Like people, countries have astrology charts that are based from the date and time of their inception.  There is a great deal of argument among astrologers over which is the “real” chart for the US, and if you like you can read more about that argument and why I use the Sibly chart here.

In my Astrological State of the Union post from 2009 I wrote:

The United States is at an astrological crossroads.  The US progressed Mars turned retrograde last year, and is searching for a new direction.  Pluto, god of transformation, has been challenging the US Midheaven, the point of public perception.  The qualities that gave the US its power over the past 400 years will not work for the next 400, and the nation will have to adapt.  Economic systems are changing and becoming much more tenuous and fluid as they go global.  Traditional social systems are weakening and require a new way of looking at the way humans form families and cultural groups.  As a people we must become more lithe and limber so that we can adapt to the changing collective, or we will not survive the 21st century.  This is not a time to look back and long for the conservative values of the 1950s – those days are over.  There is a new day dawning, and we will have to be ready for it.

This is no less true today.  The transit of Pluto, planet of destruction and regeneration, in a square to the US Midheaven oversaw the breakdown of much of American life which resulted in the appearance of a decline in the American role as world superpower.  Uranus, the planet of radical change and revolution, is preparing to transit in opposition to the US Midheaven.  Uranus is known as the “awakener” because it stimulates a view that is different from the everyday world view that keeps our lives in order.  Under this Uranus cycle there will be a growing awareness among the common people that the lives that many of us knew have been irrevocably changed, and there will be a growing unease about the future.

Uranus and Pluto are getting ready to face off in a powerful cycle such as the 1960s when the alignment of these two stimulated the social change and upheaval of that period.  In 2014 and 2015 the square (90 degree aspect) between these two planets will reach the degree of the Sun in the US chart and stimulate some radical events that are likely to continue the ongoing battle between the forces that seek to return to the ways of the past, even though the bridges have burned behind them, and the forces that demand change in a radical and perhaps unsustainable form.

In the meantime, though, there is a “double whammy” of Uranus and Jupiter events beginning with a square of transiting Uranus to the US Jupiter this year beginning in April.  Jupiter in a national chart represents the national ideology and belief system, and with Uranus demanding a radical departure from the past we are likely to see a further splintering of religious dogma and organized religion over the next year.  But this cycle will also stimulate excitement and greater readiness for the changes that are necessary in order to move into the next phase of the nation’s ability to sustain itself.  Then Jupiter will conjoin Uranus beginning in July (through next February) which could stimulate greater innovation and new ideas.

The death of an old way of living leads to a new beginning, but only if we can let go of the past and move forwards.  This Uranus/Jupiter “double whammy” can provide the fuel for this to happen if we allow the change to unfold.  If we cling to the past, things will not go well under this influence.  Change is inevitable.

In the summer of 2012 there is a large number of Jupiter cycles which will create expansion and help the changes to find their ground and become anchored in the new reality.  After that point the transits are generally favorable for growth and national confidence that can put the nation’s finances back on track.