Perhaps the most important indicator of the outcome of the 2012 U.S. presidential election is the planet Mercury. This little powerhouse rules virtually every aspect of the electoral process, from the data processing and decision-making of the populace; to the voting places, machines, and ballots; the advance and exit polls; and the tabulation, recording, and reporting of the vote. And on Election Day 2012, Mercury forms its retrograde station, at 5:58 p.m. EST, just as after-work voting heats up on the east coast.
The importance of this event is highlighted by Mercury’s placement, from the perspective of the nation’s capitol. (1) Mercury is exactly on the Descendant at 4° Sagittarius, an angular position that emphasizes Mercury’s pivotal role in determining our choice. Angular planets are strongly emphasized, “louder” than they normally would be, and carry an out-of-proportion weight in the chart. The Descendant symbolizes how we relate with others, the alliances we form, and the ways we use these to structure our interactions with each other.
A retrograde station signifies a reversal, a pause in the forward momentum of the affairs governed by that planet. Although no planet ever actually travels backward, it can appear to, from our vantage point here on earth, and these times inaugurate periods of stepping back to reconsider where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Mercury retrograde in particular is (in)famous for creating problems and glitches with data, information and communication, and for evoking some very unlikely circumstances while generally pretty effectively gumming up the works.
Four degrees of Sagittarius is also the degree of a Black Hole, a deep space anomaly that promotes instability, pervasive change, reversal, and the substitution of an alternate reality for the one previously in place. Black Holes are stellar remnants of collapsed stars whose gravitational force is so great, not even light can escape them (hence the name). They both attract and drain energy, and represent the expenditure or waste of vast amounts of energy and resources. When Black Holes are active, things are not as they seem — the surface appearance belies the underlying reality.
Mercury coming to station exactly on a Black Hole is a rare event. It has only happened once before on Election Day in the U.S., and that was the calamitous election of 2000. Yes, the contest that brought us the Florida voting debacle, with its Palm Beach Butterfly Ballot, the mysterious 16,000 “anti-votes” cast for Al Gore in Volusia County, and the interminable recounts, with their fascinating new lingo of hanging, dangling, dimpled, and pregnant chads. A succession of legal challenges eventually led to a 5/4 split decision along Party lines in the U.S. Supreme Court, which handed the presidency to George W. Bush, loser of the popular vote, some five weeks later.
But that was a direct station, with Mercury poised to resume normal forward motion. In 2012 we’re dealing with a retrograde station, and the effect could conceivably be much worse. The period surrounding the station is known as the “Mercury storm,” and that’s a very apt descriptor, as the period can be chaotic, random, and turbulently hectic.
Vote tampering is a very real possibility, with the Black Hole’s propensity for altering realities, and we’ve already seen a strong push toward making many of these potential votes disappear even before they’re cast, in true Black Hole style. Voter suppression is back big time in the U.S., with almost half the states passing new voting laws since 2010. In GOP-run legislatures across the country, tougher voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising poor and minority voters, likely Democratic constituencies, threaten to rob as many as five million Americans of their Mercury-ruled power of choice and having their voices heard. Changes in early voting procedures and times have added to the likelihood that not everyone who wants to will be able to cast a vote. (For example, in Florida, the electoral armpit of America, Republican legislators eliminated early voting on the Sunday before the election, the traditional day when black churches organized and bussed their congregants to the polls.)
Mercury also rules the weather, and station periods are notorious for erratic or extreme conditions. If the weather turns foul on Election Day, voter turnout will be even further suppressed. (Weather has already been a factor in the campaigns: the first day of the Republican National Convention was cancelled due to concerns over Hurricane Isaac, and Obama’s DNC nomination acceptance speech was moved indoors, to a much smaller venue, over threat of severe thunderstorms.)
With Mercury on a Black Hole on Election Day, both advance and exit polls are virtually meaningless; whatever the pundits and experts say, this election has a mind of its own, and its outcome is very much in doubt. This also raises the specter of deliberate manipulation of the polls, in an attempt to either deflate enthusiasm or encourage over-confidence in one camp or the other, both of which can result in fewer voters bothering to show up.
Adding fuel to the fire is Mercury’s contact with other celestials at its station, principally a square to Neptune and Chiron at 0° and 5° Pisces and a trine to Uranus at 5° Aries. All these points are also retrograde, implying a less than helpful stance in how they manifest and a willingness to go against the grain or promote reversals.
Neptune here suggests that confusion and illusion will be the order of the day, along with a healthy dose of deception or misdirection. Beware electoral sleight-of-hand in the tabulation process, with electronic voting systems that are notoriously easy to hack and amend. Chiron evokes maverick behaviors and suggests a wounding of some sort, while Uranus rules shocks, upsets, regime change, and sudden, unexpected disruption, and also ties directly, via its rulership of electronics, to potential e-vote fraud.
Expect system breakdowns, long lines, disputed results, and general confusion or chaos. Many races may not be decided on election night, and Jupiter in an exact inconjunct to the day’s Sun (14° Gemini to 14° Scorpio) may indicate that the final decision ends up in the courts again.
Stationing Mercury also makes some dramatic contacts to both candidates’ charts, and this emphasizes the zodiacal areas they share. Mercury is squared Obama’s natal Chiron at 5° Pisces and Romney’s natal Mars at 6° Pisces. That could spell a wounding for Obama and a victory for Romney, but regardless, it’s a sure marker of a real slugfest between the contenders, opening wounds and making for a very nasty campaign.
Mercury is also trine to an exact synastric conjunction of Romney’s Saturn with Obama’s Mercury, both at 2° Leo. This could suppress (Saturn) Obama’s vote (Mercury), and has already soured his message (Mercury), emphasizing fear (Saturn) over the “hope and change” banner of 2008.
Finally, Mercury conjoins Romney’s natal Descendant at 1° Sagittarius and opposes Obama’s natal Moon at 3° Gemini. This could signal a fundamental alteration in how the public (Moon) reacts to both men, with Romney forming a closer bond (Descendant). There is also a suggestion, with the Black Hole involved, of an unexpected domestic (Moon) alteration for Obama, which could signal a return to Chicago.
Whatever the outcome, the 2012 election is likely to be another for the record books, as Mercury stationing retrograde on a Black Hole says, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
Editor’s note:
(1) The chart set for 5:58 p.m. on November 6 in Washington, D.C. has 4° Gemini on the Ascendant and Mercury at 4° Sag on the Descendant.
Bio: Alex Miller is a professional writer and astrologer, author of The Black Hole Book and The Urban Wicca, former editor of “The Galactic Calendar,” and past president of The Philadelphia Astrological Society. His pioneering work with Black Holes in astrological interpretation began in 1991, when his progressed Sun unwittingly fell into one. His work with deep space points and asteroids appears monthly at DayKeeper Journal. Alex can be reached for comment or services at glaktix@verizon.net
22 Comments
Thank you Alex for your fine article on black holes and mercury stations on election days. Do you think black holes work in personal natal charts as well?
Thank you again
..Kate
Hi Kate,
Thanks for commenting, I thought you’d like this..
I await Alex’s response..
Mary
hi, kate!
thanks for your input. the answer to your question is an emphatic “YES!” if anything, natal black hole contacts are much more powerful, in that they continue to influence the life on an ongoing basis, as opposed to a mundane event, where their effects may reverberate for years, but they themselves are no longer active, strictly speaking, since the event has passed.
but in the birth chart, they remain a potent element affecting the affairs of that planet, throughout the life. if you’d like a list of the points i currently use to check out your own chart, email me privately. (and that same offer to any other reader who so desires.)
Love Katy, Mary , and Alex I have been reading in Elle forever! You all get it right every time!!! Thanks for all and hugs all around. Go OB!
Perhaps I’m in denial. Perhaps I’m a lousy astrologer, and as a psychotherapst, an even worse judge of human behaviour, but damn, I cannot allow myself to even imagine for one second that we will have a president, by the name of Mitt Romney.
hi, judith! thanks for your comment. i know how you feel – that’s just how i felt about george w. bush, both times.
and that example may be instructive here, in more ways than one. he did lose the 2000 election, both by the popular vote, and by the florida recount, after it was finally allowed to proceed, post-inauguration. and IMO, he would have lost in 2004 except for massive nationwide evote fraud, particularly in ohio, but in many other battleground states as well.
like those years, we may be seeing voting ‘irregularities’ which install romney in the white house.
but it’s also important to rememeber that astrology cannot truly predict, IMO. it shows a trend, it susses out the most likely possibility, but it is not determinative. think about it – literally millions of people across the globe have absolutely fabulous transits every day, but we don’t see millions of fantastic outcomes. astrology shows potential, it does not create results.
from what i see, the day seems to favor romney, but that is not inevitable.
AFTER WATCHING THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TONIGHT, I CAN’T IMAGINE ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WANTING OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR ANOTHER FOUR GRUESOME YEARS.Everything is spiraling out of control. The price of gas in New Jersey has risen 12 cents in one week and is now almost 4.00 for Regular, and the price for a barrel of oil is $86, really low. Why is the gas so high? Obama is not a leader, nor is he a businessman, he is merely a shallow politician who has brought the USA from a powerhouse to a pigmy in less than 4 years. The country is in a shambles. He is also a liar as indicated by the highly placed Neptune in his chart, and the outrageous lies he told tonight – that he obviously thinks are true. It’s pathetic.Romney’s most highly elevated planet, at the MC in the 10th is Venus, that’s why is is soft spoken and a gentleman –
and smiles a lot 0 the guy is mild mannered but not a wimp. If you are a communist or socialist then you think Obama should be in office for another 4 years.
It’s really as simple as that.
For Alex Miller: I enjoyed your ecellent analysis of the Election Day chart. One comment – Mercury is not the ruler of weather, it is one 3 factors of it. Mercury is the indicator of the wind. The Sun rules the temperature and its placement at each ingress is used for 13 weeks, the second most important factor in weather is the Moon which rules the Moisture – ( amount of rain or lack of, floods, droughts,etc.) We do a Lunation chart for each lunar phase. And the third factor is Mercury, the sign it occupies, aspects to the ASC and NADIR,aspects to other planets, and if it retrogrades or not and is the indicator of what kind of wind, and how much. A chart must be done for each time Mercury changes signs within the parameters of the Ingress chart and Lunations.All three charts have to be sifted together to get an idea of what is happening with the weather
in any locale.
Warm good wishes, Dee Wynne
Hmm. Your hate sandwich isn’t redeemed by a supposedly cordial opening and closing. Firstly, everyone has Neptune in their chart; perhaps you should look to your own chart, and examine your own Neptunian tendencies, before you judge another based on the placement of their natal Neptune. You may be surprised to notice that not every manifestation of Neptune in your life has been a load of BS. Secondly, remember that all planets -including Venus- have their shadow sides. Third, please check your spelling before releasing your spew into cyberspace. And lastly, I support our president. I am a taxpayer, and a proud American, as I hope you are. I am no more a Socialist or Communist than you are a Fascist.
Voter Fraud or disenfranchisement at the polls with demands that voters show their Photo IDs, despite the fact that several states have banned the new voter ID laws until after the elections seems the most likely course here.
And I have no doubt that the Tea-Rethuglicans will try to pull any trick-in-the-book to disenfranshise voters since they have in the past.
But this time around any attempts on voter fraud against Obama may come back to HAUNT or BITE the Fraudsters in the A$$!
Voters won’t stand for it this time around and yes the SCOTUS may be involved once again. But with Roberts on the Court anything can happen and Mittens may not reach his presidential pedastal after all.
With his poll numbers, I just don’t see how it can happen, even the electoral votes are not with him.
My choice is Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. But I”ll settle for a sustained Democracy sans a Facists Corporate Republican Dictatorship come November.
Dear CHocta,
I forgot to mention – did you not hear about the Black Panther’s and the union goons who stationed themselves at the voting polls in Nov. 2008 – they were strong-arming and violent. Eric Holder, the Attorney General,dismissing their behavior and calling them “his people” was a harbinger of things to come, and come they have. The recent terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Bengazi – the brutal murders of the Ambassador and the three Navy Seals,
their bodies dragged all over and obviously tortured before they died – the State Department under the Obama and CLinton watches is a tragedy. The Bengazi Embassy had no security because of a “budget cut”.The FBI still has not arrived in Bengazi because it “is too dangerous”. The FBI is supposed to invesigate CRIME in the domestic US. This was more than a crime it was a terrorist attack.BTW, do you report your income? I think not, that’s why you can make statements that sound like you are anarchists.We are all doomed because these politicians only care about therir party, they don’t care about the people who voted for them, their constituents. It’s all a horrible game gone bad. We’re prisioners of both parties, nothing more.JUst noiwe living in a pigmy state – from superpower to pigmy – in three short years.
Dear Dee,
You hate speech is amazing as is your loss of memory. I suppose forgetting the massive War Crimes and Massive Lies of both Dubya and Dick Cheney doesn’t mean much to you as well as the over 100,000.00 thousand innocent Iraqi and Afghan Civillians who died in two illegal wars brought about by the LIES of the Dubya administration.
God help this country if Romney/Ayn Rand Ryan steal the vote and get into office. Because if they do, you might as well KISS AMERICA and the MIDDLE-EAST AND ISRAEL GOODBYE.
WWII LOOM in our Future if the Rethuglicans have their way. And you can bet on that all the to the polls.
Wow, DeeWynne! You are really into conspiracy theory, aren’t you? I’m glad I don’t live in your reality!!
choctawwritergirl, thanks for your comments, i think we need to be very aware of voting problems this election. but i don’t see what ‘voters won’t stand for it’ translates into, in any practical sense. if the american people rolled over at the obvious problems in 2000 and 2004, they will do so again. i’m with you on voting Green, though! :^)
May I suggest a new bumper sticker for the election…”If you don’t have an account in the Cayman Islands, you had best vote. (Go Big O)”
Your articles are always great. Liked this one but leaves the election still & continuing confused.
we just had a very instructive example of the power of black holes to adjust the status quo, in the first presidential debate last night.
an angular pairing of mercury and saturn (which in itself pretty obviously spells “presidential debate” in astrological keywords)showed saturn at 29 libra exactly on one black hole, and mercury at 27 libra exactly opposed another at 27 aries. this was a direct reflection of that exact synastric conjunction mentioned in the article between obama’s mercury and romney’s saturn, which is also on a black hole at 2 leo (with transit mercury/saturn in a rough out-of-sign square to these).
this has the potential to flip the dynamic of the race completely. it was obvious that romney’s saturn took control and crushed obama’s mercury oppressively. romney was clearly amped, enjoying himself, the happy warrior (transit mars at 27 scorpio was also exactly conjoined his natal moon/jupiter pairing); the president was subdued, eyes averted, unwilling to meet romney’s gaze or talk into the camera, unprepared to defend himself against the attacks or to pursue obvious openings made by romney.
early polling shows a romney win in this debate by 60%-22%; i don’t know if it moves votes, but expect a major shift in dynamic as mercury and saturn shift signs into scorpio in the next few days. if this pattern continues through the remaining debates, we’re back to a much closer race than things seemed the past few weeks.
From the viewpoint of a Canadian citizen, I am still wondering when Obama will prove different from Bush and Company on things that matter to us all – like human rights and the closing of Guantanamo, promised but never delivered; the increasing use of drones in Pakistan (an extension of the tragically failing but doggedly continued – by Obama – Afghanistan War; and the continuing misuse of the Homeland Security Act to spy on and entrap American citizens; the failure to require “insourcing” of American capital and set an example of such to the other Western Capitalist Gangs…etc., etc.
As a political scientist, I don’t think Obama is socialist or a Marxist (Communist) at all, but I do think he believes that he can clone the form without the content of Bill Clinton, whose only real jobs were political office as governor or president. It looks to me like Obama wants to be president, but is winging it because he has no real substantive knowledge or skills for the job – not even the usual “politician” skills of back-room dealing, at which Bill Clinton was a master.
I still think, though, that Hillary Clinton was the (best) choice America refused to make, and she may yet be playing secret cards in the background…
As always, thank you Alex for such a thorough job! I am off to cast an Election Day chart myself to see what I may see…
Good luck to you all – we are praying up here for America. My father – worrying about world affairs – once dreamed a long time ago: “God has not yet has his answer from the United States…” and I fear that nothing has changed.
How I see it, it should favor Obama, yet you come to a different conclusion knowing Romney is decptive, how can anyone vote for him and his crowd that has done everything to stop Obama?
[…] November 6 Mercury will stop and go retrograde until Nov. 26. Because Nov. 6 is Election Day in the USA, delay, confusion, unpredictability in results of the election are likely. The only other time retrograde has happened on election day was in 2000 when Al Gore was elected and the results were thrown to the Supreme Court for decision and he conceded to their decision. So watch the dramatics that take place as Mercury, The Messenger, ruler of all communications loses his forward motion. This is an interesting topic and is well covered in this article by Alex Miller on The Mountain Astrologer website: https://mountainastrologer.com/election-days-mercury-station […]
[…] November 6 Mercury will stop and go retrograde until Nov. 26. Because Nov. 6 is Election Day in the USA, delay, confusion, unpredictability in results of the election are likely. The only other time retrograde has happened on election day was in 2000 when Al Gore was elected and the results were thrown to the Supreme Court for decision and he conceded to their decision. So watch the dramatics that take place as Mercury, The Messenger, ruler of all communications loses his forward motion. This is an interesting topic and is well covered in this article by Alex Miller on The Mountain Astrologer website: https://mountainastrologer.com/election-days-mercury-station […]
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[…] y está bastante cubierto en este artículo de Alex Miller en el sitio webThe Mountain Astrologer: https://mountainastrologer.com/election-days-mercury-station (en […]
Interesting article Alex. I also think the transit of Neptune at zero degrees Pisces square Romneys’ natal ASC/DSC, one degree Gemini/Sag is interesting. Wonder what kind of ego losses he will experience and have no doubt why he has been careless with the truth recently! I also notice the transit of Saturn square natal Saturn and the MC/IC axis. As Mercury stations retrograde and turns back over his DSC, it could indicate a reversal of public interest in the man who speaks with fork tongue. Mars currently opposite his natal Uranus could be explosive, we may see irritation or an outburst or two from Mitt in the next few days, especially as Mars “cuts away” from the aspect.
I agree the trickster, liar, hoaxter and thief will be at play on election day, as it has been for some weeks. Cheating is to be expected. Of special interest is the early degrees of Gemini/Sag on the ASC/DSC of the DC relocated charts for Obama and Romney and Sag/Gem on this axis for Biden and Ryan. The event chart for Mercury retrograde station shares close ASC/DSC degrees with all for charts. Clearly a meeting with destiny for these men, drawn together at this point in time. Intriguing to say the least!
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