Pandemic in the U.S.: Or, How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Feel the Bern

Pandemic in the U.S.:  Or, How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Feel the Bern

(an Astrological view of the U.S. storyline within a Global Health Crisis)

By Felina Lune Kavi

Astrological New Year begins with our Sun’s ingress to Tropical Aries, the March Equinox.  Within a chart cast for that moment, in the capitol city of whatever country you live in, one can divine the themes within the year ahead.  I happen to live in the United States so I am reading the themes for this land, in particular.  However, the particular is just in house location (I am using the Placidus House System).  The planets and aspects are reflected worldwide.

My husband, Michael Kavi, made this for me.

The particular is the first thing I noticed when I cast the Equinox chart for Washington D.C.  The houses are aligned with the natal houses of Bernie Sanders!  With this fortunate alignment of houses, we can see how Bernie leads our country from emergency to emergence.  The following storyline awaits us if we rise together and ‘Feel the Bern’ as a ‘Not Me, Us’ call to action.  There are other storylines available, but I quite like this one.  It’s a healing story, after all.  With White Moon-Chiron on my Taurus Ascendant…I love a good healing story.

How We Rise

'Fawkes the Phoenix' by Robin Thibodeau

A Scorpio Ascendant teaches us to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix.  Scorpio is a fixed water sign, where feeling is in focus.  This is insight that penetrates through darkness and into the truth.  It confronts our fears by navigating through them to the medicine of renewal.  Bernie Sanders has been navigating this ‘truth-seeking in the depths’ his whole life.  He knows a thing or two about how to guide us through this journey ahead.

The Ascendant (conjunct Bernie’s Ascendant) is in a beneficial sextile with the ever-present Capricorn Council.  This 2^nd House gathering of Wise Ones in Capricorn is attended by Pallas Athene, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, Chariklo, and Saturn.  The Saturn-Pluto influence has been strong for a while here.  The two were conjunct in January for the first time since 1982, and the ‘structural transformation’ of this combination was a significant part of our collective story last year…which continues in the year ahead.  But as this new year begins, it is the Mars-Jupiter conjunction that is most activated in this Capricorn Council.  This is the combined wisdom of ‘expanded action’.  It inspires us to provide a substantial mobilization of effort toward sustainability in this time of structural transformation.  Here in the U.S., this Capricorn call to action is in our 2^nd House…a stellium of energy so valuable to us as a resource of objective wisdom. 

So, as we rise from the crisis of this time, we are in good rapport with this Capricorn stellium.  The objective orchestration that this Council of Wise Ones provides is of great value to our country.  We need a leader who is aligned with this opportunity in constructive ways.

Karma and Fate of the Collective Soul

Fate is always part of the Soul Story, and that does not lessen the impact of free will choice.  The two co-create the story…in a kind of call-and-response dance.  Fate can be seen in the axis of the lunar nodes.  In Capricorn, the South Node has been releasing the karma that has come from a patriarchal past which misused our feminine Earth.  The South Node in Saturn’s sign says, ‘Time’s Up’.  It’s the ‘Dragon’s Tail’ where we let go of waste and compost it into wisdom.  With both the South Node and Saturn nearing the end of their journey through Capricorn, it is wise to heed the call of ‘The Time is NOW’.  

What has been destroying our Earth, what has been destroying our systems, what has been destroying our resources, what has been destroying our values…it must be released this year and moved toward sustainability.  With Pholus at the South Node, this is a rapid release of transformation akin to how an Ro2 virus can spread.  As Melanie Reinhart says about Pholus:  ‘small cause, big effect’.

For more about the Pholus energy at the karmic releasing point, read Lorna Bevan’s article.  It's very revealing of how things are being released.

The North Node, which is the ‘Dragon’s Head’, is in Cancer.  This is what we are taking in, what nourishes our Collective Soul’s evolution.  Cancer North Node brings us the medicine of emotional bonding, protection of family, and compassionate care for those in need…especially those most vulnerable.  In a widespread pandemic situation, this points to the parents and caregivers at home taking care of so many kids while schools are closing.  This also points to the nurses and doctors at work to care for the sick.  For all of us, this points to the necessary call to care about protecting each other.  

North Node is uncomfortable for many…some may even feel it as an inconvenience, especially those who have become addicted to the achievement-oriented career mindset of the South Node in Capricorn.  That South Node is in our country’s 2^nd House, after all, so many of us are concerned about finances and scarcity of resources.  North Node is in our country’s 8^th House, the House of transformation and shared resources.  Let’s just say, if you’re hoarding wealth…or toilet paper and hand sanitizer…you might just be contributing to the blockage in this Dragon’s belly.

Sisyphus is conjunct our North Node…and there’s no getting around the Sisyphean feat that is ‘caring for others during a pandemic’.  As Sisyphus found, you can’t cheat Death.  And yet, the ‘try and try again’ of pushing a boulder up a hill endlessly is part of the medicine.  It teaches us something profound, as soon as we can get past the feelings of ‘this is pointless’.  The lesson is about the arrogance of our collective ‘Achievement Addiction’. 

Chiron as the key

And as we begin this New Year, Sun-Chiron in Aries within the Black Moon portal is in a dynamic T-square with our Nodal axis.  The spotlight is on the wound of our Collective Identity.  The necessity to heal this wound can’t be ignored…it is already painfully inflamed throughout the world.  For the U.S., the wound resides in the 4^th House of our roots.  It demands that we address the wound at its roots.  

Let me be clear about this, the wound is NOT the virus…it’s much deeper than that.  It has more to do with our actions (Aries) from our karmic past (South Node) and how we need to actively respond to our future (North Node).  Our ancestral past in this country is full of wounded storylines that carry through generations.  Stressful as it is to carry the Sisyphean boulder of that, we were incarnated in this transformative time to heal those wounds at our root for the future of our descendants.

When we have a T-square…all the stress of the opposition pools at the apex (Sun-Chiron).  To alleviate the stress and address the wound, we look to the opposite part of the chart (Libra).  And there, at the beginning of Libra, is Bernie’s natal Mercury in the 10^th House of Public Contribution.  He has the ideas that provide the balance our country needs for this healing.  He has the voice that continually speaks of the need for justice and equality.  

Even without being president, his ideas and his voice that speaks for the people of this country has already been shifting us in a direction of healing.  The ideas he’s speaking about, they can’t be ignored either (that’s the nature of having something square to the nodes of the Collective Soul).  What he is communicating…it calls out the wound and says ‘this is what we can do about it’.  

And his Mercury in Libra isn’t speaking for himself…Libra is about others.  In the 10^th House, it is highly visible (even as the media continues to downplay it), and it speaks to those things that the public recognizes as important…the social programs we need to fearlessly address the roots of our country’s systemic wounds.  This is the true meaning of Democratic Socialism…don’t get it twisted.

Aiding the flow of the nodes through a sextile opportunity is transiting Uranus in Taurus.  In our country, Uranus is bringing a shock to our bodily health in the 6^th House…awakening us to changes that need to be made in our country’s healthcare system.  And aiding Chiron through a sextile opportunity is transiting Hygiea in Gemini (Goddess of Hygiene and Preventative Health Practices).  In our country, Hygiea is in the 7^th House of Others.  Here, she speaks through the many reminders of others on how to prevent infection…wash your hands, social distancing, stay home if you’re sick, etc.  But she’s also working with the roots of the deeper wound in our collective…applying healing methods to prevent further complications.  Bernie Sanders has his Uranus Retrograde at the beginning of Gemini, conjunct Hygiea’s influence.  He is providing innovative ideas and eye-opening conversations with health professionals and scientists to address prevention and healing. 

The Nature of Panic and the Pandemic

Widespread panic fear often goes hand-in-hand with a viral pandemic, largely because of the uncertainty looming like a fog.  When professionals we think are supposed to have answers don’t have answers, it can be very unsettling.  So when I see mass panic, I look at the nature of Neptune (which rules that nebulous confusion) and the asteroid Pan (named after the God of the Forest whom the word ‘panic’ comes from).  It’s not surprising to me that the two are in a very strong square from Pisces to Gemini.  This combination creates a heady cocktail of panic-stricken reactions to all the confusion, as well as confusion from the panic. 

'The Great God Pan' by Norman Mills Price

Ah, but Pan is a Trickster God…a Sacred Clown in many ways.  The Trickster, too, is a Healer/Teacher…teaching the medicine through its opposite.  Aside from the harshness of this square to Neptune…Pan is actually making some helpful harmonics to other parts of this Equinox chart.  So, what’s the medicine within the panic?  First, let’s talk about where the term ‘Panic Fear’ originates.  

Enter the Sacred Forest, where Pan resides.  Mere mortals are not so aware of our surroundings as we think we are.  Often, we are not paying attention to the Sacred Earth we walk upon or the unseen forces of nature.  

So, Pan plays tricks on us.  He rustles the bushes, calls out scary animal sounds, and gets us running in circles…completely lost from the direction we came in with.  It feels like your head is spinning.  It’s hard to breathe.  You have no idea where you are or which way to go…or even what exactly you're afraid of.  But it’s a terrible feeling…an overwhelming sense of ‘something very bad is lurking very near and about to pounce’. 

And, in the dizzy spin, there is all this electricity from the fear within your body.  It needs a place to ground.  The greatest trick is within the simplicity of that idea.  When we’re in panic mode, we are overcomplicating things.  The simplicity of the medicine of grounding that electricity is what is needed. 

If we stop running in circles and give ourselves time to catch our breath, we may notice that the grounding medicine has been right under our feet all along.  Mother Earth. 

Kick off your shoes…plant your feet on the soothing earth and ground that electricity surging within you into the forest floor.  You see, we tend to forget that Mother Earth is best at transmuting such energies.  Connect with her, this is one of the many things she does for her children. 

In this calming connection, we regain a sense of direction that is aligned with Mother Earth and all her creatures.  We learn the best path forward…one that honors all of life, even in the face of death. 

Pan lets out a hearty laugh, winking at you as you reclaim this earth-centered wisdom.  He dances off into the distance while playing his flute in celebration.  And you, along with more and more of the rest of us, resume the journey in a more guided direction on this Earthwalk.

All of this is to point out the medicine of our Earth.  It is not at all meant to downplay the difficulty of moving through panic and crossing the threshold to calm.  Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean that it’s easy.  But it is possible.  And the simplicity of it is that Mother Earth is there supporting you under every step.  We are never far from her guidance.  But it is an individual choice to connect.

Gaia’s Guidance for the Path Ahead of the U.S.

If Mother Earth could vote, she would vote for Bernie Sanders as president of the United States of America.  He is the only candidate running who truly cares about our Earth and all of us who live here.  He’s not a miracle worker, and he’s not perfect…but he is best aligned with where this country is headed.  Progressive as he is, he is not an anachronism.  He was meant for this time…whether or not he becomes president.  The medicine he was born with is specifically designed for NOW.

And with his most beneficial planet, Jupiter, conjunct with Pan in Gemini now…he has the kind of benevolent guidance we need in a time of panic.  It’s not just the health crisis.  It’s the widespread wave of change washing over us, clearing out the Collective Wound and transforming every crumbling structure that can no longer support us. 

We need a leader with a sound mind and wise counsel.  We need a leader with a humble and unwavering sure-footedness upon the grassroots of our country.  We need a leader who encourages enthusiasm and foresight over panic.  But beyond what we need in a leader…we need this movement.  Movement is how we make the changes that are necessary in the path ahead of us.