Everyone and everything has a birthday.
For us humans and other mammals, it is when we choose to escape swimming within the comforts of the amniotic fluid of our mother’s womb. For reptiles and birds, it is when they grow larger than the confines of the shell, using their beaks, teeth or other extremities to break free. For seeds of plants, it is the same. The young sprout stretches out to reach the sun, to breathe the air. Despite it’s tender state, strong enough and able to crack through the dense husk.
For a number of us, born inside hospitals, it is when the doctor or nurse or midwife on staff, lifts their head towards the clock, notes the time as the babe exits the mother’s womb as defined by the CDC as “after expulsion or extraction, breathes or shows any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached.” and declares the exact time of birth then jotting it down on paper for the records to show.
It is the exact moment, we living beings, inhale life. We may not yet see the brightness, still within the confines of darkness with eyes glued shut, with appendages still requiring more time to fully develop, but yet the sense and guzzle every molecule of our surroundings. The oxygen coursing through out veins, pumped in and out of the heart, pa-thumping, pa-thunking, extending, bidding the seconds, minutes, hours and days spent here on the earthly planes.
How goes for inanimate objects? Let’s say a work of art. When exactly do they come do life? Is it with the first spark of an idea flickers in the recesses of one’s mind? Is it when the writer pens the first word? Or when the painter dips the brush into a blot of paint and flicks the fibers onto a blank canvas? Or when the sculptor holds in their hands a moistened ball of clay? Or is it when it is then released into the public square, now the modern day Interwebs, whether by social media or a publisher like say the New York Times, Rappler, the BBC, or a platform like Substack, or for the lucky ones, an exhibit inside a gallery, a museum for paid patrons to view?
It is trickier, as the chasing and wrangling a greasy hog inside a squelchy pen, but possible.
For countries, it is the same. These man-drawn bordered land masses are also born. While we may have not even existed at the actual birth with the formation of land via millions of years of disturbances by the waters, wind and fire, the contemporary concept of a country’s birthday is known as “Independence Day.” The breath of life given when peoples were liberated, released from the grips from their colonizers or monarchies, whether toppled by force or a shift in economic and political interests, post World War II or some other more ancient battle.
This birthday, as with individuals, the snapshot of the sky at this exact moment, shapes a country’s traits, raison d'être and destiny.
I came to astrology with the intense desire to understand myself better. And as an immigrant, with my roots removed from its natural home, I am constantly re-orienting myself, adjusting, re-adjusting to the current space and place I am in. Understanding, processing things happening around me in this new home of mine, is the best thing I can do within my reach and control.
The United States of America was born on the 4th of July, 1776 in Philadelphia, when the “founding fathers”, seven men who emigrated from England, declared that they were no longer subjects of the British Empire. As for the exact time of this pivotal moment, nobody knows really. It was only the day that was scrawled in cursive on the official document, the Declaration of Independence.
Astrologers have studied, observed and tested various birth times, matching it to the unfolding of the USA’s birth chart and historical events. I used the 6:30 P.M. birth time, used my many reputable astrologers, which gives me it’s rising sign as Sagittarius. For now, this is my jump off point to see for myself on whether it makes sense to my experience of the milieu of the country. Astrology is many layered and complex with the interconnectedness of each element, but, to deconstruct one element at a time, is a starting point.
I begin at the specific location of the USA’s rising sign, Sagittarius, which sits at the nakshatra or the lunar mansion, a prominent star or astrerism (group of stars) of Mula - the 17th out of the 27 nakshatras. The very name sends a knee jerk reaction to my Filipino-ness.
The rising nakshatra and its symbolisms show us an individual’s general traits, motivations, tendencies and overall health and well-being.
From the tome Viccasan’s Unabridged Pilipino-English Dictionary by Vito C. Santos, “Mula” (mu-lâ) in Tagalog is a noun that means source; origin, start or beginning, and cause or reason. It is also an adjective that means obtained, based or derived from. It also a preposition meaning from or coming from. Finally, it is also an adverb meaning since, ever since.
In Sanskrit, मूल or “mula” / “moola” means the root or origin. Exactly what it means in Tagalog. It is also known as the “root star” or “original star” It’s symbol is a bunch of tied roots or the tail of the lion. Whether found in its rightful soil or place or uprooted, is the debate I go through in my head. But upon realizing that Mula’s planetary ruler is Ketu, the headless serpent, I am further convinced that it was separated from its rightful place. Especially knowing that Ketu is a significator for detachment and separation.
This group of stars lie deep in the very center, the core, of the Milky Way. It’s shakti or power is to destroy or damage because of its intense desire to get to the root, the center, the core of everything, especially its progeny.
The USA, not the land, but the inception of the country was from “explorers” from Europe then desiring to go on a trip for “pseu-discovery” (a term coined by writer Shahnaz Habib) for “gold, glory and God” then expanding empires for a more comfortable way of survival and assertion of power. The original inhabitants of this land, Native Americans, were uprooted from their indigenous lands introducing alien diseases, pillaging of their villages, pushing them out and “containing” them into what we now know as reservations. Upon learning the richness the lands held, away from the explorers’ native lands, they chose to then plant their own roots into colonies, first dotted across the East Coast.
Colonizing, settling and expanding empires is a lot of dirty hands on work. Hence, the European colonizers, also forcibly took Africans away from their native lands, uprooting them, loading them into ships, bringing them into this New World. The transatlantic slave trade, legalized in institution, were the roots of many African Americans in this country.
This uprooting and repotting in new soil persists until today.
I am here because they were there in the Philippines, bought with a pretty penny from Spain, preaching the prosperity Gospel of the United States of America - democracy, freedom with the pizzaz of Hollywood. Many still are glassy eyed at the thought of the USA, dredging up a desire to partake of that forbidden apple, to leave everything behind for something “better”. Some walk thousands of miles to cross the border, risking life and limb, to escape destitution and violence. Some simply fly in through airports, tossing out the return ticket and never turning back, taking all precaution to prevent exposure, restricting personal freedoms, which would upend their pursuit of what they thought was a better life.
Roots are vulnerable, especially when removed. Though typically remaining underground, there are plants whose roots survive by being out there. The roots are the nerve center that allows plants to build a foundation to learn, process information to take in the necessary water and nutrients that would make it grow. When disturbed, it would take time for the roots to reconfigure how it is to survive then thrive in a new environment. A dilemma the beginner gardener in me is grappling right now - whether to repot one sluggish calamansi plant that’s been left behind by its brothers in seed.
“Roots” is a word regurgitated too much to my liking amongst Americans, indigenous or not, inside the confines of this landmass, also in its colonies and satellite territories across the oceans. In fact, there is a television show titled “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr” all about people learning about their ancestries. But, integral to its very astrology, dictated by its 1776 birthday, Americans cannot help, but process and retrace their roots in one way or another.
My experience moving here continues to be about wrestling with my basal Filipino identity, now adjusting to this new world, bumping into others, who are also in this internal scuffle. Like plant roots, when removed and replanted, it takes time to settle into a groove in an alien environment. One feels the earth. What in it is poison? What in it can I survive on? Are there pebbles that block the way to water? Do I need to reroute the path? Are there enemies that threaten survival? Am I capable of eliminating them or avoidance is enough? Perhaps entanglement? Or am I able to grab onto them for support and then maybe, eventually feed off them, take over and destroy?
Though putting on a tough exterior, with the biggest, most powerful military forces in the world, the USA is at its core - vulnerable as their roots in its own search for freedom, happiness and truth. An intricate jumble of hundreds of millions of people, histories forcibly brought together by an uprooting. It continues to feel the earth, searching for the best ways to survive, live off other plants and peoples, at its worst, upending other countries’ way of life. Of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam are the first that come to mind. But I don’t need to look that far. A simple glance into the mirror is the product of American colonization with one foot planted across the Pacific Ocean and the other on the great state of Texas.
See how a small scratch on the surface of USA’s astrology shines a light on who it is? Often, if not always, I reserve my belief in astrology’s story unless I see it myself. Are you American or have been living in this country and experience this same dilemma of finding and understanding your roots?
Tell me your birthday, and let’s work to see and understand who you truly are.
Read more about tarot and Vedic astrology by going through the archives here. Or listen to be talk about Vedic astrology on the podcast here. Every subscribe, follow and like helps me, a person, not a corporation.
SOURCES:
Path of Light, Volume 1: Introduction to Vedic Astrology by James Kelleher
The Nakshatras: The Lunar Mansions of Vedic Astrology by Dennis M. Harness, PHD
Beneath A Vedic Sky: A Beginner’s Guide to the Astrology of Ancient India by William R. Levacy