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Predicting the Next President: Part I

by Sat Siri Khalsa, Board Member, Council of Vedic Astrology

“A king is the slave of history … every act of [a king’s,(or of a presidential candidate’s)] that seems to them an act of their own free will is, in the historical sense, not free at all, but is connected with the whole course of history and determined from eternity.” ¾ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III

This article surveys the charts of Senator John McCain, currently the Republican frontrunner for the nomination, and of a few Democratic contenders, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton. Several other candidates, especially more Republicans, will emerge in the months before the finalizing of the nominations in the spring and summer of 2008. Yet, even now one horoscope stands out so clearly on its own that we don’t have to wait for the challengers before attempting a prediction. In this article I will briefly note the others and concentrate on the one chart that intersects the most, as every President’s must, with the chart of the USA.

USA Chart

The chart of the USA is set at 2:33 p.m. on July 4th, 1776. This has long been a controversy among astrologers, but knowing that there is an extant diary of John Hancock, first signatory of the Declaration of Independence, reporting that the “great white document” was brought before the Continental Congress at just after 2 p.m. on July 4th and ratified thereafter, how can we not take that climactic hour, with its ascendant in sidereal Libra, as the birth chart for the nation, and the only matter left for quibbling is what navamsa describes this momentous event. Of the few possibilities soon after 2 p.m., one alone snaps into place as the magnificent machine of destiny: the Aries rising navamsa, with exalted Sun in the first showing the birth of a great nation. A declaration of independence, a separative event, must have separative planets prominently positioned to reflect the force coming “from eternity,” as Tolstoy would say. The separative planets are Sun, Saturn, Rahu, and the lord of the 12th in any chart. In the USA navamsa, all the separative planets are dominant. Sun in Aries in the navamsa is the dispositor of Saturn, the atmakaraka, or chief among the planets, occupying Leo in the 5th house of political power. Saturn, the karaka for democracy, the antithesis of monarchy, is joined in the 5th by Mercury to show the several colonies taking power jointly. Rahu in its fallen sign of Sagittarius trining Sun and Saturn in the 9th shows the breaking from tyrannical foreign rule, and Jupiter the 12th lord is in Aquarius, the 11th house representing the Continental Congress, ruled by Saturn and co-ruled by Rahu. Thus we have a picture of a perfectly balanced, deliberate, fortunate and powerful act of making an independent nation.

Mars, the navamsa Lagna lord, gone to its most dangerous placement in the 7th house, shows the path of war now being embarked upon through this treasonous act. The Moon as the 4th lord in the 8th shows the exploitation of the people and the draining of resources by the colonial system, as a trigger for this act of revolution and a picture of the throes of birth the country must now suffer through.

Checking back through all past Presidents’ horoscopes, we can see that the Sun of every single former President has strong links to the USA chart, as befits Sun being karaka for political power. All candidates for the Presidency must have natal Suns that tie in strongly to our country. As well, the 10th house from the Sun shows the skill and leadership a person displays in life. How do the Suns and 10th from Sun fare in the charts of the 2008 crop of candidates?

John McCain

Senator John McCain has his Leo Sun opposite the USA Moon, which makes for a popular leader, but Sun is too afflicted in his natal chart by being placed in the 12th house. While this placement shows Sen. McCain’s history as a prisoner of war, Sun is opposed by Saturn and trined by Rahu and joined to an enemy Venus ¾ not a recipe for political success. Also, McCain’s Sun in Leo doesn’t harmonize with the USA chart, as it falls in the bhadakasthana, the 11th house, place of obstacles and threats to life for the USA chart. Libra rising charts have a dubious connection to Sun, which gets debilitated in Libra. This is a country born in revolt against kings.

The 10th from Sen. McCain’s Sun is the sign of Taurus, unoccupied, with its ruler Venus at 29 degrees. Venus is the atmakaraka, the planet of the deepest spiritual engagement, and being lord of the 10th from Sun with Sun itself it shows the depth of commitment to serving his country felt by this man; but at 29 degrees, and in the 12th house with Sun, and having no strong connection to any planet in the USA chart except for an across-the-sign-border conjunction to the USA Mars at 0 Gemini, there is no way the Senator could become Chief Executive. Given that Saturn will be transiting his Sun for much of 2007 and during the presidential primaries in ’08, it is not likely he will end up even with the Republican nomination.

Barack Obama

Among the Democrats, the candidate currently generating the excitement is Barack Obama, the freshman Senator from Illinois. Since we don’t now have the exact birth time (a CVA field operative is researching this information), Obama’s chart is set for the Karaka Lagna, putting the atmakaraka Mars as the rising point. Obama’s Sun is joined to the USA Rahu. The USA Rahu has yogakaraka status, occupying the favorable sign of Cancer in the 10th house and joined to the 9th lord Mercury. Even better, Rahu sits right on the USA Ghatika Lagna (see last month’s article on Special Lagnas), the site of power. Obama’s Sun finds a dramatic, public as a neon sign placement in the USA 10th house; Obama’s Sun shines brightly on Rahu, making him the “rock star” of American politics. Rahu, karaka of racial and ethnic diversity, draws in Obama as a potential first African-American president. (Interestingly, the African-American Frederick Douglass was nominated as a vice presidential candidate on a ticket headed by a woman for the Equal Rights Party in 1872.)

With double Mahapurush yogas formed by both Jupiter and Mercury in his navamsa chart, Obama is indeed an outstanding individual, as his curriculum vitae supports ¾ editor of the Harvard Law Review, and community canvasser before entering politics. Jupiter opposing Mercury in dual signs in the angles gives him the mental flexibility to approach problems from all sides with an academic’s love for teasing out the true solution, while stretching everyone’s learning capacity. In the rasi chart, Obama’s Mars as AK shows a spiritual approach to questions of war and peace, amplified by Rahu conjunct Mars. His early and utterly doubt-free anti-Iraq invasion stance raised him to national attention. Additionally he has more close ties to the USA chart than we have space to go into. He will continue to be an important player on the political stage. But does he have the nod from destiny, this time? Unfortunately Obama’s Sun, for all its tie to the USA glamour spot, lacks clout in his own natal chart. Obama’s Sun falls in the 12th house and is opposed by Saturn and debilitated Jupiter. It lacks a connection to his own natal Ghatika Lagna. The tenth from his Sun is Aries ruled by Mars, and Mars at 29 Leo has no connections to the USA chart except for an across-the-sign-border square to USA Mars at 0 Gemini. And in Obama’s dasamsha, the tenth divisional chart, which spells out the strengths in career, the Sun is in the Rahu-Ketu axis with Saturn. And for all the mania, other than some community activism and a well-timed speech at the ’04 convention, what has Obama really done? Obama could be seen as a great catch as the bottom half of the ticket, but his own name is not likely to cover the marquee.

John Edwards

John Edwards is the 2004 Vice-Presidential candidate still hankering for the 2008 race. Edwards’s Sun trines the USA Saturn, as did Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Sun. Saturn is vitally important for the USA chart, as it is the atmakaraka, symbol of democracy and the common man. Edwards runs on a populist theme, presenting himself as champion of the poor. Edwards also has Rahu conjunct the USA Ketu. Whenever two charts are joined by opposing nodes, each has a refreshing influence on the other, helping to reverse the ingrained grooves of neurosis. However, Edwards’s salutary influence is unlikely to be enough to raise him to the top, as his Sun falls in his own 12th house and in the USA 8th house. In the 10th from Edwards’s Sun is Aquarius unoccupied and ruled by his own Saturn, very close to the USA Saturn, but, sadly, retrograde.

Al Gore

Another rerun possibility is Al Gore, but the Sun in his chart is not a fit. Pisces Sun, in a 6-8 quincunx to the USA Lagna, and square the USA Sun, falling in the USA 6th house, in the role of the gadfly. Al Gore’s Sun in benevolent Pisces in his own 9th makes him a man of vision, while not a man of presidential destiny. Gore’s Sun is very strong in itself, being exactly opposite his own Ghatika Lagna, but it is just not custom configured with the USA chart. Tenth from his Sun has the powerful duo of Moon Jupiter in Sagittarius, all opposing the USA Gemini clump. Gore is gifted to publicize the battles, the inconvenient truths, that our time demands we face.

Hillary Clinton

This leaves Hillary Clinton’s chart, and finally here we find that unlikely, perhaps unliked, but unmistakable concatenation of planetary convergences demonstrating the untouchable operations of Tolstoyan “higher forces.” Most importantly, Clinton’s chart has a maha parivartana between her atmakaraka Moon in the 5th house of power and Saturn in the 10th, the house of the government. Saturn in Cancer in the 10th or 1st house is known as the “throne yoga.” Saturn is bolstered by Mars with its debilitation canceled, showing an emphasis on overcoming any unconscious weakness in the wielding of command. Debilitated planets in kendras often exhibit great strength, as if exerting themselves to over-compensate in the areas they rule. Mars owns the 10th from the Arudha Lagna while sitting in “the lion seat,” the first from the Arudha Lagna. Arudha Lagna, often underestimated by the untrained astrologer, is the point where the Lagna expresses itself as an image in the minds of the native and everyone else. It is the great maya we weave, and Mars and Saturn occupy Clinton’s Arudha Lagna in strength. These planets also are in the 10th from the Sun, which is in the actual Lagna with its own debilitation canceled through the presence of Venus. To restate all this, the power of the chart in a nutshell:

Lord of 10th from Arudha Lagna (AL) is in the AL which is in the 10th from the Lagna and from Sun; Saturn and atmakaraka Moon have an exchange from the 10th and the 5th, the 10th which also is the AL, and where Saturn joins the USA Midheaven. Saturn is boosted by Mars with directional strength and conjunct the USA Rahu.

Debilitated planets can be strong in several ways, all of which apply in Clinton’s chart. Mars, while debilitated in the rasi chart, is exalted in navamsa, for one thing. Also, in Jaimini, debilitated planets are singled out as potentially conferring large wealth, as they are most ready to receive. Also, debilitated planets mark the female end of the spectrum (and can be used in the saptamsa chart to tell which children will be female.) It is fitting that the first serious woman candidate for the Presidency has an angular debilitated Sun. The Sun overcoming its debilitation by virtue of the strong Venus illustrates Clinton’s unprecedented path to the Presidency ¾ through the First Ladyship.

The connections of Clinton’s to the USA chart are exceptional. Most importantly, the USA chart not only has Libra rising like Clinton, but also has Moon in Aquarius with a maha parivartana with Rahu in Cancer in the 10th. Maha parivartanas are fairly unusual, and to have two so similar in nature is astounding. Currently the USA is in its second 120-year Vimsottari dasa cycle; its dasa lord now is Moon, activating the parivartana, so we need to pay special attention to this. The USA Moon-Rahu exchange shows the USA as the melting pot, inviting peoples of the world to make a new home in the culture-free land, the land of the “tumult of anarchy,” as De Tocqueville described it. For the USA the planet that exchanges with Moon is Rahu; for Clinton it is Saturn. Rahu and Saturn are, in some ways, interchangeable. Rahu’s cognate or brother is Saturn; both are co-rulers of Aquarius. Italicizing this deep-rooted link, Clinton’s Saturn is exactly conjunct the USA midheaven, in the 28th degree of Cancer. Parivartanas between the 5th and 10th lords are rajayogas conferring extraordinary power and fortune on a chart. Clinton’s Mars, also part of her parivartana, is conjunct the USA Rahu, giving her chart the surprising status to become Commander in Chief of the world's number one military.

The harshness of the planets giving such preeminence to the Hillary Clinton chart accounts for the frisson of recoil that surrounds the public attitudes toward her at this early stage of the campaign. Her unpopular vote to support the Resolution to Authorize Force Against Iraq seems inevitable given the malefic cast to her 10th house and its link to the USA 10th house, inevitable in the Tolstoyan sense that leaders act not from some privileged higher intuition but are pushed around by the same conflicting mélange of self-interest and dim apprehension of truth that the rest of us act from, and that only planetary motions can explain.

Hill and Bill

Clinton’s secret weapon or all-too-apparent baggage, depending on your point of view, is Bill Clinton. Her nakshatras tell about this important circumstance. Her Lagna and Venus, the Lagna lord, along with Mercury (Mercury represents serial things as in serial presidencies, like Bush and Bush or Clinton and Clinton) are in Vishakha nakshatra. The deity of Vishakha is dimorphic. Both Indra, the power king, and Agni, the god of fire or aspiration, govern this one realm, just as Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton both will preside over her campaign and presidency. Vishakha is a Type A nakshatra symbolized by a triumphal archway. Vishakha has the shakti, or inborn power, to achieve many goals and has as its driving desire “to gain the greatest splendor among the gods.”

All this is dramatically supported by the USA horoscope. Clinton’s combination of Sun, Mercury and Venus trines the USA’s combination of Sun, Jupiter, Venus and Mars in the 9th house. The USA’s is a family-friendly horoscope with all those planets grouped together, and has a special fondness for “dynasties,” as the press likes to call linked pairs of presidencies. (Although in the old days a dynasty meant a lineage of kings or pharaohs spanning a century or so.) One of the realms of the 5th house is succession and continuity, as in heirs and descendants, all implied by the term “children”; this is highlighted by the USA Moon occupying the 5th house along with the USA Arudha Lagna (AL) in the 5th. Since the USA Moon dasa is running, continuity is a preferred outcome. The Moon’s exchange with Rahu for the USA puts it into action with a planet that tries to make things last — Saturn, the karaka for longevity. The baby-boomers want the party to keep going.

Dasas and D10s

In Vimsottari Dasa Clinton will be in Venus/Saturn at the election, while the USA is in Moon/Venus. Venus is her Lagna Lord in its own sign, while Saturn is in the 10th from Venus and has all the strong attributes already recited. In the dasamsha Venus is the 11th lord in its own sign and house of gains and honors and is trining Mars-Jupiter in the 3rd and Sun-Rahu in the 7th. Venus opposite the Moon brings in the theme of marriage, and the participation by her partner in her victory. Moon is in another maha parivartana, this time from the 5th of power to the 1st house of leadership, where Ketu the ruler of Scorpio joins Mercury in directional strength, showing the improbable second chance at leadership by someone with the skills and business sense to pull it off — the wife, yet. Ketu can represent the wife when marriage is seen as the carriage of enlightenment.

Dasa lord Venus is in the stable sign of Taurus, providing lots of wealth, and in the dasamsha as an individual chart with degrees it is in the nakshatra Rohini, showing the favorite one out of all the 27 wives of Chandra. In the drekkanas, Venus is in the 3rd part of Taurus, symbolized by a man with an elephant’s body who “wants to capture the famous animals of the forest,” meaning someone who wants to be with the rich and successful.

The bhukti lord Saturn could be cause for concern falling in the 8th from Venus and 6th from dasamsha lagna, but Saturn does well in dusthanas. Saturn in the 8th is a karaka for longevity. Saturn as 7th lord gone to its negation in the 6th may show the burying of the baggage of scandal left from the impeachment of Bill Clinton during his presidency, as Saturn disposits Rahu of scandal afflicting Sun in the 7th house. Saturn in the 6th has been described as being in a state of ecstasy because it thwarts the aspirations of enemies and rivals. Saturn is in friendly Sagittarius with Jupiter its dispositor in the 10th from it, and Saturn is afflicting by its 10th aspect that selfsame Jupiter, lord of the 6th, showing the opponent. Taking the dasamsha chart as its own miniature chart, Saturn is in Mula nakshatra which has the shakti of breaking and crushing, in this case the opponent. The goddess of Mula is Nirriti, who according to Kelleher, is a precursor of Kali who “normally ... is thought of as a goddess of misery and suffering. In fact, she is a goddess who protects and heals people who are going through misery and suffering.” Mula people make good crisis management people and work to remove the problems of others, Kelleher says.

Mula also has, like Kali, an aggressive warrior side, which can be difficult for a female to embody. As Kelleher goes on, “females with Mula prominent ... commonly try to hide or suppress this [assertive or angry] side of themselves.” This dasamsha Saturn of Clinton’s¸ which by degree is just opposite the degrees of Venus and Jupiter in the 9th house of the USA rasi chart, accounts for some of the tension people feel when contemplating the idea of the Clinton candidacy. “She can’t win!” is a frequent chorus. But just that wail of worry could be a word to the savvy contrarian about the strength of the chart; its tie to the national horoscope should power Clinton ahead, surprising many of us (but not the well-informed astrologers) over the next two years.

Just one more starry wonder in the dasamsha chart:

Venus in Rohini is in the nakshatra ruled by Moon; Saturn in Mula is in the nakshatra ruled by Ketu; Moon and Ketu make the maha parivartana that echo the parivartana in the rasi chart that echoes the parivartana in the USA horoscope

¹ Horoscopes of the Western Hemisphere, by Marc Penfield, has references to the time of ratifying the Declaration. Penfield and other tropical astrologers have taken 2:20 p.m. for the time, while the navamsa at 2:33 p.m. is preferable and can be justified by events and dasas.

² The chara atmakaraka, or planet temporarily (for this lifetime) representing the King, Self, or Soul, is the planet with the highest degree of longitude of any of the planets in the chart. It represents the highest karmic attainment, revealing the field of most intense endeavor and spiritual learning for the native. The atmakaraka in the rasi chart is studied in the navamsa as well to see the innate sensitive area for growth.

³ See Horoscopes of the U.S. Presidents, Doris Chase Doane, Professional Astrologers Incorporated, Hollywood, 1971, for a listing of horoscopes through President Nixon.

⁴ The chart time has been provided by Marguerite dar Boggia, a CVA member who wrote an article in the Vedic Astrology magazine of Dr. Charak rectifying Hillary Clinton’s chart, which is here tweaked by two minutes.

⁵ Path of Light, Volume I, by James Kelleher, Ahimsa, San Francisco, 2006, p. 382. See his full and excellent descriptions of shaktis and fruits of nakshatras sourced in the Upanishads.
Path of Light, Volume II, by James Kelleher, Ahimsa, San Francisco, 2006, p. 62

⁶ Kelleher, op.cit. Vol. I, p. 392