Alex's Asteroid Astrology

If anyone had told me two decades ago that I would be admiring, let alone praising, someone with the last name of “Cheney”, I’d have said they were nuts.  But that’s just the sort of uncomfortable position many progressives find themselves in these days, when contemplating the recent performance of Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), daughter of the former Vice President, vis-a-vis the actions of Donald Trump and the bastardization of the GOP.

Virtually alone among the DC denizens of her Party (with one or two notable exceptions), Liz Cheney has stood up against the onslaught of moral degradation, outright criminality and hyper-partisan lunacy, calling out such behaviors and attitudes where she sees them, decrying conspiracy theories and the Big Lie itself, and firmly stating that Donald Trump was responsible for the January 6^th Capitol Insurrection, and has no business ever again being anywhere remotely near the levers of power.

I probably don’t agree with a single public policy point that Liz endorses, but how can you argue with a principled stance like hers?  It takes a lot of guts to stand up to the bullies and Trump sycophants that run the GOP, and, for all her lack of a Y chromosome, Liz Cheney has bigger balls than any of the male political eunuchs with which she works.

Whence comes this spine of steel and the ability to speak truth to power?  Let’s pull back the astrological curtain on Liz Cheney and see what makes her tick.

Born at 11:57 PM CDT on 28 July 1966 in Madison, Wisconsin (Rodden Rating AA), Cheney’s 5 Leo Sun is conjoined by Mercury at 4 Leo, as well as asteroids House and Toro at 10 and 11 Leo.  Mercury with the Sun grants a keen intelligence, and the ability to express oneself with ease and directness.  House here suggests her time spent in the US House of Representatives – combined with Mercury, we might suppose that Speaker (Mercury) of the House is a personal ambition.  Toro indicates bullying, aggressive, blustering behaviors, but also the ability to stand up to them.  Cheney won’t back down in a fight, and is tough as nails, able to dish it out as well as take it.  Also with the Sun is centaur Asbolus at 0 Leo, a point which indicates the ability to read the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times; Cheney has her finger to the wind of public opinion, but doesn’t feel the need to blow its way.

A 6 Taurus Ascendant provides another stubborn streak, an intransigence and unwillingness to back down or alter course, as well as highlighting the importance of her personal values in Cheney’s life and her public image.  The Moon at 29 Sagittarius, exactly squared Saturn at 29 Pisces, suggests an adventurous, gregarious spirit, but one who can control emotions and won’t allow them to interfere with official business or the duties of her job.

There is no Elizabeth asteroid (nor any Cheney), but there is an Elisabetha, which at 10 Scorpio squares the Sun and Mercury (ruling the naming function), and opposes the Ascendant, making it typical of one’s own PNAs (Personal-Named Asteroids), which commonly interact with the Sun, Moon, Ascendant or Mercury.  Cheney’s other family members fit neatly into their respective astro-pegs:  father Richard (AKA “Dick”, here both a nickname and a descriptor) appears as asteroid Richard, which at 26 Taurus is sextile Saturn at 29 Pisces, signifying the father; mother Lynne appears as asteroid Lynn, which at 20 Leo is widely trine the 29 Sagittarius Moon, signifying the mother.  Sister Mary appears as asteroid Mary, which at 0 Taurus is squared Mercury, ruling siblings (Mary is lesbian, and a celestial nod to her sexual orientation can be seen in the semisquare from Mary to asteroid Sappho at 17 Gemini, named for an ancient Greek lesbian poet).  Husband Philip Perry appears as asteroids Philippa and Perry, which at 25 and 29 Libra oppose asteroid Hera, named for the Greek goddess of marriage, at 5 Taurus, and trine asteroid Juno, her Roman counterpart, at 21 Gemini.

A strong focus on truth-telling can be seen in a conjunction of asteroids Truth and Veritas (Latin for “truth”) at 15 and 19 Cancer, with Veritas exactly conjoined the IC.  Truth is foundational for Cheney, something she builds upon which has angular force and potency in her life.  These points are enmeshed in a string of planetary energies comprised of Venus, Mars and Jupiter, at 9, 12 and 18 Cancer respectively.  This helps to explain her combative (Mars), values-based (Venus) stance in political matters (Jupiter), where she is willing to buck virtually her entire Party to support the truth as she sees it (Truth, Veritas).

Truth and Veritas (with Jupiter) also participate in a Grand Trine Kite pattern, with trines to asteroid Washingtonia and Neptune at 17 and 19 Scorpio; and asteroid America at 26 Pisces with centaur Chiron and asteroid NOT, both at 25 Pisces, and Saturn at 29 Pisces.  The String of the Kite is asteroid Diana at 20 Capricorn, on the 19 Cap MC.  Washingtonia represents DC, and America represents the nation at large, so Cheney’s truthfulness is disseminated freely (trine) to her cohorts in Washington and the citizenry generally.  Neptune here suggests issues with deception, trickery or falseness and zealotry or fanaticism in the capital, as well as an idealized, perhaps less-than-realistic, take on what government should be and do for the country.

Saturn/America shows a conservative (Saturn) bent toward the nation (America), while Chiron suggests a maverick position, something Cheney could not have been accused of until the past few years, as she and her Party increasingly diverged on the issue of Trump and his effect on the country.  NOT is another contrarian energy, and actually appears at station (it turned retrograde four days before her birth), making it an embedded factor in her psyche.  Significantly, NOT is squared to asteroid Troemper at 28 Gemini, our celestial referent for The Donald, identifying Cheney as a “never-Trumper” of the first water.

Diana is a very protective energy, virginal and pure, and this attitude of defending or shielding others while retaining one’s self-integrity is essential to understanding the choices Cheney has made in her career, to voice her conscience about what is right as opposed to going along to get along.

That attitude has already cost Liz Cheney quite a lot, and may cost her more.  The Wyoming Republican Party passed a censure resolution last November to oust her from the state party, a largely symbolic move in retaliation for her vote to impeach Trump after the January 6^th insurrection.  In February 2022 the Republican National Committee voted to censure her and fellow GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for taking part in the January 6^th investigation.

A more substantial rebuke had already come in May 2021, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled his support of her and encouraged a voice vote to remove her from her leadership position as Conference Chair, based in her refusal to back down on her anti-Trump statements, and her willingness to join the House Select Committee investigating the riots, after McCarthy had refused Republican cooperation.  Cheney’s response was typical:  “ We cannot both embrace the big lie and embrace the constitution.  The nation needs it: the nation needs a Republican party that is based upon fundamental principles of conservatism, and I am committed and dedicated to ensuring that that’s how this party goes forward, and I plan to lead the fight to do that.”

Kevin McCarthy’s influence on her life is seen in the chart as asteroid McCarthy at 9 Leo, conjoined the Sun, and asteroid Kevin at 20 Gemini, in exact semisquare.  PNAs connected to the Sun indicate individuals who have an outsized importance on the biography and a powerful role to play, for good or ill.

Despite the flak she has taken, Cheney remains an outspoken critic of Trump and the direction the GOP has taken under his leadership.  Wyoming’s only Representative, Cheney faces a steep uphill climb in her re-election efforts for 2022, with a Primary challenger who is polling well ahead.  Harriet Hageman is an attorney who previously made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican Gubernatorial nomination in 2018; she is up 20+ points on Cheney in recent polls.  Asteroid Harriet at 26 Sagittarius conjoins the Moon and squares Chiron, suggesting a deep wound (Chiron) brought on by a woman (Moon).  Asteroid Hagelin is closest to Hageman; at 2 Taurus it conjoins the Ascendant and squares the Sun, indicating a struggle or contest between them, and someone with the power to alter Cheney’s public image.

The Wyoming Primary election is set for August 16^th, and does seem to suggest a Cheney loss.  But like the General Election to follow, the date features a Sun/Uranus interaction, so unpredictability and surprise is the order of the day.  [Author’s Note:  This article was slated for release several days earlier, but was bumped for the breaking news of the attack on Salman Rushdie; it is now post-Primary, and Cheney did in fact lose to Hageman, by an almost forty-point margin blowout.]

There’s a “wobbly” Grand Cross for the Primary, which is a typical Grand Cross that has additional peripheral points that aspect some of the anchor bodies, but not all.  The basic pattern is created by the Sun at 23 Leo opposed Saturn at 21 Aquarius, the crossbars formed from Uranus at 18 Taurus and asteroids Troemper at 15 Scorpio and Karma at 22 Scorpio.  This suggests a volatile, unpredictable atmosphere (Uranus), but also a likely loss (Saturn), heavily influenced by Donald Trump (Troemper), with a fated feel (Karma).  It’s likely Hageman would have taken this race without Trump’s specific endorsement, but he’s the underlying cause of the loss regardless, in that Wyoming Republicans are upset with Cheney’s stance on him and her acting as Vice Chair for the January 6^th Select Committee.

The peripheral points are asteroid Elisabetha, for Liz Cheney herself, which at 13 Aquarius is squared Troemper (Trump), depicting their antagonism.  Elisabetha is also squared asteroid House at 8 Scorpio, identifying the battlefield of the race as the US House of Representatives.

Also at the Saturn arm is Damocles at 28 Aquarius, the threat or doom hanging overhead, about to descend.  In this case, in addition to the mooted loss of the race, we might consider the fact that death threats for Cheney have become so numerous that she has had special protective agents assigned to her for months, and was unable to participate in normal in-person campaign events which would typically dominate the race.  Speaking of campaigns, that’s represented by Mars at 27 Taurus, while asteroid America at 1 Virgo, broadly conjoined the Sun, indicates the high level of national interest in the outcome of this regional race.

There’s also a T-Square which aptly describes Cheney’s quandary.  Asteroid Elisabetta (a second referent for Elizabeth, which in the natal chart appears at 12 Virgo, conjoined powerhouse Pluto at 16 and quirky Uranus at 17 Virgo, denoting Cheney’s entrenched core and maverick streak) at 9 Libra conjoins asteroid Truth at 8 Libra, opposed a combination of asteroid Nemesis and Jupiter at 0 and 8 Aries, with asteroid Veritas at 3 Cancer on the fulcrum.  This shows Cheney (Elisabetta) as true to herself and her political (Jupiter) principles (Truth, Veritas), which is the cause of her downfall (Nemesis).

Asteroid Harriet is also here; at 14 Libra it conjoins Elisabetta.  PNAs which conjoin each other can act as allies or irritants, focused on a common goal or constantly chafing each other with a quality of inescapability. 

There’s just one point at station in the Primary chart:  asteroid NOT, which at 21 Aries turns retrograde five days later.  NOT suggests a dead end, an inability to proceed, falling short of a goal.  That it repeats its stationary stance from Cheney’s birth chart, and squares her natal Jupiter, suggests that for Cheney, this level of political engagement has come to an end.  Transit asteroid Nike at 20 Capricorn, named for the Greek goddess of victory, is cresting her 19 Cap MC, at the cusp on the Tenth House of career, normally a very positive sign of a likely win, but it’s also tightly squared by transit NOT, somewhat diluting its effects.

Liz Cheney’s fate in this election seems sealed, but what about the epilogue?  Cheney has made it plain that among her chief goals going forward is ensuring that Donald Trump never acquires power again, a song that will tune sweetly to many ears, if not amongst the base of her Party.

But she must have ambitions for herself as well.  The loss of her seat likely puts that natal House Speaker goal out of reach, for the foreseeable future at least.  But there’s one more point in Cheney’s natal chart which appears at station, an embedded focus of her psyche, and possibly a major feature of her biography.

That’s asteroid Whitehouse at 8 Aries, representing the Oval Office and the presidency, which turned retrograde a week after her birth.  Whitehouse is squared the natal Venus/Mars/Jupiter stellium and trine Sun/Mercury, making it a political (Jupiter) desire (Venus) for which she will fight (Mars) and strategize (Mercury), something self-defining (Sun).  Does Cheney harbor presidential ambitions?  Will she run in 2024, if only as a spoiler to call out Trump on the campaign trail and in debates, continuing to speak truth to power?  8 Aries also just happens to be the degree of Jupiter’s recent retrograde station, perhaps igniting a political passion for the presidency, previously only smoldering in embers.

If and when the Trumpian fever breaks in the GOP, Liz Cheney, as a principled leader who stuck to her guns during the worst of the infection, could be perfectly placed to reap the rewards of her “I told you so” attitude.  I could almost be persuaded to vote for her myself.