Bernardo Moreno – Bernie Moreno to Ohioans – was born in Bogota, Colombia. Moreno is an immigrant. He is also a United States Republican Senator for Ohio.

Bernardo was also the name of the Puerto Rican leader of the Sharks in the 1957 Broadway play and then 1961 (and 2021 adaptation) movie West Side Story. Unlike Moreno, Bernardo of the story was not an immigrant, Puerto Rico being a part (colony) of the United States.

If you’re not familiar with West Side Story or its historic and greatly-modeled precedent Romeo and Juliet, Bernardo of the story moves from San Juan, Puerto Rico to New York City and is attacked day one (he says in the movie) by the Jets, the white guy gang that wants to rule the dilapidated, depressed, and desolate playgrounds of the “west side” of New York. That side, we see from the panoramic at the beginning of the movie, isn’t the glamour of “the” New York City. It’s the place where the poor and destitute struggle for useless territory.

The Romeo and Juliet tribe-crossed characters are Bernardo’s sister and a former Jet. Bernardo is Tybalt (according to a search-it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the Shakespeare version).

Bernardo Moreno – called “Bernie” just like Bernie Sanders – gives a more, how shall we say it – non-Hispanic sense of the name, at least to those not familiar with Hispanic nicknames.

Is Moreno, then, a Jet or a Shark?

Play it cool, boy, real cool

Moreno has sun in Aquarius, the fixed air sign that is cool and detached by nature. It’s more comfortable with ideas than feelings. Pluto is currently transiting this sign so Aquarians are now at the forefront of our evolutionary changes.

In Aquarius, Pluto will destroy, transform, and evolve group consciousness, group ideals. When Uranus and Neptune were in Aquarius (1990s-early 2000s), we destroyed such things as landline phones, clocks with hands, paper newspapers, privacy, and consensus understanding of reality (with help from Neptune in Pisces where every image is real to our brains). We replaced these things with digital life: most business interactions are now forced into digital; social media is assumed and not participating creates pressure from social groups.

Fixed signs are as described: fixated and often obsessed. In Aquarius, the fixation is ideas and group ideals – sometimes called fads – where some last and some don’t. Aquarius is also considered rebellious – think Rosa Parks. The rebelliousness against one or primary group consciousness results lands Aquarians into an opposite or different group consciousness. For Rosa Parks, it was the Civil Rights Movement.

For Moreno, it lands him with the Jets although he’s a natural member of the Sharks. But not all sharks are the same. In our American cultural mix, there are the Cuban Sharks who came legally because we didn’t like the authoritarian strongman Fidel Castro (today I wonder why). There are Mexican Sharks who are a mixture of legal statuses. And then there are all the Central and South Americans who like Mexicans are a mixture and many experiencing the results of cultural disruption aided by US presidents during the 20^th century. The actual Spanish don’t seem to have a cultural identity here.

Fitting in is a part of everyone’s life. Our personalities may or may not align with the culture in which we were born. That creates challenges for some, comfort for others. Fitting in can make us comfortable and fearful of change. Not fitting in is a drive that moves culture forward.

There are many ways to describe the current cultural split of the United States: Democrat/Republican, north/south, east/west, wealth/poverty, and privilege/marginalized. Another might be the “fitting in” versus the “not fitting in” which is a combination of all of the other splits.

Astrologically, we are all unique and there is no “fitting in” or trying to get everyone to “fit in.” There is no superior race because any race can be any horoscope.

Aries moon

Why did Moreno side with the Jets?

With moon in cardinal fire Aries, Moreno is highly competitive, self-directed, and courageous. Ruled by God-of-War Mars, Aries is interested in self, not so concerned about others. Moon is reaction so while an Aquarius sun can think very broadly and far into the future, Aries wants what it wants NOW. Like the cardinal signs in general, it can be self-centered.

The path to power today is to go with the Jets – siding with the Sharks is a bit up and down. Minorities rise and fall like the stock market in this country while the Jet (upper class white male) class tends to consistently and continually rise in wealth and power. It’s difficult to see privilege unless it’s taken away so the non-successful white male will resist this, but remember that the January 6, 2021 stormers of the Capitol Building were mostly white male and all were pardoned. This would never have occurred with males of other cultural stock.

The other Moreno

The sun and moon are major aspects of our personalities: the sun is conscious self and moon reactive self. We see this in ourselves and others clearly.

Outside of the sun and moon, Moreno’s chart contains quite a bit of water – emotion. Mercury, Venus and Saturn are in mutable water Pisces (the watery-est of the water), Jupiter in cardinal water Cancer and Mars and Neptune in fixed water Scorpio. Six of the ten “planets” in the chart are in water. Chiron, not amongst the ten, is also in water (Pisces).

Inside the skin of Moreno, he may very well be a Shark – maybe one day he will emotionally connect with his people on a political level.

Saturn in the same sign (but technically out of orb) with Venus and Mercury (and Chiron) indicates an extremely sensitive nature, psychic wounds easily created. Love doesn’t meet the need for a very deep connection that is a challenge with Aquarius sun acting detached and Aries moon chasing the newest war.

In the end, aren’t we all motivated by love? And we do very crazy things for love as this Manson cult follower and murderer Patricia Krenwinkel describes in her parole hearing:

It is countless how many lives were shattered by the path of destruction that I was a part of, and it all comes from just a simple thing as just wanting to be loved,” she [Krenwinkel] told the New York Times in 2014.

The Pisces and Aries energy – in combination with generational Pluto/Uranus in mutable earth Virgo, there’s a neurotic cast to the personality. Aquarius wants to be rational and then the rest of the chart gangs up together to create overwhelming emotion. I’m imagining a man who acts “cool” then blows up to those closest who are both surprised and confused – what the heck is he upset about and where did that come from?

Moreno’s Mars and Neptune in Scorpio never forget a slight or act of disloyalty, regardless of whether his Aquarius sun pretends to be all rational and fair about it.

Neptune in Aries

Transiting Neptune just entered Aries which creates a halo of spirituality around things Aries: self-identity, self-determination, self-aggrandizement, and self-defense.

We’re already seeing a rise in negative Aries – war and contention. Positive Aries is responding with demonstrations celebrating self and asking one megalomaniacal self not to see himself as the ruler of the world.

For Moreno, this Neptune can be either side of the Aries halo – the gang-like control of the neighborhood or a collective connection based on shared culture – American culture which by nature is a mixture of the cultures of the world.

With natal Jupiter in Cancer, Moreno probably has a loving family. Maybe as Moreno sides with the gang ruling the basketball courts and graveled remains of destroyed buildings, Moreno can ask: “What would my abuela (grandmother) think? Which is more important: community or competition?”