US Election 2020 – what’s it all about?

Let’s talk US election! I think we can safely say that as far as elections go, this one has been an outlier. I mean, Trump. And covid. And now Trump with covid!

In the runup to the election the US is facing some real problems around health, race, money and politics. Let’s see what we can discover from the Human Design charts and transits.

This is one for the #humandesigngeeks! We’ll be exploring election day using 3 chart layers. The US birth chart (foundation), the US Holographic Human Design chart (emergent cycles) and transit chart (triggers).

The US ‘birth’ chart

The USA has a Human Design chart. Like your standard Human Design chart, this is the USA’s foundation for the arc of its development over time.

This is what’s known as the ‘Sibley chart’ in astrology, a ‘birth’ chart for 4 July 1776. For those of you who love some technical astrological detail I’ve used Dane Rudhyar’s time of 17:13:55 Eastern.

A few important points about this chart.

The Left Angle Cross of Individualism

All four Sun/Earth activations are in individual gates, giving a quality of a personal drive for unique expression that can shock the world into waking up to its own latent potential. Chiron, Design Saturn and Design Mars are nested into that Incarnation Cross, giving it a martial energy (Saturn and Mars), potentially headstrong (Mars) and inflexible (Saturn) with a need to find its own solutions (Chiron). There’s also potential for great wisdom (Chiron/Saturn) and the drive to implement it (Mars).

The quality of this profile and cross is to be shocked into realising that those you mistrust are not really your enemies. You can gradually face your own fears and grow beyond the limits of your existing story. The nightmare of struggling on alone needs to be confronted rather than adapted to.

Split Definition

An open Sacral! and undefined Heart Centre, this is a Projector chart with two energy centres. However, if we scoot forward 2 minutes the Design Moon shifts into Gate 28 and we get a Manifestor chart. You might think that would be more appropriate for the US, but I’m not so sure.

There are two channels from the Spleen to the Throat, which means the US is naturally instinctive but can also be reactive, not taking sufficient time to gain clarity (the emotional split definition).

USA’s Pluto Return

On 22 February 2022 the USA has its first Pluto return, which means Pluto returns to the position it was in on 4 July 1776. The position of Pluto – a clue to the ultimate purpose of the USA – also speaks to necessary growth.

A new time is beginning. Give everything a place to grow. Strip away old ideas.

Stephen Karcher, Total I Ching, 60.2

This new time was recently triggered, when Saturn went over the USA’s Pluto on 24 February 2020 (direct), 5 August 2020  (retrograde), 21 November 2020 (direct). When Saturn turns up we know disciplined hard work is required, so 2020 has been, for the USA, a time of deep and powerful transformation in working to strip away old ideas.

Jupiter passes over this point on 8 December 2020. This may feel like the storm is overhead, but Jupiter brings positive outcomes to those who have done the work.

In this Channel of Mutation the USA also has Hubris (60: Gate of Limitations) and Nemesis (3: Gate of Difficulty at the Beginning).

Read: Why Trump’s Corona is our Evolution to learn the influence of Hybris and Nemesis in the US election.

Neptune Opposition

In the US chart Neptune is in Gate 47, which is opposite Neptune’s current position in Gate 22. Neptune transits bring confusion. It feels as if we are wrestling with clouds and will never see clear blue skies again. How could I have lost my way so badly?

Neptune transits are internal upgrades, bringing more sensitivity and subtlety and eventually revealing truths we just weren’t available for previously.

The Neptune activation in the US chart holds the wisdom of not rushing into action, waiting while they take the emotional pulse, hearing all the stories and working towards integration, rather than rashly taking action to defend.

What are Uranus and Saturn up to?

The USA is living out the mythology of Uranus and Saturn. You can see it in the chart – Saturn in Gate 48 and Uranus in Gate 16 making the Channel of The Wavelength (I’m not enjoying that name but we’ll use it for now). If Uranus gets too excited and rushes forward in his enthusiasm, Saturn never gets to find its deeper wisdom.

The story goes something like this. Uranus the sky god was afraid his children may usurp him, and decided to kill them. Their mother, Gaia, was not happy (I wonder why!) and her son Saturn took to his father with a sickle, castrating him.

Hereafter these two energies have always been at odds – Saturn is about making things real, about structure and discipline, rigidity even. Uranus is the idealist, the impractical dreamer. Really they can’t live without one another, but when they meet astrologically we get a kind of divine battle between the ideal and the real.

Note that the underlying motivation is Uranus’s fear of losing power. Later, Saturn went on to eat his own children because of the same inherited fear.

Right now Saturn and Uranus are transiting in the Channel of Awareness, with Pluto, triggering a global struggle between the Saturnian forces of conservatism and the utopian ideals of the liberals. That this is happening right before the US Pluto return is a big deal.

Who’s the Idealist? Who’s the Conservative?

But let’s flip that narrative, just because we can. Let’s imagine for a moment that the conservatives are the idealists (particularly because Jupiter is about to join them and he brings religion to the table) and liberals are the realists with the practical social and political tools to create a better world.

It’s playing out in the chart of the USA through a struggle over what constitutes the source of goodness.  Is it religion? Is it science? Something else?  This channel is about having the enthusiasm to find a deeper source, and that is the challenge the USA sits with now. Trump’s covid diagnosis, climate change, civil unrest, racial blindness, religious fundamentalism and economic inequality all call for a new cultural narrative.

USA Holographic Human Design Chart

Now I want to look at the Holographic Human Design chart layer for the USA for the date of the upcoming election – 3 November 2020.

The Holographic chart layer gives information about a particular moment in time. It’s not a transit chart, but is unique to the person, or in this case, the nation. This chart layer maps the unique individual cycles of emergence.

Read: What is Holographic Human Design?

This chart tells us what influences the USA is dealing with on election day, in both longer and shorter term cycles.

My thoughts on some highly significant things in this chart….

Seeking Goodness

There is only one channel in the Holographic Chart for the USA on election day – the Channel of Nourishment and Caring, connecting the Sacral and Spleen Centres.

This channel brings the energy of a new more caring culture based on good. That’s the entire focus of the USA right now. The planets activating that channel are Saturn (50) and Venus (27) indicating a profound shift in long term values, and how we relate to each other.

Dwarf planet Haumea is transiting in this channel, in Gate 50, until 2024. She brings the stable robust foundations for a better way of life. We are about to discover amazing new social and technological tools for a more sustainable life. The US will resist (Saturn) but eventually breakthrough, with the capacity for rapid technological shift.

A New 6 Year Solar Cycle

The second thing is – notice how the Sun and Earth activations are in Gates 22 and 47, both line 1.

In Holographic Human Design this indicates a new 6 year solar cycle (the line 1 is a new beginning, a new foundation). The USA shifted into this new cycle on 14th August 2020, just a few weeks ago!

The previous 6 year cycle was in the gates 63/64 – setting an intention to create major change. This Sun/Earth movement is tracking with Neptune, meaning you guys there in the US are working with great sensitivity to higher dimensional energies and more subtle influences.

These two gates – the 22 and 47 – bring the energy of arriving at the end of the road and having to look within to find a new solution, a more authentic direction and pathway. It is relationship rather than goal oriented.

This activation sits right on the USAs Neptune opposition!  Its like that game where you put on a blindfold and your friends twirl you around, then you have to find them. You thought you knew where they were but no! When you take your blindfold off, everything is revealed.

Great Accumulation and Great Inequality

Speaking of things tracking – the Holographic Design Sun and Earth are in Gates 26 and 45. You might have read about the role Gate 26 plays in pandemics. The Gate of Great Accumulation speaks directly to the extreme inequality we are currently experiencing globally, and how the pandemic is one way we are rebalancing.

This indicates an extreme disruption (Gate 44) to the inequality of power and resources. Gate 44 is the arrival of the powerful feminine, pregnant with new possibilities. You can attempt to repel her, to keep control, but she brings a whole new pattern of living and the best you can do is come to meet her with great respect for her power, and take life one step at a time while you discover what she has in store for you.

Gate 26 shows that we have to change our concepts of accumulation. Compare the farmer who lovingly builds up the health of her soil and the diversity of her environment (both forms of positive accumulation) with industrialised agriculture that basically rapes the land to gather profit. This is the kind of shift we need to be making. This is not so much about post-growth sustainability, as a different way to think about growth, through a calm nurturing and nourishing of potential rather than fearful greedy grasping.

This channel disrupts our perception of what is valuable, what goals are important, how we maintain and support ourselves and others. By transit, it usually triggers a clean out, a detox of everything that no longer supports our new reality. It plays with Gate 41 to create a greater simplicity that allows us to pivot rather than be burdened by our old lives.

A New Kind of Sustainability

On 3 November, Venus is transiting in Gate 18 – the correction of ancient tribal patterns, with dwarf planet Makemake, who asks us to reframe our narrative away from the dominant paradigm and into the lived experience of each individual. This process brings a new appreciation for how simply we can move back into sustainability.

Chiron is transiting in the complementary Gate 17, which is about the universal flow we can live in when we integrate all the stories of our inner parts, or all the cultural narratives within our society rather than simply the preferenced dominant narrative of our culture and country. This has been a moving force behind the Black Lives Matter movement, the Me Too movement, and more generally the capacity of everyone to see that others live different kinds of lives. This is a subtle but powerful shift in human consciousness.

A Great Arousing

Mars is in the Gate of Shock, 51 line 1, exactly conjunct the Design Sun in the US ‘birth’ chart! People can be quite afraid of this gate, but in ancient China it described the thunderstorms of spring that roused the dormant winter energies back to life.

Read: Mars Retrograde 2020

Everything is turned upside-down. But the anxiety soon turns to joy in a burst of creative energy. Let it move you. Gather resources for when the call comes. Re-imagine the situation. Gather energy for a decisive new move.

Stephen Hatcher, Total I Ching, 51.1

Also, the transiting North Node (emergent destiny) is sitting right on the USAs Personality Mars in Gate 45, which is the so-called Money Gate. This gate holds together all the structural relationships of the old tribal (feudal) society. This triggers a potential for a shift in how the USA uses its martial energy to uphold these old structures.

Pallas and the rise of the feminine

There are many synchronicities in these charts, too many to share in this post. One striking alignment is the Holographic Moon in Gate 13 sitting on the Pallas activation in the US ‘birth’ chart. This is even more significant given that Pallas will be exactly conjunct Pluto and Jupiter on 13th November 2020, and on 3 November she is in Gate 54, anchoring the entire tribal circuitry to the North Node at the Throat Centre.

What’s important about Pallas? She was the daughter of Zeus, and a representative of women’s ancient wisdom co-opted by the patriarchy. This year Pallas acts as a bridge between the polarities of cultural feminine and masculine. She is the ancient goddess, the daughter of the patriarchy who knows all its ways, and the new powerful global feminine leadership emerging. Pallas is skilled at politics, strategy and war, but anchored into a different kind of reality.

Her position on 3 November is in Gate 54.6, which talks about how the form of relationship between women and men has no life left in it, and has to be recreated. This works deeply through the weave of culture, as the feminine/masculine polarities begin to harmonise and we start to realise in how many ways they held components of our lives apart.

It’s no surprise that the Design Moon in the Holographic chart is sitting right on top of Kamala Harris’ Pallas activation in Gate 5.

Aphrodite

We should finish up with a Goddess! Remember how Saturn threw the severed genitals of Uranus into the ocean? What happened next? Aphrodite arose from the foam. Aphros actually means foam in Greek.

From this multi-generational struggle for power and control between the male gods, Aphrodite – sensuality, pleasure, passion – arises from the foam.

In the US ‘birth’ chart Aphrodite sits exactly on the Moon activation. In the Holographic chart, Aphrodite sits in the same gate as Pluto. In the election transit chart, Aphrodite sits in Gate 62, which connects her with Chiron, Pluto, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Mars retrograde, Eris and Makemake.

Aphrodite has an important part to play in this drama, and I suspect it has something to do with the unravelling of the male gaze on women, how we define our own individual experiences, and how we release a more sensual, abundant and pleasurable life when we finally get that balance between practicality and idealism right. Just a final thought – Pluto in Gate 41 is very much on this theme as well.

Summary

I’m working with three layers of chart here. The ‘birth’ chart, the transit chart and the Holographic chart. Together they give incredible precision. They represent the foundation (birth), the cycles (holographic) and the triggers (transit).

The foundation tells us that the primary function of the USA is to rouse the world (and itself) to see that enemies bring blessings when you face what you fear.

The cycles show a new beginning, to literally strip away the old layers of rigidity (one of which is the idealised notion of freedom) and begin to explore how to create a more caring culture.

The triggers are disruption to old ideas about accumulation and growth, to find a more nourishing and sustainable relationship to life. And the rise of emergent feminine leadership, including the grassroots women’s organisations that have been so influential, the fight to put Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court bench, and the probable election of Kamala Harris as VP.

Who’ll win? That’s a whole other post.