Hi. I’m Jessica Lanyadoo. I am your astrologer for the hour, and I’m really excited to talk to you about the astrology of the Voting Rights Act. Before I begin, I just really want to thank Tony Howard and Astrology University for making this really important event happen. I also need to thank Patrick Graham and Anders Howerton. Patrick helped me come up with the extensive research required for this talk, and Anders Howerton has helped me organize it. So thanking a bunch of dudes—a little off brand for me, but it’s heartfelt. 

So what I’m going to talk to you about today is, honestly, a lot of things. But I do want to give you a trigger warning because I will be talking about the astrology of the civil rights legislation called the Voting Rights Act, which includes a lot of historical issues related to slavery. And there’s just a lot of emotions with that, and I think it’s actually really healthy to have a lot of emotions about that. So if you don’t have the bandwidth for it, come on back when you do. 

I want to say the evolution of this talk has been really fascinating for me. I started off by really wanting to explore the astrology of the Voting Rights Act, in large part because voting rights are under constant attack these days and the importance of the 2020 election. But as I investigated the research, I became more and more interested not just in the Voting Rights Act, but in being able to use the astrology of that chart and the charts that it’s connected to—which I’m going to get into a lot of charts here today—as kind of a roadmap for activism, civic engagement, and changing both the hearts and minds of individuals and groups within society, but also legislation. So exciting! So there’s a lot to talk about.

A quick word about me. I’ve been an astrologer—a practicing astrologer since 1994, and I’m obsessed with and in love with astrology. And I am the co-founder and astrologer behind Zodiac The Vote. And I have the intention to build out on my website or perhaps on zodiacthevote.com a kind of resource with a lot of charts of different legislative events, but also social events that happened in relationship to the civil rights movement. So my hope is that we can crowdsource this data. There’s so much to understand on this topic!

I am obviously not a historian. People study the history of the US their whole lives and still feel like students, just like people study astrology their whole lives and still feel like students. So I want to say this talk today is not going to be exhaustive. And my hope is that if you hear me say something and you think it’s wrong, or you hear me say something and you are interested in and you think it’s not exhaustive, you think I’ve missed something (because there’s so many things that I couldn’t talk about in this talk), my hope is that it inspires you to do your own research. If you think I’m wrong about something, prove it; go on and do your own research. 

My hope, again, is that we have a building movement of using astrology to understand social and political conditions, not just from a historical standpoint, so that we can mobilize that data and use it to change society for the better. I really think that’s viable for us.

Now, I will also say that when I was doing this—the preparation for this talk, honestly, I had more than 20 charts. It was a lot of charts, too many charts for an hour. So I had to take out women’s suffrage. I had to pull out gay rights. I was unable to address a lot of things that actually are reflected in the astrology of what I’m going to talk about here today. So, again: lots of room for investigation. 

I also want to acknowledge something about language, okay. This is a really important point. Language is powerful, and language is power. And when I talk about the history of voter suppression of African Americans in the United States, which is a great deal of what I’m going to be looking at here today, we have to go back and talk about slavery. And when we talk about slavery, we have a way in the United States of referring to people as slave holders or enslavers. And these terms for me are very problematic. They’re very hygienic. They don’t do anything to address that the people who were slaveholders were human traffickers. They were kidnappers. They were rapists. They were perpetrators of generational harm. They tortured and terrorized people—not just individuals, but groups of people and individuals. And it was very personal. And it was very systemic. 

And, so, I want to just acknowledge that the language that I have accessible to me is not sufficient. But it is the only language—I did some investigating, and it’s the only language I found. So I will be referring to people as enslavers, but I want to acknowledge that that doesn’t do justice to the injustice and the terrorism that those people perpetrated. And when we talk about the history of slavery, we are talking about so many things that never fully get addressed, unless the whole conversation is about the word in some ways. So I just needed to acknowledge that to do justice to this conversation. 

OK let’s get to the astrology!

I want to tell you on the astrological tip that what we’re doing here is we’re following Uranus and Pluto. And what we’re going to be looking at is the ways that Uranus/Pluto transits are really transformational in society, and they are on social level, but not just on a social level. They’re also transformational and noteworthy when it comes to legislation. So interesting and cool. So we’re going to unpack that throughout this talk and in looking at these charts that I pulled for us. 

And I want to say that what that means is we’re not going to fully unpack these charts. We’re going to look for the thorough line of Uranus/Pluto from back into the 1700’s till today, and then we’re going to peak a little forward, okay. But I want to just acknowledge that there’s a lot more work to be done. There’s a lot to read into these charts. But in an hour, I’m only going to be able to do as much as I can do. 

So another thing about the astrology is that I started my investigation—I’m a Capricorn, very conservative. I wanted an eight-degree orb. I wanted to work with an eight-degree orb. In general, that’s what I have done when looking at events. But I have to say that the—there is a convention of using a 10 or a 15-degree orb for these kinds of world events, and I was a little on the fence about that. I have to admit that upon the completion or thus far completion of my investigation, my research, I am pretty well converted to a 15-degree orb. But for the purposes of this talk, to keep it as specific as possible, I am using an eight-degree orb. But I definitely see a case for a 15-degree orb for these kinds of events. 

And I will say the reason why is because when we’re looking at collective events, it really does have a much wider scope and sphere of influence to be able to reach so many people and have such a collective impact that is felt not just through legislative efforts, which takes a lot of human effort and time and repetition and all that kind of crap, but also for the hearts and minds of the populous to be impacted, to mobilize the populous—that’s going to have a wider field of influence. And, so, because of that, honestly, I think moving forward I’m probably going to use that 15-degree orb. But we’re using eight for this talk. And I will say part of what actually really excited me when saw this about the 15-degree orb is the signing of the constitution with a 15-degree orb, it gives us a Uranus/Pluto opposition. That’s kind of cool. Anyways, that will be more exciting to you as we go. 

So I’m going to get to the astrology. Let’s just get to the astrology. As I said, we’re following Uranus and Pluto. And the reason why we’re following Uranus and Pluto is because the Voting Rights Act chart has a Uranus/Pluto conjunction in the sign of Virgo. We’re going to get there in just a second. But what I see through the research is that when Uranus and Pluto meet by transit or when they’re aspecting each other throughout the course of time, major events occur—sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so much. 

So very briefly, Uranus. Uranus is a planet that is associated with liberation. It is the liberation of our minds. It is the liberation of information. It is the liberation of a people. When we are looking at Uranus transits and its impacts on society and societal trends, we’re often looking at crisis, right. So that can be a crisis in consciousness, and it can be a crisis in action and in activity. In terms of liberation, it’s really hard to achieve liberation without crisis, without struggle, and Uranus is sudden and unexpected or surprising in its effects. That’s how Uranus functions. 

When we’re looking Uranus, we are looking at breakthroughs. And we want breakthroughs. We need breakthroughs. But they often involve some breaking—you know, crack a few eggs to get an omelet kind of stuff, right. Now, Uranus is associated with the central nervous system. It’s associated with the internet and electricity. I always think when I’m thinking of Uranus of a plasma ball. Do you remember those from the 1980s? There were just like—it’s just like ball, and you put your hand on it, and it’s clear, and then all this electric looking stuff—I guess it’s plasma—comes to meet your hand. It’s like multiple pathways fire all at once. And then some focus occurs, and change follows the strongest push of energy when it comes to Uranus. 

Now, as far as I understand Uranus in terms of how it impacts us societally, is that it deeply impacts our kind of focus, and it can be all over the map, but when it comes together it can be incredibly impactful. 

And that brings us, my friends, to Pluto. Because Pluto is not about breakthroughs. It’s about breaking points. It’s about things breaking down, and that break down can be associated with the kind of conditions we need in order to have evolution, revolution, transformation. So Pluto is more related to destruction and healing than it is to multiple pathways sparking off kind of breakthroughs, right. 

Pluto is associated with abuse. It is associated with resentment and power and dominion. It is the planet that really has a lot to do with shame—shameful conduct, shameful behavior, the shame we hold after we have done the terrible thing, the shame we hold for what our ancestors did or didn’t do, right. When we are looking at Pluto, we are looking at aggressive, compulsive acts of cruelty and the very energies we need to transform them into acts of spiritual integrity, kindness, and true presence. Pluto—it’s a damn mess. It’s exactly what we need, and it’s really scary. It’s all the things, right. 

Where we find Pluto, and we’re looking at societal issues, we see the risk of violence, and we see the risk of harm created and harm perpetrated by people with power. And, of course, when we’re talking about Uranus and Pluto meeting in the sky from the standpoint of American experience, it is really important to know that we are going to expect—we should reasonably expect societal shifts whenever Uranus and Pluto are gabbing at each other. And those societal shifts sometimes are cultural, and sometimes, frequently, interestingly, they are about laws being ratified. Go figure, right. 

So when we see the system perpetrating harm against its people, we can see astrologically how that is by design. But the amazing and delicious part of that is we can also see the astrological patterns so that we can understand when are the most fertile and effective times for not only creating a social change, but for having that social change ratified into law in American politics. Cool, right. When Uranus and Pluto meet in any transit or aspect, it is powerful. And, so, what we want to be able to do and we want to be excited to do is leverage that power. So now we move to the chart of the Voting Rights Act.

Okay. Hi. We are now looking at the chart of the Voting Rights Act. And for your edification, it is cast for August 6th, 1965 at 12 noon in Washington, D.C. So let’s talk. The Voting Rights Act, first of all, what it is is very, very important. This is actually considered one of the most far reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in United States history. It is an incredibly important piece of legislation because it was successful in doing a number of things. But I want us—and we’ll talk about the kind of like history behind it in just a moment. 


But I want to say that the first thing to pay attention to in this chart is that Uranus and Pluto are conjoined with Venus in the center in Virgo. They’re at 13 and 15 degrees. I’m rounding up from 14.57, right. 13 and 15 degrees. And we have a Saturn opposition. There is a lot to look at and take in in this chart. We’re going to get—we’re going to get to as much of it as we can, but I want to say that within this, what I found really interesting is a reiteration of certain degrees throughout the signs through many of these charts that we’re about to look at, and that is something I want to encourage you to do your own research into as you explore this kind of like thread of astrology and the civil rights movement and to do research because what we’re going to focus on is Uranus and Pluto here. 

Now, a very important thing about the Voting Rights Act is it basically it took the 15th Amendment, which gave African American men the right to vote. So women did not get the vote until meaningfully later, and we’re going to look at the chart of the 15th Amendment in a moment. But it gave African American men the right to vote. But straight away many things were imposed to make it hard or impossible for African American men to actually vote. And two of the most widely talked about things within that were literacy tests and poll taxes, right. And these are things that are still being leveraged in different ways today. 

But what I think is really important to note is that in the 1960s we had, from 1965 through ’67, Uranus and Pluto very close in contact with each other in the sign of Virgo. Now, Uranus and Pluto had not been conjunct in the sign of Virgo since before 580 BC. It’s a long time. So it was a really monumental conjunction. And it was a monumental time in human history. And, of course, we’re focusing here on US history, but there was a lot happening throughout the globe.

Now, I want to say when we are looking at Uranus and Pluto meeting in Virgo with an eight-degree orb, the scope of influence widens in a meaningful way. And, so, we saw in September of 1962 through the summer of ’69 a Uranus/Pluto conjunction in the sign of Virgo. This is very important. And it’s important for us to acknowledge that at this time we achieved the Voting Rights Act, but so many more things than that happened. This was the time when Martin Luther King, Jr. has his greatest moments of advocacy and also it was the time of the march on Selma. 

In this period of Uranus conjunction to Pluto in Virgo, we have the assassination of Malcolm X, but we also had the first African American women to become a federal judge and the first African American person, male or female, to win the popular vote and get elected to Senate. So advancements, setbacks. This was a time of the Watts riots. This was the time where The Black Panther Party formed. And this is an important thing to hold onto for when we get to the two thousand tens, two thousand something somethings—trust. In this period, we had Loving versus Virginia pass. These are all really important movements that both happened within the law and within society, okay. And I’m not naming—it’s not an exhaustive list—not naming all the things. 

But I want to say that what happened in this period is really important to note. When Uranus and Pluto meet, when they conjoin, we have this acceleration to the seeding of ideas. And those seeding of ideas within society challenge the power structures that be. And when we’re talking about The United States of America, we are talking about white supremacy and how it strives to protect itself and how it strives to influence its power over people. And when I say people, I mean all the people. And, so, we’ll, again, unpack this as we go.

When we look at this period what we can see is that it was an electric time of challenging norms and people putting their bodies in the way of oppression and repression and putting themselves out there. This was—of course, so many other things were happening in terms of social movements at this time, and all of them had to do with breaking through with repressive roles within society and people standing into their—standing up and into their power, like really taking their power and then the system fighting back. And the system is both the system of governance, but it’s also the things that uphold it. It’s the people that uphold it. It’s the resistance within societies and communities as well as it is the insistence of communities for change. 

Now, when we look next at the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, this chart was cast for February 12th, 1793 at 12 p.m. And for all of these charts of kind of like legislation passed before 1800, it’s cast for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And then after 1800 it’s cast for Washington, D.C. Just FYI, of course, these times are—they’re not based on anything other than a guesstimation because they didn’t jot down the time for us astrologers unfortunately. 

So the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793—what it did. If somebody was enslaved and they escaped, then the slave owners, the enslavers had a legal right to track that person down, kidnap them, and terrorize them again. It's terrible. This didn’t only do that though. What it also did was it made it so that if there were white people, because of course, the enslavers were all white, if white people wanted to protect escaped enslaved people, that was illegal. And in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which we’re going to look at in a moment, they took that kind of a step further. 

But we see Uranus at 21 degrees of Leo opposite Pluto at 23 degrees of Aquarius, and it’s conjunct to that Midheaven—we can’t really trust that, so there it is though, but it is conjunct to the Sun, right. And there’s a lot of things about this chart that are very interesting, and that, again, I do see reiterate throughout many of these charts. But what I want to say is really important about the Uranus opposition to Pluto is that what they did was they saw that—when I say they, I mean the American government—they saw that enslaved people were trying to escape their situation, and they created legislation to stop them from doing it and to stop white people from helping them to do it, right. 

And what’s really important about this Pluto/Uranus opposition is we see how the kind of government allows their power and dominion—Pluto—to be ratified into law and to be ratified into law as a way to further subjugate individuals of a specific group—Uranus. And to kind of steal from them their personhood—Uranus in Leo. And because we see this opposition in fixed signs, we see the, again, fixed nature of this Fugitive Slave Act. This became a very important piece of legislation, and if we look at it kind of in contrast to the Voting Rights Act, we see something kind of interesting here, which is that the Uranus/Pluto conjunction in Virgo of the Voting Rights Act, it’s at 13 and 15 degrees, respectively. And then when we look to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, we see an interesting reiteration of degrees that I want to point you to. 

The first is the North Node of the Fugitive Slave Act is at 16 degrees of Virgo. It’s the exact same degree as Pluto in the Voting Rights Act. And we have Mars sitting opposite that North Node or conjunct the South Node, again, at 15 of Pieces—now, we’re ignoring the Moon because the time is not a reliable one—and I think that this is a really important thing to pay attention to. That 16th degree—it reiterates. It reiterates. And it’s something for kind of, in my view, a greater point of enquiry. Because throughout—as I said looking at all of these charts, I kind of came up with in many ways more questions than I could answer within my scope of research. So I really hope somebody does more research into this and reach out and share it with me. 

So, okay, within this I want to say one more thing, which is that in the Pluto/Uranus opposition of this era, it’s not only the ratification of this act—of the Fugitive Slave Act. It is also interesting in 1794, the first independent Black church was established, okay. And so we see that there is social changes that are happening within community where people are creating tools for self-governance and self-determination within the system.

Now that brings us to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This is cast for September 18th, 1850, at 12 p.m. And it’s cast for Washington D.C. 

And here we have a Uranus/Pluto conjunction. Now, when we look at the Uranus/Pluto conjunction, we don’t always get great things. We don’t always get tragic things. We get things that essentially seed. So whether we’re looking at social—the seeds of social revolution or social transformation and change, where we’re looking at laws or acts that seed major change, whatever it is that we’re looking at, it kind of like lights a fire—these conjunctions, okay. And when this fire is lit it’s because it’s Uranus and Pluto it is unpredictable what exactly will come, as we see here. 

A lot of things were happening at this time and within this act. We had the end of the slave trade in D.C. Not exactly sure how far that actually went, but it was essentially a kind of greater enforcement of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. So there is greater tension in the United States between the North and South around slavery. And in the South, I mean, you probably know the story. In the South there was—white people really wanted to keep enslavement alive and well, and in the North, there was a growing amount of white people who were not for it. And, so, what happened here was as part of a compromise—now, it sounds like a fucking shitty compromise to me, but as part of a compromise to some things changing around slavery and its—around enslaving humans, the compromise that the North made was to kind of give better teeth to the Fugitive Slave Act. So it became strongly enforced that no one could kind of help an enslaved person who had escaped slavery. Isn’t that fucked up? It’s disgusting.

This further polarized the nation, and this Pluto/Uranus conjunction, which look at how tight that is: 29 degrees and 29 degrees. They’re like a couple minutes a part here. This is not—this is a very tight conjunction. This seeded so much of the discontent, the outrage, and the kind of spiritual, psychological, and kind of civic transformation that precipitated the Civil War. So we know that the Civil War happened in 1861, and the Uranus conjunction to Pluto of this time, it happened 1848 through 1854. And so it wasn’t instantaneous. 

And this is something that I’ve seen through my research here is that with Uranus/Pluto sometimes things catch fire, and they happen in a really big way, very quickly. And often what happens is that exactly that within the culture, within society, but in terms of it becoming ratified into law and passing through all the red tape and through American Congress and all the things that have to happen for a law to be passed, it takes—it sometimes takes longer. So in particular with the conjunctions is where we see seeds that get planted. Sometimes they grow quick. Sometimes not so much.

So let’s take a moment to take a peek here at the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and see that we have a Mars/Mercury conjunction 21 and 17 degrees of Libra. Now, when we go back to the Voting Rights Act, what we see is Mars is at 21 of Libra, and that is such an important degree, again, to pay attention to as we move forward. There is no surprise, although this is not the thrust of my focus here for our talk, that Mars would be present in so many of these charts because the act of enslaving humans is violence—like Mars and Pluto. And it is really about kind of like dominion over and control of other humans and their bodily capacity for self-determination. It's like getting in the way of that. So seeing the role of Mars I think is really important, and I do note that when something hits that 21st degree of Libra or air signs it does trigger so many of these charts that I’m looking at here, that we’re looking at here.

Now, the other thing to note is that the Sun of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is at 25 of Virgo. Now, it’s a little wide—nine degrees away from our Pluto and a little bit more than that from our Mercury, but worth noting. There’s a way that these points get triggered, and they create ripples, and it’s really important for me to name. 

I am focused on the Voting Rights Act, and the reason why I’m going back to these charts is—hopefully, it’s very obvious in terms of the issues of it. But when we try to understand the ways in which a white supremacist government would choose to kidnap and enslave people and then eventually give them personhood rights, but not real ones because they don’t want to have to share or concede power, when we look at the role of that and then look at the liberation of the Voting Rights Act, how it is not just a chart that embodies a moment, and it’s not just a chart that speaks to voting rights—of course, that’s technically what it does—it is a chart—let’s look at that Venus in the center of the Uranus/Pluto—it is a chart that really speaks to self-autonomy, being able to have the values of the populous be better embodied by the people themselves, the individuals themselves. And it comes in contrast to that Saturn in Pieces sitting in stark opposition. And, so, when we look at these charts, what we see is this struggle of power over and over again. But, of course we would because of Pluto and Uranus.

Now, that brings us to the 15th Amendment, my friends. 

Let’s talk about the 15th Amendment. Now, the 15th Amendment happened February 3rd, 1870, again, noon in Washington, D.C. And here we have Uranus at 19 degrees of Cancer forming a sextile to Pluto at 16 degrees of Taurus. So we’re back to that 16 degrees, 19 degrees. We’ve got some nice stuff there. Again, you can see the Moon’s at 19 degrees in this chart; we should ignore it because you can’t trust the Moon—can’t trust the rise because we don’t have a real time here. But we can see a Pluto sextile to Uranus. Finally, some good news. 

So the 15th Amendment, what it did was very important, very fundamental, and absolutely stopped short of the kind of progress we needed and the kind of progress we wouldn’t see until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And it did this: the 15th Amendment denied both the Federal Government and the States from blocking people from voting based on race—that’s it—or based on previously being enslaved. So neither of those things could be used as the basis for not being denied the right to vote. 

Now, of course, women of any race were not allowed to vote. Women were not allowed to vote, so this is specifically kind of empowering Black men to be able to vote. However, what happened with this is that they very quickly created barriers for individuals—many individuals within this group to be able to vote. And they primarily were around poll taxes, so you would have to pay essentially to vote, and literacy tests. And these things were used more in the South than they were in the North. And they were used as means for not just curtailing who could or would show up to vote, but it was also essentially a way to intimidate people from, again, trying. And I don’t mean to blow your mind, but it’s still happening today. It’s absolutely still happening today. 

But the thing that’s so powerful and useful to note here is that we have the iteration of that 22nd degree, so Mars here is 22 degrees, 47 minutes, almost 23, of an air sign again. We have Venus at 13 of Pieces, so it’s triggering that thing that we see in the Voting Rights Act. Uranus is at 13 of Virgo. And the power of Pluto sextile Uranus or Uranus sextile Pluto; I want to just acknowledge the power of the sextile. This was a meaningful amendment to the constitution. This was a powerful change in society, and it was essential; it was foundational to Black people having civil liberties and being able to self-determine and to have citizenship essentially within this country. 

Now, I do want to say there is a name for you to know, okay. This name is Thomas Mundy Peterson. Thomas Mundy Peterson. He was the first Black person to vote under the 15th Amendment, and I just feel like that is a good name to know, an inspiring name to know. Now, the 15th Amendment, like I said, was in 1870, and it wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a long time later, that these kinds of restrictions were pulled away from the 15th Amendment. 

Now, before I move onto the 14th Amendment, which is super-duper important, I want to just acknowledge that there is so much to say about women getting the vote, the struggle for female suffrage, and the racism associated with and kind of linked interwoven within that. And, again, these themes are still playing themselves out because Uranus and Pluto still doing their damn thing. I do have some good news upcoming about Uranus Pluto, so bear with me for that, but there is a lot of investigation to do on a number of issues. And I want to say if you do find yourself inspired to do them, don’t forget the interconnectedness of race and class and gender and ability. There are so many things that kind of go into the civil rights movement and the need for the Voting Rights Act, and it is—there’s some bad news and some good news coming your way from this guy.

Okay, the 14th Amendment. Shall we? 

Okay, 14th Amendment, my friends. Here we go. The 14th Amendment is essentially the equal protection under the law amendment. That’s what this guy is supposed to be doing. We have a July 9th, 1868 Washington, D.C., Uranus is sextile to Pluto. Yay, Uranus sextile to Pluto. We have in this chart a lot going on. Again, we have one of these outer planets conjunct to the Sun. 

So in the first chart that I showed you, the 1793 chart, Pluto was conjunct to the Sun and Uranus was opposite. Now we have Uranus conjunct to the Sun and Pluto’s forming a sextile to them both. Nice little reiteration to see. Now, the 14th Amendment essentially made it possible for Black people, African Americans to become citizens. This is an essential component to the United States rejecting, not just culturally but also legally, slavery, right. This amendment was federally imposed across the States. Doesn’t mean that the States didn’t work and don’t still work to undermine essential parts of the 14th Amendment, but it was federally imposed across the States. 

And I think it’s important for me to note that this excluded indigenous people and, in particular, indigenous communities that maintained tribal ties. And I want to just take this moment to acknowledge that this talk does not encompass Native American rights in the United States because I see it as associated with different astrology, and this is a really important point of focus—not that the other isn’t. It’s just not all things can be done at once. But it is worth naming because it is so important. 

So in the 14th Amendment, women are not included, of course. We’re only talking about men, to be very clear. And at this time, in 1868, we’re not talking about any other group really. That’s not what’s happening. The 14th Amendment is the most litigated amendment in the United States history to date. And most all, if not all, civil rights advancements come from the 14th Amendments—cool, right. Even gay marriage—the supreme court okaying gay marriage. Thank you, 14th Amendment—very, very important. 

Now, again, the 14th Amendment is related to equal protection under the law and an acknowledgement of personhood. And here we see this beautiful Uranus conjunction to the Sun, Mercury, and Venus with Pluto forming a sextile to the whole—the bulk of the schmegegge, the bulk of that stellium. And we can see from this that there is a Uranus standing tall saying freedom and autonomy is essential part of personhood. We see this really forward movement that is a really exciting part of the Uranus/Pluto sextiles and trines. 

When we see Uranus and Pluto forming a sextile or a trine is when we see meaningful advancements, not just in society—that’s cool, in society that happens—but also we see that those advancements become ratified into law. And this, my friends, is such an important thing for us to hold tight because these periods come like clockwork, aka astrologers can predict when they’re coming, and then we can notate that and work with it. 

Now, we have one more chart to look at here. And this is Shelby v. Holder. 

Now I mentioned this chart earlier—I kind of referred to it, so you may remember that, and you may not. Now, I want to just acknowledge this happened June 25th, 2013. I use the 12 p.m., and that was in Washington, D.C. Now, there’s a lot of things that have happened—a lot of things that have happened since the Voting Rights Act and 2013, but it’s an hour-long talk; we’re doing our best here. And, again, I really invite you to do your own research. This is by no means exhaustive. It’s by no means am I giving you all the things. This is just a great little drop in the bucket. Hopefully it wets your whistle, and then you take you drop, and you put it in a glass, and you take a sip. 

Okay. So here we are looking at a Uranus square to Pluto. Now, as we’ve seen, the Uranus square to Pluto can be really challenging. This can be a time where we see real setbacks, and we see the kind of—those with power using that power to really subjugate people’s individual rights. In particular, a specific demographic of peoples’ individual rights, and, in particular, in the United States and in this particular conversation, we are focusing on African American or Black people. 

Now there is this way that the kind of transit that we see of Uranus square to Pluto that is held in this chart, what it does is it stimulates, and it stimulates everybody—not just what I would consider to be the bad guys. And the thing that’s really interesting about this chart, before we get too into the details about of what Shelby v. Holder is, which I will of course explain to you in just a moment, we see again the reiteration of—we’ve got almost 18 degrees, at 17 degrees, 44 minutes of Gemini. So we’ve seen it in the Voting Rights chart. In the Voting Rights Act chart we have it at 15; Pluto is at 15 degrees. Uranus is at 13 degrees of Virgo. So we have these beautiful degrees getting stimulated and something happens.

Now the other thing that I want to do is tell you what Shelby v. Holder is. Okay, it was a supreme court ruling where the Supreme Court agreed that the Voting Rights Act wasn’t necessary to uphold because Black Americans were no longer being oppressed and suppressed systemically in the way that they were in the 1960s when the Voting Rights Act was established. Okay. So, first of all, it’s a very problematic premise. Within 24 hours of these verdicts being implemented, four Southern States immediately enacted or implemented, or they said that they were going to implement restrictive voter ID laws—instantly, didn’t skip a beat. And we are still seeing so much struggle and fight for voter rights, we really are, across demographics in the United States. It’s certainly very clear and kind of at the top of everyone’s mind for the 2020 election, and it's an important issue for every election, okay.

Now, this all said, I want to tell you a little bit more about what happens in this Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn phase. This happened between the dates of 2011 and 2017, and at this time a lot has happened. A lot happened in the US, including Trump got the nomination, won the election and took office—that happened. How very Uranus square to Pluto is that, righ?! It’s just this kind of like bully moving forward and saying like, “I’m draining the swamp. That’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to protect the little guy. I’m here to give you, you as an American your individual freedoms. You don’t have to wear a mask. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” But all the while, he's doing his own personal power grabs—very, very complicated, very problematic, and very Uranus square to Pluto. 

Now, in this period, a bunch of other really notable things happened. Alicia Garza first hosted the phrase, Black Lives Matter on Facebook in—I think it was in July of 2013. And she is, of course, one of the creators of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, a lot of other things have happened. A lot of other things have happened. But let’s not forget that in 1965, when Uranus and Pluto met in Virgo, and here again we have that chart.

That’s when The Black Panthers movement started. So, again, so here in ’65, we have a conjunction, and in 2013 we have a square, but we see social movements coming together in response to oppressive, violent, and repressive regimes and people coming together to mobilize for their own self-determination and liberation. That’s powerful. 

Now, unfortunately, in particular, in this squares and oppositions, also the conjunctions often, it seems like what happens is we see kind of explosions, right. It’s really difficult explosions. Luckily, in the sextiles and the trines between Uranus and Pluto in particular, it seems when these degrees get activated—and this is a cause for greater research and investigation, which I hope to do, and I invite you to do as well—what also happens is social movements, political movements gain traction. They become ratified into laws. So it’s not just that hearts and minds change. It’s not just that people come together. Those things happen, but also laws change. Rulership is forced to change in response to the needs and the demands of the people. 

And this is particularly fantastic for me to be sharing with you because I am a negative person—I mean, I’m a Capricorn. Let me just say I’m a Capricorn, and I don’t have a great sense of optimism looking forward. But through my research, I got actually a spark of hope, and it’s because Uranus will be forming a very long trine to Pluto pretty soon. From the dates of July 10th of 2023 through December 10th of 2023, Uranus will be in Taurus forming a trine to Pluto in Capricorn. I don’t have a slide for it; I apologize. On June 1st, 2024 through January 25th, 2025, Uranus will be in Taurus, and Pluto will kind of go back and forth between Capricorn and Aquarius forming an in and out of sign trine to Uranus. 

And then the good news gets good. May 3rd, 2025 through June of 2030, five whole years of Uranus and Gemini forming a trine to Pluto and Aquarius. So we have a gorgeous five year span of air trine between Uranus and Pluto, and before that we still have Uranus/Pluto trine activity. And in this time, what we can expect is movement towards greater social justice. Now this isn’t going to come because planets are moving through signs and forming 120- degree aspects; it will come because the populous is motivated. 

Now, unfortunately, a lot of negative, scary, bad things can happen leading up to 2023, 2025. However, those dates are not far from us. We as concerned citizens, we as activists and organizers and astrologers and friends and lovers and neighbors and voters, we can know that what we are doing now in the wake of so many of the consequence of centuries of mishegas and pain and struggle, that these things will, if we stay with the work, bring us to this Uranus/Pluto trine, where not only can we have hearts and minds get in line for the liberation and abundance—the liberation and thriving I guess is what I want to say, the liberation and thriving of people, the equality—authentic equality of people, but we can expect that these things will be ratified into law. 

I look at these trines, and I think, “Oh, are more people going to get into politics as a response to the repressive and frightening times that we’re in now? Are more people going to be catalyzed? Are more people going to be motivated and stay motivated to be a part of the solutions we so desperately need in this period?” I actually am pretty hopeful that the answer is yes. 

So, my loves, when you engage with the world, when you feel demoralized by what is happening, look ahead, not too far and organize your energy and your efforts to this Uranus/Pluto trine. And let’s look out for the specific degrees that can really trigger our hope for not only greater justice but laws that enforce the need and rights of others. It is kind of exciting. 

Thank you so much for joining me for this exploration!

Now go vote. 

Byyye.