The Element of Earth and President Trump

Artist Benjamin A. Vierling

At the risk of being overly simplistic I’ve decided to just focus in on one particular feature of the birth map of President Donald Trump which I feel sheds some light on what he is drawn towards, and why his executive orders in his first week in office reveal a great deal about his lack of the element of Earth astrologically.

Astrology works with four major elements:  Fire, Earth, Air, and Water.  There is a certain elegance in the sequence of these four elements through all twelve of the zodiacal signs most astrologers work with.  Each element is represented by three signs.  When studying a birth chart I, as a Western Astrologer, look for the balance of elements in an individual’s chart.  Sometimes I find one element is missing, such as in President Trump’s chart.  This missing element creates a driving need to compensate for such a lack  Compensation can be found in the relationships with others that the native forms.  It can also be found in what draws or magnetizes the native.

I’ll give you a perfect example from my own life.  My husband has no planets in Air signs.  I have about 7 planets in Air signs.  So he was attracted to me and I fill in that empty element for him just by being in relationship with him.  He also collected a library of over 10,000 books!!!  That’s a lot of the element of air I’d say.

Today, I am writing about the element of Earth.  What is this element all about?  In the medical astrology I learned from Dr. Naiman that Earth is dry, heavy, and cold, as opposed to Fire which is dry, light, and hot.  Earth represents form, structure, and consolidation.  Earth is grounded in the material world; it is practical reality, here and now reality.  Earth is the equivalent of stability.  It is slow like a tortoise.

OK, let’s look at this missing element of Earth in President Trump’s chart.  Please feel free to skip the next three paragraphs if you don’t like the technical stuff:

We see that he is an Air/Fire type with 4 planets in Air, and 3 in Fire.  This translates as a very Yang type personality which means he is outwardly expressive and forcefully energetic and extroverted in his characteristic style of manifestation.  His Earth houses, however, do have some of his planetary energies in them.  The second house (money, substance, assets, values) is Virgo ruled, so his ruler of that house, Mercury, is found in his 11th house (an Air house) in the sign of Cancer (Water).  He has two planets in his second house, Neptune and Jupiter, as well as an asteroid, Juno, and planetoid Chiron.  All four of these bodies are in the Air sign of Libra.

His 6th house (work/health/routines) is ruled by Aquarius, an Air sign.  The ruler, Uranus, is found in his 10th house in Gemini (Air/Earth).  The asteroid Demeter (Earth) is found here retrograde in Aquarius (Air sign again).

His 10th house (public life/career) is ruled by Taurus.  The ruler, Venus, is found in his 11th house in Cancer (Water/Air) but is conjoining an Earth planet, Saturn.  He has Uranus, North Node, and Sun all in his 10th house, but they are all in the Air sign of Gemini.

I want to flesh this out a bit more here by quoting from some texts, the first of which is Planets in Containment by John Sandwich and Ronn Ballard.  When you have a Uranus/Sun conjunction with Uranus leading first, here is a good description of that combo:  “Any experience in which the individuals are freeing themselves and throwing off inhibitions will give them more vitality and reinforce their sense of selfhood.  Being independent and feeling content about their uniqueness will help them to attain goals.  Negatively, eccentricity is projected outwardly in an egotistical manner.  Positively, they are able to read inspirational meaning into the purpose of accidents, coincidences and surprises.”  It is this energy which President Trump seeks to manifest out in the public sphere and now in the Whitehouse.

Looking at his Earth planets, we see them all in the sign of Cancer in the 11th house:  Mercury (natural ruler of Virgo), Saturn (natural ruler of Capricorn), and Venus (natural ruler of Taurus).  Let’s look at another text, Key Words for Astrology by Hajo Banzhaf & Anna Haebler, a great reference tool, by the way:

Mercury in Cancer:  “Imaginative thinking.  Good memory.  Empathetic, and with a talent to sense correlations and the thoughts of others.  Wishful thinking.  Desires and longings transform perception and memory into a ‘comfortable’ truth (alternative facts?).  Easily influenced, sensitive, moody, and inconsistent thinking.  Arbitrary use of words.”

Saturn in Cancer:  “Fear of the depths of feelings.  Fear of being ‘eaten up’ by the feminine element.  Sentimental emotional exhibitionism instead of expressing deep, true feelings.”  Liberation, however, would mean “Taking one’s own feelings seriously, healthy self-control without frustrating suppression.  Inner peace, feeling of emotional safety and security without fear of dependency.”

Venus in Cancer:  ” Romantic love.  Dreamy, full of longing…..Delusional love.  Forever in love with the Dream Woman.  Illusory, indiscriminate, unpredictable, and depressed as a result of countless disappointments.  Shadow:  The eternal daughter.”

These are a few key words describing his Earth planets in the house of hopes and dreams.  I keep hearing him talk about ‘the forgotten ones/people’.  Has he projected his own issues, especially those of Saturn, onto this group?  Keep in mind that these energies are also intercepted meaning that it is difficult for him access them easily or consciously.  They are also in square to his Libran energies creating a complex of exceptional dreams and yearnings way over the top in terms of what he seeks to manifest such as his lifestyle, reminiscent of the reign of Louis XVI.

So what happens when there is a lack of earth?  One tends to live in the head (Trump Tower?) more as one lacks the ability to be grounded, sensible, and realistic.  Even the United States has some of these same qualities in what is called ‘Air derangement’.  We are a nation of fast foods, mobility, and a lack of any real sense of roots. We are now a nation addicted to media in this digital age .  Trump ties right into this with his Sun highlighting Mars in Gemini in the nation’s chart.

Now let’s look at how he compensates starting with his wife, Melania.  Take a look at her chart.  (I can’t find her birth time and it appears no one else has come up with it as yet, so all we have is either her Sunrise chart or her Natural chart (Aries Rising)).  She has a grouping (stellium) of four planets in Taurus/Earth:  Sun, Saturn, Mercury, and Venus, AND she has the Moon in Capricorn (Earth).  She also has Pluto in Virgo giving her six out of 10 planets in Earth.  Her Earthy energies fall in her husband’s 5th (her Moon), 9th (her Sun/Saturn/Mercury) and 10th (her Venus at the very top of his chart).  She probably epitomized his ‘Dream Woman’ when he first laid eyes on her, and her Venus in Taurus may still harmonize with his ‘ideal’ woman/Venus.  Looking at their comparison of energies, however, shows a lot that is problematic and much that doesn’t even connect at all.  Living in the goldfish bowl of the Whitehouse may put a strain on them both, but mostly Melania.  All said and done, she is his EARTH!!!

Another close relationship involves his Capricorn son-in-law, Jared Kushner.  Without doing any detailed analysis here it is worth noting that both Jared’s Sun and Melania’s Moon are in tight opposition to Trump’s Venus/Saturn.  Complementary energies though at different ends of the same spectrum.  Both probably operate as grounding cords in his life.

I will interject here that Trump does have one asteroid in an Earth sign:  Athena in Capricorn.  Both Melania and Jared do emphasize this minor note in his chart.  With Athena we see a Cardinal T-square formed with Trump’s Mercury, Neptune, and Chiron.  This is actually a strong placement for Athena where, according to Demetra George, she brings the wisdom of order into his 5th house of creative expression.  Athena here also knows the art of timing where you are in the right place at the right time, and Jared’s Sun/Mercury in Capricorn has certainly helped Trump in this respect during the campaign. Trump’s love of architecture also is mirrored in this symbol.  But this is one tiny asteroid, so let’s get back to the major planets.

What else seems compensatory in Donald Trump’s life?  His love of the military strikes me as not just about his Mars in Leo rising, but about his love (Venus) of the discipline (Saturn) of what early military schooling provided him.  Then he went on to business schools (more Earth).  Keep in mind that his 9th house (higher education/philosophy) encompasses 24 degrees of Taurus.  There is Real Estate, Hotels, and Resorts which all are pretty Earthy and describe his 11th house planets in square to his 2nd house planets fairly accurately; big buildings housing groups of people, or

big recreational resorts/casinos/golf clubs structured for the more or less elite (Jupiter rules his 5th and ruler of Jupiter is Venus conjunct Saturn).

Now, however, we have the ultimate Earth compensations decreed in his first week in office:  THE WALL and the completion of the PIPELINES under the earth.  How concrete does he have to make this???  The Wall which will more than likely be made of great slabs of cement and concrete reinforced by steel, 50-feet-high, running over 1,000 miles, and costing well over the $40 billion researchers at M.I.T. are now estimating.  How realistic is this over-compensation for one man’s lack of Earth????  And, of course, the rhetorical question of “Who will pay?”.

And who will this wall keep out?  How many of the criminal element that he claims will actually be prevented from entering this country? What about ships and airplanes?  Is he thinking about those types of routes as well?  The American/Mexican relationship is a long and complex one.  Does this ‘wall’ solve anything at all when finally done?  Living in California, as I have done most of my life, I see that our Latino neighbors from the South do most of the manual work which includes field work for big agri-business.  They do most of the routine maintenance yard work, landscaping work, tree clean-up work, etc.  The enormous Wine Industry would be caput without all the workers in the fields who do the hard labor.  The service industries would suffer without domestic help, restaurant help, janitorial help—well, you name it!  The construction industry would also suffer without these hard-working people.  And—yes—many of them are illegals because of the already difficult process of becoming legitimate citizens and also because so many employers have gained cheap labor by over-looking that issue and exploiting them.  None of these necessary workers are criminals, and further more, where are the white folk who would gladly do these labor-intensive jobs?

Then there’s the Pipelines.  More Earth compensation.  Steel pipes running under the earth for thousands of miles full of dirty oil.  Very real.  Very concrete.  Very dangerous in the long run.  I’ll still continue to write about Standing Rock, an Earth phrase if there ever was one.

I would end by another question:  are any of Trump’s earthy compensations really necessary?  I’m not talking about his wife!  I’m talking about the elitist resorts, golf clubs, fancy hotels, casinos, and now ‘The Wall’ and more ‘Pipelines’.  These are all extravagances in my book, for Donald Trump is a highly extravagant man.  Look at his Uranus/Sun trine Jupiter sextile Moon in Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius.  I’m just wondering how capable he will be in keeping the United States realistically solid and stable?  Are we entering that strange world of media called ‘a Reality Show’?