Some fresh faces have arrived on the political scene.
Did you ever have the experience of sitting in your living room on an autumn afternoon, and the sound of a leaf blower stops? And suddenly you feel a sense of relief, because the leaf blower stopped, though you hadn't consciously noticed it was even there. But you notice when it's gone.
That's how I feel about our new players on the political scene, whose presence makes their previous absence suddenly noticeable. One is a porn actress and director named Stephanie Gregory Clifford; better searched by her stage name, Stormy Daniels, or my preferred artistic name she sometimes uses, Stormy Waters.
The others are a whole bunch of kids from all over the United States, born in 2000 and after. Spurred to action by the February 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, it would seem that, finally, a new generation is stepping up to the challenges of our world. These are the kids who have declared that there have been enough school (and mall and movie theater and nightclub and concert) shootings and it's time to rein in who gets to have a gun.
You might ask what these two new elements in the discussion have in common, besides being human. The answer is: They have something to say, and nothing to lose. Also, neither are wearing business suits.
I'm writing this article in advance of two big events scheduled to take place during the weekend of March 24-25. They are happening under similar astrology, which will have peaked the evening of March 25, when an interview with Stormy Daniels is scheduled to appear on "60 Minutes." Prior to that, the March for our Lives took place Saturday morning in Washington, DC, and in cities around the country.
As I write, just about everyone appearing in the news is drowning in their own deception: The massive Facebook data heist that helped Trump win (and Trump personally calling Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on getting "reelected"), the FBI being gutted, the Russia probe closing in on Trump's business transactions; while everyone wonders whether Robert Mueller will get fired before he can get to the bottom of the mess. Trump recently fired the secretary of state via Twitter. He's appointed a torturer to lead the CIA. And so on.
"I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also)," Trump tweeted, in response to everyone wanting to shove a fork in his ass. "The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing." As a connoisseur of old quotes, I can tell you that's one that will get better with age.
The week's sunny spot was how the serial bomber in Austin was caught, and then blew himself up, without a single cop getting hurt. We are stretched for good news. Stormy Daniels is good news. Kids rising up against gun violence is good news. Both address two of the most serious issues now in the news: public corruption, and the gun lobby owning Congress and the presidency.
First let's consider Stormy Daniels. The astrology related to her broadcast is directly related to the March for Our Lives protest march the day before. The aspect of the weekend is Venus conjunct Eris.
Daniels had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, shortly after his third wife and now First Lady of the Land, Melania, had given birth to his youngest child, Barron. Then in late 2016, Daniels was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen, one of Trump's many lawyers, to sign a nondisclosure agreement and to keep silent about the affair. In later news reports, we've also learned that she was allegedly coerced with threats of physical violence, making the $130K a kind of gratuity rather than an incentive.
Despite several legal actions by Daniels to dissolve the NDA, and by Trump's camp to enforce it, Daniels has had already completed the "60 Minutes" interview, though Trump has brought legal action attempting to enforce prior restraint against the CBS network: that is, to have a court block a news outlet from reporting the news, in advance; something unprecedented in US history. That alone tells us where he's coming from.
It's interesting that despite Trump's usual shameless charade—he really does seem to have none—personally, I think he reeks with guilt and embarrassment, which are driving him insane. His counterpart in popular culture is "South Park" character Eric Cartman, who does things like take a dump on the teacher's desk in front of the whole class. Cartman's antics are an attempt to conceal that he is deeply troubled.
Daniels approaches life from another angle. Her artistic role is to put her sex on display. While this can mask deeper issues, I don't get that's true for her. The other evening, I finally decided to watch some of her videos. They are lighthearted in the genre of what would be called vanilla porn.
In one, she's a sex robot who transforms into a human. She's strong enough to defend the household against an intruder, protecting big, strong men. She fixes the washing machine, and then does the laundry, which had been piled up for months while it was broken. She pleasures herself while she's having sex, and she actually seems to be having fun.
She gives no indication whatsoever of having body shame, and seems emotionally open. This is the antithesis, and a potential antidote, to Trump's agonizing projection of his own issues onto women's bodies. He spent his entire campaign and most of his career disparaging women, and has made many public comments about how disgusting he thinks they are physically. Daniels is not taking on those projections. They are not sticking to her.
She is in her power, though not in the New Age or life-coaching meaning of that, but in the tantric sense. She is living evidence that the one with the pussy has the power. We forget so easily that the biological role of the vulva is to experience penetration, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes for reproduction, and sometimes both; and to birth children. In our obsession about sex as sin, and commodifying and denying it, and veiling it, and conflating it with abuse and violence, we forget the simple biology and emotions that are involved. This dance of denial is nearly all rooted in shame, shame that Daniels seems to have no part of, nor investment in.
Stormy is having her heterosexual coming out party on "60 Minutes" in a time when sexual tensions have never been more shrill, and when the need to avoid the conversation of sex and pleasure has never seemed so urgent. We live in such uptight times. Most people are so wound up that it seems even the meekest attempt at an honest conversation might pop their spring. That is what Stormy is about to do.
Thanks to an astrologer named Stefanie Iris Weiss, we know her birth time. Stefanie reached out to her via Twitter and Daniels responded with her data. That's something of a miracle; we have birth times on very few newsmakers these days. Quick overview: She has the Sun and many planets in Pisces; she has the Moon in Scorpio; and she has Sagittarius rising, with the Galactic Core spot on the ascendant, and Neptune in Sagittarius right above the horizon.
Another salient feature is that she has Venus in Aquarius—a kind of avatar position, bestowing both mental and emotional intelligence—conjunct the asteroid Pallas Athene.
I could write a book about this chart, though let's stick to three main elements: Venus, Mars, and the slow-moving planet of our day, Eris. As you may know from my previous coverage, we are in the midst of the Uranus-Eris conjunction, a once-in-a-lifetime event that last occurred in the 1920s.
That's the one where I regularly defer to a media theorist for information—Professor Eric McLuhan, who explained both Eris and its conjunction to Uranus: "The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted."
This conjunction is to our era what Uranus conjunct Pluto was to the 1960s. There was before (1965) and after (1966) and they were distinctly different times. Most of what we think of as the `60s happened in 1966 and beyond. For us, there is before Uranus-Eris (2016) and after (2017).
We are now seeing some correction of the distortion McLuhan is talking about. Eris, an ultra slow-mover taking 558 years to go around the Sun just once, is all over Stormy Daniels's personal charts, especially right now. In Daniels's progressed horoscope (an updated natal chart, not her transits), Mars and Eris are in an exact conjunction—to the degree, right now—something so rare, you might describe it as happening once in six lifetimes.
This is the full embodiment of the sex warrior. What is more interesting is that this conjunction is exactly opposite the most vulnerable spot in Donald Trump's chart: his Chiron in Libra. Had Trump done more of his spiritual work, his Chiron might represent a source of strength; but that does not seem to be the case.
Second, on Sunday night as "60 Minutes" airs, Venus is in an exact conjunction to Eris. This happens once a year, for less than a day; and this year, Sunday is the day. You can think of this as the reconciliation of Eris with her full and overtly sexual female power. This power is about to be turned loose on the nation and its president. It's not just Trump who is trying to hold 100 pounds of fetid, putrid shame in a 50-pound sack. A lot of people have this issue, mostly to a lesser degree. Stormy Daniels is going to help burst the boil. She will get down to business a lot faster than Robert Mueller, who has to fill in all the government forms correctly.
My take is that Daniels is a one-woman sexual revolution, which is being aimed at the presidency. If there is any justice, Trump will be undone by a woman.
With the space remaining, let's consider the kids who are taking America by storm. Note that it's kids born in 2000 or later who are starting this movement. All of them have in their charts two conjunctions (the most powerful aspect) that were exact that year. While these both occur far more frequently than Uranus conjunct Eris, they still pack some energy.
The first is the actual aspect of the new millennium, Chiron conjunct Pluto in Sagittarius. This was exact December 30, 1999. The conjunction held all year, and every person born in 2000 has it. This is about radical spiritual awakening. Think of the combined healing power of Chiron, the evolutionary power of Pluto and the full-focus intention of Sagittarius, all in one place.
Second, in 2000 Jupiter and Saturn were conjunct in Taurus. This is the full expression of one of the most useful signs of the lot: the one about values, self-respect, and sticking to what you start. For these kids, the two largest planets, together about 2,000 times the size of Earth, are focused in a sign that, once it gets going, has the momentum of a freight train burning through the night.
We adults have the opportunity to put our resources, our wisdom and our full support behind these young people, and I suggest we do it without hesitation. They are, in fact, getting a result even in just six weeks: a discussion, as well as protest movements; and an understanding that to get a result, the political system must be fully engaged.
A woman who fully claims her sexuality, and young people who claim their voice and their right to speak: those are the things that have been missing, among a few others we may yet discover.