Joe Biden as Dark Brandon: the Scorpionic President

In this article, I will look at Joe Biden’s birth chart and his connections to the US chart. (1) Although there are many techniques for delving into the mysteries of a birth chart, I follow a hybrid of both classical and modern methods.

When a nation elects a speaker, prime minister, or president, or coronates a king, it takes on the character of its leader. In astrology, there is a rich history of understanding the fate of a nation by the chart of its leader during his or her reign. On the flipside, the people of that nation also use the leader as an id — they project their hopes and fears onto the person and may have trouble seeing them for who they really are as a human.

The birth chart of the current President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., demonstrates the myth of Scorpio with its strong emotional shifts, hidden tragedies, capacity for overcoming internal and external enemies, and self-mastery. The Scorpion, the Eagle, and Phoenix are symbolic of these powers. An analysis of Biden’s birth chart reveals the depth of insight that can found in a natal chart. Here is a man the memes dubbed Dark Brandon, the fully empowered Scorpio.

Although not as widely known as the US Sibly chart, there is a Scorpio chart for the US. (2) This Scorpio rising chart emphasizes the accumulation of power and resources through strategic and secretive means. It was rectified by Marc Penfield and is set for July 4, 1776  at 2:21 p.m.

Some of the connections between Biden’s birth chart and the US Scorpio rising chart:

Biden’s Saturn is conjunct the US Scorpio chart’s Uranus, demonstrating his desire to hold together a divided country.

Biden’s Midheaven is conjunct the US Scorpio chart’s Neptune, showing his leadership during a time of incredible national uncertainty.

Biden’s Jupiter is also conjunct the US Scorpio chart’s 9th-house Mercury, indicating his giving a voice to the noble ideals the US seeks to project into the world.

While speculation about the end of the American Empire is rife among the nations of the world (and many astrologers), common Scorpio themes include hidden strengths and overcoming adversity. Just when we might think a Scorpio has been defeated emotionally, morally, or spiritually, they strike back with a devastating sting, surge into the sky, and remake themselves into a new form. Scorpios are master strategists, having contemplated their triumph since the very beginning of any endeavor.

The Ascendant in Joseph Biden’s birth chart is 3° Sagittarius. I see the 1st house as the native, and the other houses as areas of life in the soul’s experience. They are where these experiences manifest for the native, while the planets are dynamic energies that activate these experiences, and the signs are the archetypes by which the planets’ energies are expressed.

The placement of the luminaries says a great deal about the motivation of the native. Natives with angular luminaries craft a life for themselves, while succedent luminaries suggest a life of cooperative work with others, and cadent luminaries work in service to others. We find both of Biden’s luminaries are cadent, thus his experience of life is one of public service to others. This theme will continue to arise in his chart, building an impression of a man who sees himself as a servant to his country.

Sagittarius is traditionally ruled by Jupiter and a Sagittarius rising individual is highly influenced by Jupiter’s condition. Joe Biden’s Jupiter in the 8th house, exalted in Cancer and in its own terms, is highly dignified. Jupiter passes that energy in a beautiful trine to the Sun and Venus, showing a person who is supported by good luck and fortune throughout his life. It also causes him to believe that he is a hero working toward an ideal good in the world.

Biden sees himself as a dutiful hero, wearing a white hat. Scorpio Suns are often cynical, but this birth chart illustrates that receiving a trine aspect from a dignified benefic can change that outlook. He is a person who is motivated by his belief in the moral goodness of life. Since the 8th is the house of intense psychological transformation and deals with death, grief, and violence, his life experiences in this arena indicate his philosophy (Jupiter) that humanity (Sun in 12th house) needs to be cared for (Cancer) and supported (8th house) as an act of moral good.

Jupiter is a double-sided coin — it expands the area of life where it falls, for good or ill. In this case, the tragic themes of the 8th house of birth, death, and transformation through suffering are expanded, and indeed, Biden suffered the toils of life in losing his wife and infant daughter in a car crash in 1972, and his son Beau to cancer in 2015. Symbolic of loss, the 8th house denotes the dying of the Sun, and along with his Scorpio stellium, this affirms the theme of a man who will journey through the underworld during his life. With Jupiter in the 8th, we look at where suffering will arise in the house Jupiter rules; with Pisces as his 4th house, suffering comes from family.

Beau’s passing from cancer was an illness he may have acquired by being exposed to toxic burn pits in Afghanistan. One of the policies Biden pushed through during the first two years of his presidency was financial support for veterans taken ill from exposure to US military open-air burn pits. With Ascendant-ruler Jupiter in Cancer in the 8th,^, Biden believes he is a nurturer and caretaker of others who are traumatized. The Moon in Taurus disposits Jupiter. Placed in the 6th house of health, he and Obama pushed through the most significant US healthcare reform in a half-century. Thus, we see the planet ruling the Ascendant expressed through the life experiences of the native.

With a Scorpio Sun, his political tactics strongly express Scorpionic themes. Yet, it is important to understand the motivation of the native is also revealed by the Ascendant. If we understand that Biden sees himself as one who does good and is a protector of the common man, we can see that this is the perspective he brings to the table when he serves up the hot dish of his Scorpio stellium to the world.

Biden’s Scorpio stellium (Mars, Mercury, Sun, Venus) is in the 12th house. This powerful planetary combination combines the thinking of Mercury, the identity of the Sun, and the seduction of Venus with the ruthless force and will of Mars. These four planets rule seven houses in the birth chart, informing us that 12th-house topics are an important part of his self-identity.

Mars in Scorpio, its rulership, creates a dramatic force for overcoming obstacles and hindrances in life. Mars in the 12th house (hidden enemies) indicates sabotage from those he trusts. The 12th includes drug use, mental illness, and imprisonment in its more difficult manifestation. Mars rules his 5th house (children), and his son Hunter has suffered from mental health and addiction issues. As Biden ascended to the Oval Office, this became a means by which his hidden and open enemies — Mars ruling the 12th and Mercury ruling the 7th both in the 12th — tried to weaken his power and make him less effective with deeply emotional (Scorpio) attacks on one of his children (5th house).

Biden’s grit and capacity to bide his time and maintain power is also indicated by Mars in Scorpio. This position of Mars comes with a symbolic blood sacrifice (Scorpio) of his son (Aries rules the 5th). All astrology charts are ripe with both the good and the bad, pregnant with potential that plays out as the story of heroic strength and suffering that is every human’s mythic journey.

Mercury in the 12th in a water sign has no dignity and is combust, which manifested as a stutter; only through conscious effort did he overcome it. His stuttering was likely first an emotional obstacle, which then became an embarrassment of gaffs in his public speaking. Finally, with age, he gained mastery of this disability by making intentional gaffs as a tool for political effect.

Biden’s 9th house is ruled by the Sun. Looked at psychologically, his soul will walk through life learning to master emotions and transform grief into emotional wisdom. He does so while overcoming hidden enemies and obstacles. Examining this from a mundane perspective, we can see that it played out recently when his administration assumed it had secured an increase in oil production with OPEC (to relieve gas prices) before the mid-term elections. OPEC pulled the rug out from under him and cut production, raising gas prices a month before the midterms. He still managed to effectively lead his party to the best incumbent midterm election in over 40 years and hold the Senate. The theme of hidden enemies that comes with the 12th is evident, i.e., the ruler of his Leo 9th is the Sun in the 12th. A Scorpio never forgets a misdeed, and always exacts revenge.

Biden is a wartime president, and Scorpio is a hidden and calculating warrior, often underestimated when compared to the brash, phalanx war style of Mars in Aries. Biden embodied the Scorpionic strategic foe when Russia invaded Ukraine. The US (under Biden’s orders) revealed the secret invasion plans (12th) of Putin before a single bullet was fired. Scorpio is aware of its opponent’s moves long before they are public. We see here the Scorpio luminary revealing hidden information about its enemies in foreign lands, bringing them to the light of day. (3)

Venus in Scorpio has rulership over Biden’s 11th (Libra) and 6th (Taurus) houses. Venus signifies women, and this shows their willingness to work (6th) for Biden and be his closest friends (11th). The Sun, Biden’s sect luminary, is aspected by both benefics, i.e., conjunct Venus, and trined by Jupiter. It is women, signified by the Venus–Sun conjunction, who are his true support and secret strength. There is speculation that he is very influenced by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. Venus is in detriment in the 12th, so externally we see this manifest as an assault on women’s rights. His term saw Roe v. Wade, the US law protecting women’s rights to sovereignty over their bodies, overturned. I see this both as women coming out to support him, and presidents’ charts themselves reflecting events in a country during their term.

One of the most common qualities of a Scorpio is their underrated coolness. Mars in Scorpio is in a passive water sign. After a journey of mastery, they can appear incredibly calm and reserved, like still water, and yet are entirely fierce. One can see this when Biden speaks, but the public camera is different from the private one: recently, when caught on a hot mic on a hot Miami day after a hurricane, he said “No one fucks with a Biden,” illustrating an incredibly fierce mind under the coolness.

This was an uncharacteristic reveal from a Scorpio 12th house native. As president in his elder years, he has attained enough mastery to remain calm, collected, and focused while engaging in press conferences. Unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, he does not challenge the press directly as an enemy; rather, he laughs at their opposition, dismissing it as child’s play, delivering a verbal emotional sting that is underhanded, cold, and lasting. Rather than overcoming with a Martian brashness, he does so with chilling daggers delivered with subtlety.

This may be the most Scorpionic and 12th-house quality of Biden. The country is experiencing a soft landing from a brutal post-COVID inflation, an impressive turn toward decarbonization, unprecedented employment, and a stunning checking of foreign adversarial power. Yet, the public does not seem to have noticed and his approval ratings have barely made it into positive territory.

He is the natural cyclical response to Trump, who, with Mars conjunct his Ascendant, is the epitome of a hotly energetic, masculine figure, with red skin, big rolling eyes, and a reputation for brash speech. Instead with Biden, we find a cool, collected tone and piercing, darting eyes, a man who spent a lifetime in politics collecting enough receipts to become the leader of the largest military in the world and an unruly democracy.

His power is surgical, defeating and outperforming domestic political foes with deft, unseen moves, grinding foreign foes with midnight blades of subterfuge delivered through diplomacy and measured cunning. He embodies the Scorpionic Presidency, hanging his name in the halls of US history as the 6th President with a Scorpio Sun. He is aligned with a nation whose very symbol is the Eagle, a symbol of the hidden and often underestimated courage and power of the sign of the Scorpion. We wonder if can he pull off one last subtle, Scorpio dance and win four more years in office?

References:

(1) Joe Biden, November 20, 1942, 8:30 a.m., Scranton, Pennsylvania (42°N24’ 75°W39’). Rodden Rating A, from memory.

(2) One of the notable justifications for this chart is that the Solar Arc progressed Mars conjuncts the Midheaven when the Civil War began on April 12, 1861. For more information on this chart, visit AstroDatabank/Nation: USA_No.11

Dorje Kirsten has been a professional astrologer since 2006. He received a certificate in medieval astrology from Bernadette Brady and the Astrologos school in 2011. As well he spent 12 years (a Jupiter cycle)  living and doing retreats at Chagdud Gonpa, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center. He is currently in the OPA mentorship program and studying evolutionary astrology.
Twitter: @dorjepadma
Email: dorje@heartastrology.com
Website: www.heartastrology.com