Personal consciousness in the horoscope is represented by the sign Cancer and the 4th house. Its opposite, social consciousness, is represented by the opposite sign Capricorn and opposite 10th house.

Personal and social consciousness is a polarity, one of the six polarities symbolized in the horoscope. In Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, Barbara Hand Clow describes this polarity as feeling (Cancer) and power (Capricorn).

While watching a documentary recently, I wondered again why we try to force beliefs on others. It works, but with the disastrous effects that the extremes of any polarity cause.

It’s the polarity’s extreme, not the particular beliefs, that cause the problem. As I was once taught about the tai chi symbol, the sigmoid curve represents this idea that anything in extreme becomes its opposite.

That any extreme becomes its opposite is visible in individuals detonating bombs to protest war; in individuals killing others to create a more pure moral environment; in individuals promoting hatred to produce love.

It’s the same pattern over and over. It seems to occur in just about any cause that exists in organizational form. Maybe the organizational form is the yeast that helps it rise.

Recently someone provided an image that has stuck with me – that of the pendulum. Extreme is a strong pendulum swing that sends the energy back in the opposite direction. As the pendulum slows, the swing is less extreme until it is balanced.

Our strong desire these last few thousand years to force others to believe what we believe is the pendulum of the 4th and 10th houses. The 4th develops a personal moral code. When others agree, we create a social moral code. For all the killing that exists in the world, it’s amazing that murder is the one activity most humans through time and space agree is immoral.

If we all agree on this one thing, why do we continue to kill each other?

When every belief I have must be shared by the entire world, then my 4th house has taken over my 10th house and now personal consciousness is deemed social consciousness. Believing the entire world must agree with me is a goal (delusion?) that will never occur.

Why do we want this?

In the documentary I watched, a group of young people (20s-early 30s) are in a van in a foreign place on their way to spread their message. In the van they are filled with the energy of their mission and are singing loud and joyfully.

That’s the Cancer experience, the sense of belonging, of being accepted, of being part of a family, clan or other close-knit community. Who would want to intrude upon a joy such as this?

To get Cancer energy, do we need to go to the extreme of Capricorn authority to create and enforce the sense of belonging? Possibly the promotion of individuality in the US culture creates more separation and, therefore, an extreme desire for belonging?

What’s in the US chart to signify this?

The sun in the US chart (July 4, 1776 – Sagittarius rising) is in the sign of belonging, Cancer. The moon, however, is in the hyper-rational air sign Aquarius and may explain why so much technology also is developed here.

In the US chart Saturn resides (in Libra) in the 10th house. The 4th house is then ruled by Aries but there are no planets in that house. Saturn in Libra in the 10th is a nice representation of the US desire to make the laws of the world, Saturn in Libra being exalted. This placement seeks fairness and justice.

Saturn in the air sign Libra is given additional energy by the moon in air sign Aquarius and Mars and Uranus in air sign Gemini. That’s a grand air trine and a lot of idealism and also a lot of talk that may or may not come to fruition.

Yet Saturn is Saturn and in Libra in the 10th, others may not feel the partnership and feel, instead, restrained by Saturn. Saturn also squares the sun in Cancer.

In the US chart, it’s actually the 2nd and 8th houses – my money and your money respectively – that are emphasized. Sun in Cancer in the 8th suggests material dependency and sense of belonging through that very dependency. Pluto in Capricorn in the 2nd is transformation through money and resources which ultimately lead to transformation of values.

A Sagittarius rising, that mutable fire sign, adds a crusading urge to the national psyche.

The US chart seems to reflect the Cancer desire to belong with the moon in Aquarius desire to remain separate and individual. That’s a conflict. We travel far to promote belief yet put fences up on our southern border to keep the neighbors out, neighbors who want to participate in our culture, who don’t need to be coerced.