During the recent Democratic National convention, NPR roundtable correspondent David Brooks was commenting on the dynamics of the election as the Democratic party switched from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris as nominee. Prior to this new surge of energy, Brooks said the standard belief was:
“Republicans fall in love; Democrats fall in line.”
This election is changing the dynamics of “love” versus “line.” Several Republicans spoke at the Democratic convention (time to convert?) including Stephanie Grisham, former Press Secretary for Donald Trump during his presidency. From the PBS.org story:
Recounting her time as part of Trump’s administration, Grisham said she was more than a supporter, noting she spent holidays with the family.
But behind closed doors, she said, “He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth.” She noted she was the first senior staff member to resign during the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and that she now supports Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reading that, my first thought was “duh!” It took four years to see the obvious?
That’s falling in love.
In love, we see the positive characteristics of the other and even some characteristics that aren’t there, but we imagine to be there. In politics as in personal life, friends and family will drop hints like, “Don’t you think your new love has some, you know, sociopathic characteristics?”
In the movie Office Space, the main character tells several of his friends that he thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him. Each time he says this, the character listening says something like “Yeah, I could see that.”
Falling in Love
Falling is not generally something we like to do, unless it’s into love. Falling into anything else is unpleasant. “The Fall” is even a religious event of losing purity and connection to the maker.
Astrologically love and pleasure are seen as functions of Venus which rules both Taurus and Libra. Libra is the purer Venus focused on partnership. Partnership is not always romance (ruled by Leo) or friendships (ruled by Aquarius) but often takes that form for Libra. While we all need others, Libra doesn’t function well without a partner, even on a walk to the store.
Leo, ruled by the sun, represents romance and children and self-expression. Leo is moon and June and poetry and all the stuff you see in romantic movies and novels. Leo doesn’t simply want to walk to the store with you. It wants the walk to be a shared emotional and spiritual adventure.
By horoscope house, Libra rules the 7th and Leo the 5th.
These are the conscious parts of love. Then there’s the falling part. Falling is involuntary, a reaction. Reactions, dear readers, are in the realm of the moon.
When we fall in love with regular folks or political candidates, are we in the realm of active sun and Venus or the reactive moon?
Our horoscopes contain many planets and signs, some with natural affinities and some with natural stress energies. For example, someone with sun and Venus in Libra would consciously identify with fairness, peace and shared pleasure. But if the moon were in, say, Aries, there would still be a reactive drive for competition, self-assertion and a spot at the front of the line.
In this example, would the more peaceful or more aggressive candidate be attractive?
Falling in Line
Falling in line, in contrast, is about duty and obligation. Astrologers know where this is going – Saturn. Saturn rules Capricorn and the 10th house of social consciousness, reputation, and public image – the very stuff of political life.
Saturn likes to follow the rules, gets its identity and sense of power from working within a system. Saturn like to be authority and to establish systems.
Office Space comes to mind again. Our main character is in deep depression from his soulless corporate job, life in a cubicle and multiple managers pointing out a single oversight (missing cover sheet on TPS Report for the uninitiated). After this, our character learns he must work the entire weekend.
When our main character goes into hypnosis but doesn’t come out, he moves from falling in line to falling in love, first by approaching a love interest in honest and vulnerable terms. He’s no longer following the rules and ironically achieves so much more than when he did.
Stephanie Grisham – in Line or in Love?
According to Wikipedia, Grisham was born July 23, 1976. Sun, Saturn, Mercury and Venus are all in the sign of Leo. This, of course, speaks to love.
Yet Saturn conjunct the sun speaks to “line” and following the rules, Leo rules.
Leo is a sign of natural confidence and exuberance, not needing external validation of self-worth. Saturn is the planet that creates limits on energy for the purpose of discipline and long-term learning. Combined the natural confidence is expressed as the “playbook” of leadership with less natural play and joy in the experience.
Falling in love with Trump for Grisham may simply be the attraction of someone appearing completely confident with no self-doubt or internal control, confidence gone wild. The confidence of the sociopath. External bravado with internal emptiness.
Grisham’s moon in Gemini is the same sign as Trump’s sun. Traditional astrologers looking at male/female partnerships with male dominance viewed the man’s sun in same sign as woman’s moon as a good partnership.
Grisham’s reactive, feminine, “nurturing” nature would support the man’s conscious desires. Gemini is a constantly changing sign which can confuse the more earthy or fixed signs. Grisham with moon in Gemini can follow as she’s not sure who she is at times and may fall into the mood and identity of others.
The life lesson for Grisham is both about falling in love and falling in line. While Saturn is a big heavy and no one likes having it on their sun, there’s a lesson about confidence. The confidence of the sociopath is destructive and is not associated with Leo qualities of love and joy.
The astrological significance is that confidence must be rebuilt from the foundations and be true confidence, not the “confidence” of wielding a big, powerful weapon against those that cannot fight back. Saturn keeps saying she “should” be confident. But having confidence doesn’t mean 100 percent of the time one is in charge and one can’t be afraid of bumps in the night.
With Mars in Virgo and moon in Gemini, Grisham is probably giving this a lot of thought – both signs overthink. There’s not much water in Grisham’s chart meaning she has trouble emotionally relating to others, another way to weed out the sociopaths from the joyfully confident among us. Water can feel the difference.
As transiting Pluto moves into Aquarius, Grisham will meet other powerful figures who are asking her to take one for the team. After falling in love, the challenges are now those of falling in line and the balance of the two motivations.
Ohio Astrology 