“He who dies rich dies disgraced”  Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie had Sun, Mars, and Venus in Sagittarius (Nov 25 1835). Born in poverty and with no formal education, Carnegie moved from Scotland to Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1848 when he was thirteen. He worked in a cotton factory, a telegraph office, and for the Pennsylvania Railroad where he promoted mass transportation. He introduced the first Pullman sleeping cars and became head of their western division in 1859. In 1865, he resigned and formed Keystone Bridge Company that manufactured steel rails. He bought out the Homestead Steel works, which eventually became the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1901, he sold out to J.P. Morgan. Until his death in 1919, Andrew Carnegie devoted himself to philanthropy; giving back more than $350 million dollars while establishing more than 2,500 libraries and funding the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (CMU, my alma mater), Carnegie Institution at Washington, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Carnegie Corporation of New York. Immense wealth raised Carnegie’s consciousness of caring and giving.

Sagittarians are irresistible when they believe in themselves. They’re eternal optimists, honest, sincere, and friendly, with charismatic voices designed to persuade. They’re also philosophical, expansive, enthusiastic, generous, idealistic, proud, truthful, and spiritual. Sagittarians are frequently accused of observing life through rose colored glasses because they tend to see people and circumstances as they want them to be instead of how they really are. They love travel. Arriving at a new destination, they take time to explore the sites and seek out fascinating food adventures. Most Sag types are nature lovers and naturally healthy types. Physical problems result from overindulging in food and drink. Sagittarians have a dark side that can be egocentric, arrogant, tactless, insincere, judgmental, opinionated, hypercritical, hypocritical, impractical, grandiose, dictatorial, vain, gluttonous, or philandering. Numerous journalists, judges, lawyers, priests, teachers, chefs, and salesmen are Sagittarian types.

The pure Sagittarian type has rectangular palms and short fingers with long, straight, and strong index fingers that often stand away from the other fingers. A strong index finger symbolizes leadership abilities, pride, self-confidence, spiritual or religious affinities, truthfulness, generosity, and idealism in relationships. A pinkish color under the index finger adds energy and reveals a desire to give. Hands generally tend to be pinkish in coloration and healthy looking with mildly flexible joints and firm elastic skin. Fingers are not knotty and fingertips are often rounded or conical with loop or whorl fingerprints. Sagittarian types are idealistic, enthusiastic, confident, and hate being criticized. They love rich food and fine wine. Good luck and positive thinking are attributed to Sagittarius.

Robin is a mixture of Scorpio sun (Feeling) and Sagittarius hands (Intuitive). As you can see from her rectangular palms and short fingers, she’s an Intuitive type. She’s generous, honest, and truthful. Her inner Scorpion is strong and she must be vigilant to avoid the imprudent temptations that her intuitive side so easily attracts. She’s a loving mom, fabulous friend, wonderful cook, incredible quilter, knitter, and an avid gardener. Robin’s huge heart and endless enthusiasm are contagious. Joanna and I are grateful to have Robin in our lives.

Bellerophon, master of the winged horse Pegasus, is a mythical match for Sagittarius. Sag rules horses and horsepower. Bellerophon was a likeable fellow who meant well, but depended on his charm, good looks, and luck to save him when his adventures went sour. He symbolizes inspiration and new ideas, which have to be taken with a grain of salt. Bellerophon’s hubris was his undoing as he tried to fly to Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Like Don Quixote who tilted at windmills, Sagittarian types must learn to embrace a philosophical paradigm that helps them to be an integral part of a working society and not someone who has everyone else’s answers.

Sagittarius rules transportation. Sagittarians enjoy speed, taking calculated risks, and looking good. They leave racing to Aries and showing off to Leo. The gods of making cars must shift the paradigm of profit before people. Automotive industries must be more truthful in their actions and spiritual in their vision. By perpetuating the illusion that overly powerful gas guzzling vehicles are glamorous and sexy, car makers maintain the delusion that it’s alright to deplete natural resources and pollute our planet. Cars must be designed for the present and future health of our culture and environment. We can all profit from higher environmental and social consciousness. As our globe warms and fuel prices skyrocket, a need to design more fuel efficient, non-polluting, practical, and economical vehicles is crucial or we will drive ourselves to extinction.

Let’s look at the current consequences of our transportation paradigm. We can drive any time and place in the comfort of our cars. Our costs are exorbitant as we guzzle gas, fight oil wars, deplete precious finite natural resources, and pollute our planet. Carbon monoxide and dioxide are hovering around and above us. Toxic buildups of automotive smog poison major transportation arteries. Traffic proliferates, coagulating like cholesterol, on its way to a coronary. Dangerous overcrowded roads, clotted with angry, depressed, drugged, and drunken drivers, are mom’s varicose veins, connecting the festering infections we call cities. Our way of life is steering us toward a dead end.

Historically, during the twentieth century, the planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto transited the sign of Sagittarius. Politics, big business, and religion were transformed. While the planet Uranus transited Sagittarius from 1981-1988, politics and corporate power were shaken up. Sandra D. O’Connor was the first Woman elected to the Supreme Court. Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominated by the Democratic Party for Vice President. Benazir Bhutto became the first female prime minister of a Muslim country in Pakistan’s first free election since 1977. George Bush Sr. became the first sitting Vice President elected as president since 1836. President Ronald Reagan initiated “Star Wars”, an absurd and overly expensive national defense idea. IBM introduced the first personal PCs to the marketplace.

Uranus is a symbol of sudden and unexpected upheaval and disaster. The monopoly of AT&T was broken up by the Department of Justice. While Greenpeace was protesting France’s nuclear testing, their flagship Rainbow Warrior was bombed. The space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff while millions watched on their TVs in horror. Sagittarius rules publishing and religion. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced Salman Rushdie to death after publishing his popular novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie’s tales of good and evil stimulated riots in India and book burnings in England.

While Neptune transited Sagittarius from 1970 to 1984, the idealism of the 60’s was replaced by pessimism, marked by a lack of trust in national institutions. The war in Vietnam had made many people cynical. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 created a major energy crisis (allegedly teaching the USA not to take energy for granted) and catalyzed the opening of the controversial Alaska pipeline.

Neptune rules false prophets, delusion, deception, and victimization. Richard Nixon became the first President in US history to announce his resignation. New York became the first city in US history to be bailed out of bankruptcy by the federal government. A popular religious paradigm was shifted when the Catholic Church elected its first non-Italian pope in four centuries. Mother Theresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in the name of the poor. Televangelist Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979.

Neptune also rules chemicals and drugs. The first test-tube baby was conceived out of the womb. It was the beginning of genetic engineering and new horrors for theologians. Environmentally conscious people protested industries that created “Acid Rain”. The ‘Three Mile Island’ fiasco helped derail several nuclear energy projects. The World Health Organization announced an end to smallpox. A new deadly epidemic was officially named AIDS. Crack cocaine became popular.

The planet Pluto transited Sagittarius from 1995 to 2008. Pluto and Sagittarius together is a recipe for upheaval and transformation in politics, big business, and religion. Political extremism, corporate greed, religious fundamentalism, and terrorism came into focus around the world. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing law student, disrupting the Middle East peace process. Great Britain gave up control of Hong Kong.  President Clinton resumed diplomatic relations with communist Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of Black men flocked to Washington to participate in the million-man march. For the first time in forty years, Republicans gained control of congress. Y2K was not the end of the world.

Sex scandals rocked the Catholic Church.  The House of Representatives impeached President Clinton for lying about his sexploits. He was later acquitted. Two students killed themselves after murdering twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. The Unabomber was caught and sentenced to life in prison. The Oklahoma City bombing established large-scale terrorism by Americans on our own soil. Governmental power was transformed on 9/11/ 2001, giving leaders the ability to supersede human rights and civil liberties. A large political machine preempted war without world consent. A lair of corporate foxes ruled the hen house while a pack of political wolves became professional sheep herders.

Saturn is returning to Sagittarius on December 23 after a 30 year journey through the signs of the zodiac. Astrologers are pondering and prognosticating the effects of Saturn over the next three years while it passes through Sagittarius and into Capricorn around Christmas of 2017. Saturn deals with structures and responsibility. Capricorn is the most practical, reliable, dependable, pragmatic, and objective of all astrological signs. Saturn rules big business and bureaucracy. Energy, transportation, communications, housing, healthcare, food industries, law, politics, and religious structures will be affected by Saturn’s transit through Sagittarius. Our global economy must be reformed in a way that’s sustainable for all people. There will likely be a shakeup or shakedown of world leaders. Perhaps there will be a rebirth of nobility, dignity, integrity, and ethics.