Virginia is a child of Mars but a native of Ceres. The first English colonist sighting of Virginia occurred under a stellium in Taurus in 1607. Themes of Arian survival and Tauran wealth dominate the culture. Aries Pluto massacres occur on her soil, the Indian massacres of 1632 and 1644 were among the worse early loss of lives but the Civil War battles in Virginia resulted in an estimated 700,000 American deaths on her soil. Tens of thousands of men left their homes to kill people and die in Virginia. Virginia has an Aries Pluto rising. That Pluto is ruled by the Gemini Mars and is the only planet ruled by another that does not involve earth. The fiery deathdealing planet ruled by a quick fuse. Sic semper tyrannis. Thus always to tyrants. The most violent state motto.
Virginia, a Child of Mars
The karmic meaning of the horoscope of Virginia describes the archetype and shield and spear symbol of Mars (♂︎). An Aries Ascendant, she has a strong Tauran emphasis on active defense (Taurus in the first house with 2 planets and 2 major asteroids) and security (Taurus in the second house with three planets). Her own Gemini Mars in the second wants physical security for the neighborhood. This is the shield in the Mars symbol. The spear of the Mars symbol is Virginia’s Aries Pluto in the first. This is the sword of death ruled by that Gemini Mars who is most focused on the neighborhood’s physical security. Anything that is a threat is met with violent death dealing force. A massive shield with a spear pointing out (♂︎).
The mythical Virginia was a Roman whose soldier father killed her rather than see her enslaved by a corrupt judge. Her father and his supporters then went on to slay the corrupt judge, overturn the fasces and restore the Roman republic. Sic semper tyrannis. Thus always to tyrants.
The horoscope of Virginia was the first act to restore the Roman republic. The United States of America is the reincarnation of the Roman Republic. The last battle of the Revolutionary War at Yorktown and the Surrender at Appomatox both occurred on Virginia’s soil. The forging and restoration of the Republic. A Republic known by its initials the USA. The reincarnation of the SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus. The Senate and People of Rome.
The Archetype of Aries Pluto & Virgo Neptune
At the moment of sighting, the asteroid Virginia was located at 2° Aries. Aries is the first zodiac sign, ruled by Mars whose natural house is the first. Virginia’s natal chart also has 29° Aries Pluto. Violent death. Surviving death. Violent sharer. War dead.
Contrary to modern depictions, the Powhatans, the local native Americans, were not peace loving, hospitable friendlies who were brutally repressed by aggressive colonists. The brutal repression occurred after the Powhatans openning salvo included ambushes and massacres.
The first recorded massacre was the Orpax Massacre of 1609 when 33 colonists in an original population of a few hundred were drawn out with promises of trade and ambushed and murdered while their leader Captain Ratcliffe was captured and taken to an Powhatan village to be tortured and killed by being flayed alive. The native women removed his skin with mussel shells and threw it into a fire as he watched. A nice touch that it was the native women who did the torturing. Bloodthirsty. Educational lesson for the native kids on how to skin a human. At least they killed animals first before skinning them.
Modern intellectuals have been pushing a narrative that the English colonizers were bad because they colonized new lands. Classify this dumb idea under the theme stealing native American land. Realism does not get much credit. The native tribes were brutally murdering each other until the English arrived on the scene and joined the fray. Ratcliffe wasn’t the first man the native women had flayed alive and he probably wasn’t the last either. The English technology, which included the ships that brought more and more settlers over the Atlantic, was superior and they conquered all of the tribes who were unable to match their technological advantages. This same misfortune would occur to Americans today, if another nation came along with vastly superior technology and numbers.
The Virgo Neptune gives the ideal of work. The Virginia fantasy. Neptune is ruled by the Leo Vesta in the fifth. Aristocracy and presentation. The symbol of the pineapple of hospitality. The stately red brick with Virginia style hip roof and pineapples on either side of the driveway promising an arrangement of the state’s products displayed on the altar table of Virgo. With seven planets or major asteroids in Taurus, Vesta is finding a cornucopia of produce, game, and stately wealth to display. The earliest of the type, the Jacobean fortress houses. Bacon’s Castle. Showy in a Leo Vesta way. More understated. Aristocratic, well-kept and maintained. The simplicity of Virgo meets the simplicity of Aries. The well-manicured stately fortress.
Aries Pluto. New sharer. Virgo Neptune. Work ideal. Sharing and taking the new virgin land through the ideal of hard work. The commonwealth reborn through violent struggle on the battlefield and hard work in the workshop. Aries Pluto in the first house. Retrograde Virgo Neptune in the sixth.
A note on dates. When Virginia was first settled, the English were still using the Julian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII had established a new calendar in October 1582 but England was no longer part of Catholic Christendom and continued using the Julian calendar. England also observed March 25 as the first date of the new year. That was Lady Day, the old Feast of the Annunciation. Early Virginia records dated between January 1 and March 25 often are a year behind. England reformed the Julian calendar and first date of the year in 1752 and this is also when the Virginia records correspond to the years and dates we use today. January 1, 1752 was the first day of 1752 and Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was followed by Thursday, September 14, 1752 and Virginia along with other England and its other colonies now observed the Gregorian calendar.
Middle Plantation
Middle Plantation was renamed Williamsburg once a site was chosen for the new College of William and Mary. Middle Plantation served two distinct purposes. It created a land route between Jamestown on the James River and another settlement on the York River. The land selected for the settlement had two rivers with deep ravines that drained to the James and York with only a six mile seperation between them.
In the Act to seating of the middle Plantation, every fortieth man was required to assemble to be “imployed in buildinge of houses, and securinge that the tract of land lying betweene the sayd creekes”. They secured the settlement and built a six mile palisade. Less than a year before, Powhatans had come unarmed with game to trade and once inside the houses attacked men, women and children with whatever tool or weapon they could seize. Not an isolated incident, the colony had undergone a surprise attack that killed 347 colonists. That represented about a third of the entire colonial population. The 1632 Virginia Massacre.
The palisade and the Plantation represent a setting apart of land from the rest of wild Virginia. Not all colonists would be protected by the palisade as settlements went up the James River to the fall line but the astrological chronicle shows this new settlement would contain four major features (Virgo Uranus, Libra south node, Scorpio Vesta, retrograde Scorpio Neptune) as well as a concentration on the zodiac signs of Gemini-Scorpio.
Middle Plantation would be filled with revolutionaries on stage (Uranus in the fifth), formed from beauty and order (Libra south node in the sixth), and the workshops of both tradesman (Vesta in the sixth) and, escapists and influential settlers from wild Virginia (retrograde Neptune in the sixth).
Virginia’s Gemini Mars sits on the Sabian symbol, “the garden of the Tuileries.” It is likely that Virginia’s Gemini Mars sat near the Ascendant at the time the act was voted on. It was in Williamsburg that the Gemini Mars most notably showed his inclination. Guarded by a palisade, the construction of this later capital of Virginia was the effort of most of the colony. On that day, the Aquarius Mars was conjunct Virginia and was dividing the colony in two. One part behind a palisade and guarded by a new established town. He was breaking Virginia in two and creating a frontier that increased the safety behind the fence by restricting the entrance and exit to a major portion of the colony.
In 1644, the Powhatans attacked again but the wall was successful and the massacre was contained to plantations outside the wall although hundreds of colonists were killed. Reprisals ensued and the Powhatans were pushed off the peninsula with forts constructed at the river falls to provide additional security to the center of the colony. A treaty in 1646 was signed creating a new frontier which did not allow Indians or colonists on either side of it unless they had obtained a pass from one of the forts.
The success of Williamsburg as the later capital of Virginia lies in the fourth house being rooted in Leo and Virgo. Secure, a more agreeable climate, and housing the colony’s elite and tradesman it became one of the foremost towns in the colony. Once the royal charter was approved for a college, it was located at Middle Plantation and the town was named after the King William III.
Williamsburg also displays its horoscope its Gemini Ascendant the Duke of Gloucester Street, Leo in the fourth’s Governor’s Palace, the Sagittarius seventh, the College of William and Mary, and finally the Aquarius tenth house, the Capital building that still ocassionally hosts the Virginia General Assembly.
The town formed with a retrograde 8° Aquarius Mercury conjunct the Midheaven on the Sabian symbol “beautifully gowned wax figures.” This is the picture of the town today. Colonial Williamsburg has preserved its former glory where historical costumed reenactors tell the story of the revolutionary capital every day. The Aquarius Sun in the tenth and Gemini Ascendant make Williamsburg the town whose solar reputation is as the revolutionary capital of Virginia.