoke anyway.

Men are being challenged to hold a space for women to step up. Notice all the Republican men this week coming out and saying … I have daughters, a wife, a mother, a sister. That’s not surprising. As Samantha Bee pointed out, 100% of people have at least one female relative.

The Nodes are in a powerfully transitional position just now – Gates 63 and 64. These gates activate imbalance, disorder and chaos. They usher out an old era and usher in a new one.

Whatever happens in this election, be aware of the rise of the power of women. In particular, women holding a clear space without apology. This seems potentially scary and even catastrophic but quantum shifts can feel like that.